Nikki Haley’s slavery stumble shows the dark hole Republicans are in | Opinion

It’s not that Nikki Haley refused to say slavery was the primary cause of the Civil War (it was) this week in New Hampshire, where her poll numbers have been rising. It’s that she felt compelled to deny the obvious, perhaps convinced her followers and potential supporters couldn’t handle that simple truth. Her non-answer answer illustrated the intellectual and moral rot at the center of the 21st century version of the Republican Party, and why its problems are far deeper than an unhealthy allegiance to Donald Trump.

The most depressing part of our current political reality is that despite Haley once again revealing herself as a phony on the issue of race, she remains the country’s best hope among Republican candidates to save us from Trump. Haley has never shown courage on the issue, not even when she was being praised nationally for being the governor when that god-forsaken traitorous Confederate flag was removed from the Statehouse where it had flown for half a century. Before that, Haley had said little about the flag other than to suggest businesses considering the state didn’t seem repelled by it so it was no biggie.

Haley, Sen. Tim Scott and other Republicans were shamed into asking for its removal after Dylann Roof massacred nine black people at Mother Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston. During Haley’s first campaign for governor, she played the role of Confederate apologist. It was because of the blood of Roof’s victims – not Haley’s leadership – I got to take my kids to Columbia to see that flag come down.

This week, she was stumped by a softball of a question because she feared answering honestly would hurt her standing among Republicans. Her fear isn’t illogical. Republicans have spent the past few years establishing a Lost Cause 2.0, one in which honest and frank discussion about our racial history or present has been presented as an affront to precious white children. They’ve proposed and passed a bevy of laws making it more difficult to teach the truth about how this country came to be, in South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida and beyond. They’ve conjured boogeymen they’ve labeled “CRT” or “DEI” – distorted versions of the real thing – to sell the false idea white people are under attack. Heck, Trump, lost no support when he dined with a well-known and outspoken white supremacist just months ago.

Haley grew up in the same South Carolina I did, and at the same time I did. She saw, like I saw, a Republican governor, David Beasley, lose re-election in red South Carolina after saying he had a God-inspired epiphany to oppose the Confederate flag. She saw, like I saw, “maverick” John McCain give into Confederate fears while campaigning in South Carolina as the GOP nominee in 2008. White fear among the Republican base has only grown since Barack Obama won the presidency that year, which put a black face on the very real demographic shift that may mean we might be a majority-minority nation within a couple of decades. When many in the Republican base say “my country,” they mean a country that is primarily white, particularly for positions of and power and culturally. For many in that base, the Confederacy represents bravery and steadfastness, no matter the odds, a red line that must not be crossed.

This is a place where white developers have told me they add the word “plantation” to the names of high-end communities because in focus groups their mostly white and rich clientele said it evokes the elegance of “Gone with the Wind” rather than the cries of the enslaved.

That Haley felt compelled to dodge a Civil War question, only to admit the truth a day later after receiving bad press, should surprise no one.

She isn’t a brave leader. Haley is more calculating than courageous, which underscores the dark hole we are in.

Issac Bailey is a Carolinas opinion writer for McClatchy.