Nikki Haley: The Journey of a Woman in Politics
From Everyday Issues to Ethical Challenges, One Woman’s Perspective on Making a Difference
Women second-guess themselves. Push through the fear because when you do, you will find out you’re so much stronger on the other side.
Meeting a Legend
When she first called, "Hi Jeff, This is Nikki Haley, do you have a minute?" My reaction was that it must be my friend Trish, known to do a wickedly accurate impersonation.
But it turned out to be the real Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor, U.N. Ambassador and Presidential candidate, and to many on the Republican side, one of the most admired women in politics. If she maintains her ascent, she'll need a separate business card to keep track of all the titles she has compiled in her distinguished career.
Nikki Haley was elected Governor of South Carolina on November 2, 2010, after trouncing a white male Democratic candidate, making her first woman, and at age 38, the youngest person and a person of color to run the state. She openly discussed how gender and ethnicity influenced her view of politics. She revealed her thinking behind the decision to call for the removal of the Confederate flag in 2015 following the Charleston church shooting.
The former governor and United Nations ambassador also played a prominent role in shaping U.S. foreign policy. Initially critical of Donald Trump during the 2016 primary, she condemned his post-election actions, reflecting her ability to navigate complex political landscapes while staying true to principles. The role somewhere between Trump-style populism and rational leadership is comfortable for Haley.
If you only see Haley on television, you don't get the sense of power she exudes. When she entered the studio, gripping my hand like my Ukrainian boxing coach, it seemed she was made of solid mettle, if not metal. When Haley looks into your eyes with large, brown orbs that drink you in, a twinkle suggests they can flash burnt umber instantly. Her generous smile, which could put anyone at ease, conveys a sense of,' Whatever you've got, we can work something out.'
She uses it often and well.
"I wear heels, but it's not a fashion statement. I kick with a smile," she told POLITICO."
In the vast tapestry of American politics, few stories shine as brightly as that of Nikki Haley. Her journey from the child of immigrant parents to becoming the United States Ambassador to the United Nations reminds us all that the American Dream is alive and well.
Think about what matters first of all. People don't have the time to catch up on everything, like politics. They keep up with their family budget, paying loans back, and the fact that paychecks are not getting any bigger. We need to be listening to everyday people.
She has often operated in a conspicuous in-between land. She was born brown ("different," she has said) in places that are fragmented into Black and White. She was a Trump critic who became a Trump appointee and now officially a Trump rival. Throughout her compelling, nearly two-decade-long political ascent, she has been nimble, or as her critics would say, uncommonly calculating. She has the movement of a feline and the timing of a jaguar. People who know her call her ambitious, and, in fact, she is.
Tell that to Haley? She prefers "badass."
The Little One
In the make-believe world of social media, America first learned Haley's birth certificate name was Nikki. She had posted a comment on the divisiveness around race in modern life, and an activist, Bree Newsome, with nothing to her credit but the equivalent of a junior year independent study project, chose to racially demean her by implying Haley's parents had chosen a diminutive name for their daughter to escape their brownness.
In the reverse world, where some hold that there are only two races in the country, Black and White, which Haley has been a victim of not being either, she responded, kindly advising 'Bree' that her name is a Punjabi word that means 'little one.'
That is how Nimrata Randhawa, known as Nikki, was born on January 20, 1972, in rural central South Carolina, the third of four children in a Sikh family.
Her father, Ajit Singh Randhawa, hailed from India's Punjab region, where he earned a master's degree in biology before pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of British Columbia in Canada. In 1969, he came to Bamberg, South Carolina, to teach at Voorhees College, a nearby HBCU (Historically Black College or University). Her mother, Raj Kaur Randhawa, also from the Punjab region, defied conventions by earning a law degree and, after moving to South Carolina, initially taught sixth-grade social studies in local public schools before successfully transforming a gift shop into a million-dollar fashion boutique. Nikki Haley often remarked, despite their diverse backgrounds, "My parents were more American than anyone I knew."
"I am my parents. Every ounce of what I do and why I do it is what my parents taught me. They always said, "If you're going to do something, be great at it, and make sure that people remember you for it." They're in my ear all the time.."
We asked whether she knew what she was getting into when she ran for governor. Her background wasn't well suited, at least from the conventional perspective, to running a state known for its 'redneck' enthusiasm. Was her mind thinking her experience would be more OMG or WTF?
When you enter a job like this, you hope you leave your state better than the way you found it. It's not rocket science. It is the way I was brought up. I believe that time is money, and if you're costing a person time, you're costing them money; it's unacceptable. Our customers are the people we serve.
Growing up, Nikki experienced firsthand the challenges and rewards of being an immigrant in America. Her parents, who worked as academics, instilled in her the values of hard work, perseverance, and determination. These values would become the cornerstones of her extraordinary journey.
There were eleven vital takeaways from our interview:
Politics and women
We need to see more women in politics who are very good at it because we know how to balance things. Women make fantastic elected officials. If we are serious about having more women in the political sphere, the inclusiveness lesson is you can't just go out to your circle but work with different groups of people, go where they go, and listen to them. When we listen, we find out we have more in common than not.
Staying grounded
Think about what matters first of all. People don't have the time to catch up on everything like politicos. What they do keep up with is their wallet, family budget, paying loans back, and the fact that paychecks are getting smaller. We need to be listening to everyday people.
Social media
I use it to get my pulse on what people are thinking. I have found that if there is a vote that I care about, I put it up on social media that night, "I'm going to let you know how everybody voted." People don't have to watch the news or read the newspaper through that. All they had to do was look on social media, and they knew whether their legislator or senator did what they were supposed to.
Ethical challenges
We can never do enough to be transparent, and we can never do enough to be ethical. When I was a legislator, they didn't record votes on the record, so a legislator could say one thing and do another. We passed a bill that all ballots had to be on the record, and every section of the budget had to be recorded, so now everybody can see exactly how their legislators voted. Now you know who pays legislators, you see why they vote the way they do, and it's a reminder that they need to recuse themselves sometimes.
8Nikki Haley, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, at our interview
Handling tragedy
The Mother Emanuel tragedy was one of those things that you couldn't comprehend. Twelve very good people go to church to a Bible study on a Wednesday night, like many South Carolinians do, but on this day, somebody who didn't look like them and didn't act like them joined. Instead of calling the police or throwing him out, they sat down and prayed with him for an hour. Nine of those people were murdered that day.
I knew my state was going to hurt, and I knew that I had to find a way that people would not rally around what was a hate crime. We didn't have protests in South Carolina. We didn't have riots. We had vigils, and we had hugs. We reminded everybody that caring for each other is the best way to get through this.
Removing the Confederate flag from the Capitol grounds was a decision that had to be made. It was an act of healing. It was for the families but also a time for South Carolinians to look at each other and say, "You know what? It's time. Instead of looking at the past, we start to look at the future."
Taking action
We had the 1,000-year flood in October. That's when I asked God to move on regarding tragedies, a 1,000-year flood if you could imagine 24 inches in 24 hours. It was waking up to a state underwater. You look at that, and it's a time where you have to make things happen, and you have to respond to them calmly but immediately take action so that they feel like they're going to be okay.
Leading vs. politics
During those times, I was a mom. I was a daughter. I was a sister. All I wanted was to protect the people of South Carolina the best way I could, but being a politician was the furthest thing from my mind. Protecting the people of South Carolina was all I thought about.
Fighting bureaucracy
It was the most un-American thing I had ever seen when you tell a business they can't employ people. So I did what I did well, which is I got loud and didn't just get loud in the state. I got loud across the country and said, "We can't have this." We were fighting for 1,000 jobs at a time when we needed it. The rest of the country joined us, and those thousand non-union jobs are 8,000 non-union jobs today.
Loving obstructionists
It's a discipline that you pick and choose your battles, and it's a discipline that you make sure that whatever you do, think about everyone as you do it, not just who you're fighting with and not just what you're trying to do, but everybody. The goal is to lift everyone, and if it's something you're trying to get the public to go along with, you educate them on it.
Mirror gazing
I was expecting a policy conversation when I got the call from Senator McConnell and Speaker Ryan. Then they said, "We'd like you to give the rebuttal." I said, "You can't compete with the President." I finally offered, "I'll do the speech if it's not a response to the President, and I want to be able to say what I want to say."
I never saw it as a response. What I saw was my chance to talk to the country, and what I saw was my chance to speak to my fellow Republicans and say, "You know what? It's time to look in the mirror. We can't keep blaming everything on the Democrats."
Pushing through
Push through the fear. Push through the fear because we all have that voice that says, "Maybe I shouldn't." Women, especially, second-guess themselves. Push through the fear because when you do, you will find out you're so much stronger on the other side.
