South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s announcement that she would remove the Confederate battle flag from the state capitol has been met with sharp criticism from author Ann Coulter and Fox News contributor Gavin McInnes.
For Coulter and McInnes, Haley’s status as the daughter of immigrant parents apparently bars her from commenting on American culture and the historical symbols of the Confederacy.
The governor is second-generation, “as she constantly brags,” Coulter said Wednesday afternoon on social media.
“Maj. Nidal Hasan, Anwar al-Awlaki,” the political pundit said in reference to two notable American-born jihadi terrorists, “we [are] getting the best [people]!”
Earlier, on Tuesday, Coulter claimed falsely that Haley is an immigrant who just doesn’t understand America.
“I’d really like to like Nikki Haley since she is a Republican, but on the other hand, she is an immigrant and does not understand America’s history,” Coulter said in a Fox News interview.
Haley was born in South Carolina in 1972 to Ajit Singh Randhawa and Raj Kaur Randhawa, who emigrated from India’s Amritsar District to the United States.
The Republican governor, a full-fledged citizen of the United States, born and raised in the Palmetto State, later attended Clemson University, graduating in 1994 with a B.S. in accounting.
Asked whether Haley or her Sikh parents are capable of understanding American history, Coulter said Tuesday that they are not.
“Well, she doesn’t,” she said. “The Confederate flag we’re talking about never flew over an official Confederate building. It was a battle flag. It is to honor Robert E. Lee. And anyone who knows the first thing about military history knows that there is no greater army that ever took the field than the Confederate Army.”
Coulter seemingly found support for her claim that a second-generation immigrant is incapable of understanding American history from Fox contributor and Vice Media co-founder Gavin McInnes.
“Sikhism is just cultish guru worship and [Nikki Haley] AKA Nimrata Nikki Randhawa Haley has no place telling Southerners about their history,” McInnes, who was born in England, moved to Canada and later came to the United States, said on social media.
Haley is a Methodist.
“All right, all right, sorry. She’s technically not an immigrant or a Sikh but she sure as hell is acting like both,” he said after being corrected.
McInnes added elsewhere on Twitter, “Children of immigrants need to revere the 620K who died [in the Civil War] – and it wasn’t for slavery.”
“Us white immigrants are the best people to tell you Americans to get over your white guilt. You didn’t start slavery, you ended it,” he said, adding later, “History is written by the victors. Yankees say the Confederate flag is about slavery. We have Google. Look it up.”
