Nikki Haley's "what about slavery?" statement reminds us that the 2024 campaign is one of ethnic outbidding--specifically, white nationalist outbidding. I have been writing about ethnic outbidding for quite some time, in my own academic work, and then applied to the US especially in the age of Trump. To be clear, the concept is not mine. It was most clearly articulated by Donald Horowitz--that when multiple politicians or parties compete for support from an homogenous group in a heterogeneous society, they will be tempted/pressured to outbid each other in their promises to be the best defender of that group.*
In 2016, Trump was best positioned to win this auction, this competition for ever more extreme voters, as he was willing to say anything, including banning Muslims, and, yes, his personality feeds into it as he always wants to top other folks. After the 2020 election, Fox News felt pressure from its right, as it initially recognized Trump's defeat, but started to lose market share to OAN and other far right outlets.
In the 2024 race, the competition to be the best white nationalist (I tend to prefer white supremacist but YMMV) is so evident with non-white candidates like Nikki Haley and Tim Scott appealing to the white vote. Many have noted the irony or hypocrisy of those running to lead the Party of Lincoln getting all soft on slavery.** Haley once was on the right side of history, lowering the confederate flag from government buildings when she was governor of South Carolina. But that was before Trump changed the permission structure of Republican politics. Now, to compete at the national level, one must establish one's white nationalist bona fides by being pro-confederacy. [Save me the BS about state's rights, as SC's secession and pretty much every other one was based on the selective state's right to support the institution of slavery and oppose the rights of non-slave-holding states to regulate their own borders].
To be clear, ethnic outbidding refers to pressures and temptations--the fear of losing white voters to other candidates or the temptation to pander to extremist voters to get a leg up on more moderate candidates. Candidates and parties still have agency. They have a choice to make, often a tough one, but they can choose to go another way at some cost. Fox could have been willing to risk losing some market share to far right outlets. Nikki Haley could have risked losing some share of the electorate to others, with the hope that she could corner the market of reasonable Republicans (if such a beast still exists). The challenge is that we know that the most enthused voters show up at primaries, and those tend to be those on the extremes. But in this time of increased threat of autocracy, there is an opportunity for a Republican to take a stand. This is not just wishful thinking or idealism--the white nationalist vote is going to Trump. Whatever is left will go to DeSantis and others who fit the bill--white "Christian" men. Nikki Haley could be the candidate that grabs other voters. Again, she has agency, she has a choice to make, and, until this week, she had somewhat of an advantage with her background--not just being a person of color (perhaps in denial about that) and a woman, but someone who had pulled down the confederate flag in a previous job. She had the credentials to try to be the savior of the GOP.
And Haley tossed it away. Out of weakness. Due to cowardice. She simply is not going to win an outbidding race against Trump or against the other dudes in the race.
So, we can blame the structure of the American politics--the winner take all process where small numbers of voters in primaries set the agenda--but we cannot let these politicians off. They have responsibility for their stances. We got here because of GOP weakness and temptation. In 2016, GOP candidates didn't attack Trump directly because they wanted his voters--the deplorables that Hillary Clinton so aptly called them. In 2024, the cowardice has a physical element to it--that Trump supporters have threatened violence. But cowardice it still is--to run for Presidency and sell out whatever values one has and ultimately endanger oneself and one's family. Again, Haley may think of herself as white, but she isn't to to white nationalists to whom she is pandering. Indian-Americans may not be at the top of their hate list, but I am pretty sure Great Replacement Theorists worry about South Asians replacing white folks, just as they worry about Jews, Black Americans, Muslims, etc.
Structure and agency are in play here--we need to hold accountable the politicians who pander to the worst instincts in people and we need to remember that Trump and Haley wouldn't be doing this stuff if it did not work, if there was not an audience for it.
* This is not just an American thing, of course, as Horowitz was inspired by the Sinhalese case in Sri Lanka. These days, Canada is having a bit of the outbidding dynamic as the Conservative Party of Canada feels pressured by a small far right party run by, well, an idiot. That case illustrates it is not just pressure but temptation. The temptation to split off voters from the heterogeneous party.
** You don't have to be an historian to know that the two parties switched their positions/places on the rights of African-Americans to be free and to vote, but it doesn't hurt. Follow Kevin Kruse on social media to get the basics as he has responded extensively to the whole "hey, the Dems were the party of racism" stuff. It is called partisan realignment for a reason--the parties and voters realigned in response to the response to the civil rights movement.
