The Political Evolution of Nikki Haley
Consider This from NPR
NPR
4.2 • 6.2K Ratings
🗓️ 8 January 2024
⏱️ 12 minutes
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Summary
Fast forward almost eight years. At a town hall in New Hampshire, a voter asked Haley what she believed caused the Civil War. Haley failed to identify slavery in her answer, and she's been trying to clean up that misstep ever since.
When Haley rose to political prominence a decade ago, she was touted as the future of an inclusive and diverse Republican party. Now, in 2024, she's trying to win the Republican nomination against Donald Trump, who has used divisive rhetoric and politics to build a political base with unwavering support.
Can Haley win over those voters and the nomination without losing herself?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It seemed like a career-defining moment for Nicky Haley. |
| 0:09.2 | This has been a very difficult time for our state. |
| 0:11.8 | She was the governor of South Carolina. It was |
| 0:13.8 | 2015. A white gunman had murdered nine black parishioners at Emmanuel AME church in |
| 0:19.4 | Charleston. We have stared evil in the eye and watched good prayerful people killed in one of the most sacred of places. |
| 0:27.0 | In the days after the shooting, the killer's racist writings came to light. |
| 0:31.0 | So did photos of the shooter posing with the Confederate flag. |
| 0:34.7 | At the time that same flag flew on the grounds of the South Carolina State Capitol. |
| 0:38.9 | Nicky Haley had gathered together state politicians from both parties to implore the state legislature to |
| 0:44.3 | take action to remove it. For good and for bad, whether it is on the state house |
| 0:48.7 | grounds or in a museum, the flag will always be a part of the soil of South Carolina. |
| 0:54.9 | But this is a moment in which we can say that that flag, while an integral part of our |
| 1:00.2 | past, does not represent the future of our great state. |
| 1:04.7 | The speech was a microcosm of a turn the Republican Party as a whole was trying to make after |
| 1:09.3 | big losses in 2012. |
| 1:11.4 | A gentle pivot toward a more inclusive message, one that made room for more diverse |
| 1:16.2 | voters. |
| 1:17.2 | Nicky Haley, the child of Indian immigrants, looked like the face of the party's future. |
| 1:23.0 | But in 2024, Haley is running to be the presidential nominee of a very different Republican |
| 1:29.4 | Party, and last month she confronted another question about history and race. |
| 1:34.5 | An audience member at a campaign stop in Berlin, New Hampshire |
| 1:37.9 | asked her what she believed caused the Civil War. |
... |
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