Thread by @LarryGlickman

Nikki Haley continues to misunderstand the history and politics of the Confederate Flag. /1
washingtonpost.com/opinions/nikki…

First, Haley doesn't face up to the history of how the Confederate battle flag wound up on the South Carolina Statehouse grounds in 1962. As SC native @Eugene_Robinson has noted, "it was a symbol of massive resistance to racial desegregation. Period."/2

@Eugene_Robinson As the editor Ralph McGill noted in 1963, the Confederate Flag" has become the symbol of various organizations devoted to violence and defiance of law," including the KKK and the White Citizens Councils. /3
newspapers.com/clip/40460124/

@Eugene_Robinson It is worth noting that McGill shared with Haley the historically inaccurate view that the Confederate Flag was a once "honored banner" that had only recently been sullied by white supremacists./4

@Eugene_Robinson The Confederate Flag was a key symbol of massive resistance to the Civil Rights movement. Here is a protester to school integration in 1963 carrying a Confederate Flag NINE years after the Brown v. Board decision. /5
newspapers.com/clip/40460292/

@Eugene_Robinson When the Justice Department ordered the University of Mississippi to admit James H. Meredith, Confederate flags and uniforms became a symbol of protest./6 newspapers.com/clip/40460390/

@Eugene_Robinson The flag, as this 1963 article notes, was a symbol for "hard core segregationists." /7
newspapers.com/clip/40460457/

@Eugene_Robinson Note that the Confederate Flag appeared alongside a sign that said "Go Back to Africa Negroes" at a 1963 "integration protest" in Alabama. /8
newspapers.com/clip/40460551/

@Eugene_Robinson Beyond the plain fact that the Confederate Flag was a key symbol of racism and massive resistance to the Civil Rights movement, which Haley doesn't reckon with or even acknowledge, there is also an issue with the logic of her argument. /9

@Eugene_Robinson Removing the flag from the Statehouse grounds was the right thing to do but "I’m not sure that in today’s political climate we would have been able to remove the flag," Haley says. Why not? Are the arguments against the flag less valid today? /10

@Eugene_Robinson In part, Haley says, it is to respect the feelings of "people who do not see the Confederate battle flag in racial terms." Given the history I've briefly sketched and the uses to which it has been put, I'm not sure how one can see it that way. /11

@Eugene_Robinson Haley, I believe, misconceives the issue when she writes, that in today's environment people who hold this non-racial view of the flag "must be evil and shunned." /12

@Eugene_Robinson Removing the flag from a position of honor on the Statehouse grounds, however, was not a judgement about the morality of individual Confederate Flag supporters, who doubtless have a variety of reasons for their beliefs./13

@Eugene_Robinson Haley further tries to individualize and personalize the issue when she says that "today's outrage culture" holds that "everyone who respects the Confederate flag is an evil racist."/14

@Eugene_Robinson But the point of removing the Confederate Flag from the Statehouse grounds was political, not personal: it was a public acknowledgement of that history and a long past-due recognition that this symbol did not belong in a place of public honor. /15

@Eugene_Robinson Ironies abound: the logic of Haley's argument is essentially a defense of what conservatives usually denounce as "cancel culture." /16

@Eugene_Robinson She is suggesting that although removing the flag was the right thing to do, because of the excesses of "today's outrage culture" GOP legislators would be justified in opposing it because of their hurt feelings. /17