The Washington Post publishes (available through gift link) a rather curious look at the disruption in the South Carolina Republican Party caused by former governor and current GOP presidential also-ran Nikki Haley’s response to a townhall question about the cause of the Civil War which did not include the word “slavery.”
Nearly 16 decades after the end of the civil war, the South Carolina Republican leaders aren’t concerned that Haley’s answer didn’t address the recognized cause of the war; in fact, one described it as a “trick question.” Their mission is to try to modify the message of the Party to attract more minorities by whitewashing the racism and bigotry of the Party’s base. Trump won 7% of South Carolina’s Black vote in 2020, a slightly greater share than Haley’s 6% in the 2014 gubernatorial election, and the Party leaders want to make bigger inroads.
Though Haley removed the Confederate flag from the state capitol after a racist gunman killed nine in a historic African-American church in Charleston in 2015, Haley is perhaps better known in GOP circles for breaking her 2010 pledge not to remove the flag, made to multiple “heritage” groups while campaigning. When asked about racism, Haley’s canned response is that Americans aren’t racist. “We’re blessed,” she’ll respond in a fully unfulfilling answer.