Where the Civil War Never Seems to End — Our Presidential Campaigns
I wrote before about Nikki Haley and her gaffe in December about the causes of the Civil War. But the subject still strikes a chord with me.
Haley’s apparent sensitivity around offending GOP voters who don’t want to be thought of as racists, combined with the continuing debate around Jan. 6 and what it meant, has me wondering how much we’ve really put the Civil War behind us.
She stepped into the hot mess last month while campaigning in New Hampshire when she was asked what caused the Civil War. It didn’t sound like a trick question, but Haley tripped over it anyway.
As former governor of South Carolina, where that war’s first shots were fired, she surely knew the answer that just about everyone who was not a dyed-in-the-wool Southern apologist would have given.
But, no, she failed to mention slavery.
Her omission echoed a podcast appearance nearly five years ago with conservative host Glenn Beck in which she said the Confederate flag symbolized “service, sacrifice and heritage” for some people in her state until Dylann S. Roof “hijacked” it.
Roof was the avowed white supremacist who killed nine Black parishioners when he opened fire in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in June 2015. Before his attack, he posed with the flag in several photos.
Among other heated responses to her interview was this one from Michael Steele, former chairman of the Republican National Committee and the first African American to hold that position.
“Really, Nikki?!” Steele posted on Twitter, adding that Roof “inherited” the meaning of the Confederate flag.
Critics accused Haley of political posturing, which, let’s face it, is far from an unknown sin in politics.
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