Whoa, Lady

For a minute there, I tho't I'd accidentally surfed into a That Girl rerun.  But anyway.

Governor Nikki Haley, R-SC:

These things are never good and most often flat-out awful, so she gets a little credit just for having the guts to try, and by comparison, it's a shitload better than Rubio or Jindal, so there's that(?)

Conventional wisdom has it that this is mostly a message aimed at Trump on behalf of a GOP Establishment as they finally start to wake up and get worried that the Monster Of The Id that they created in the 80s and 90s and fed for 35 years has crashed through the fence that was supposed to keep it in the Democrats' yard and is now completely fucking up the GOP rose beds, shittin' in GOP swimming pools and sniffin' everybody's butt cracks - which is pretty much exactly what the "Libruls" (and the GOP's very own "moderates") have been trying to tell them would happen for those same 35 years.  Because rational thinkers understand that you don't control people for very long.  And - not to get too nerdily metaphorical on ya here - when you push somebody to tap into something that always includes that "dark side", try not to act so surprised when Kylo Ren shivs you through the fucking heart, Mr Solo.  (hat tip = driftglass)

Anyway.

She makes the GOP's big point about immigration and terrorism, and how we have to be really really really careful and even straight-up suspicious of new-comers and outsiders and people who're different from us.  Then, not more than a few paragraphs later, she slides right into "nine beautiful souls" welcoming a stranger into their worship circle only to be gunned down because he turned out to be a terrorist jerkwad.  Of course, she disguises it by glossing it over with how forward-thinking and courageous she is for having taken down that stoopid fucking flag (props for that BTW), but she's inviting that standard xenophobia inference, and she knows the people she wants to make the connection will make the connection.

This shit doesn't happen by accident, kids. That's some of the best code-speak ever.

She's not saying "stop being a buncha ignorant racist assholes".  She's saying, "stop being ignorant racist assholes out in the open because that embarrasses me because I have to get you to vote for me".  

In the end, she's telling people who're in open revolt against what they see as a party - that they've been taught BY THAT PARTY - to believe is being ruined by "Political Correctness"  to be politically correct.  She's demanding it.

I'd say the horse has left the barn, but that assumes the barn's still there as some kinda point of reference.  You're in a bit of a pickle, Nikki.