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“Let That Hateful Flag Fly”: From George W. Bush To Lindsey Graham, A History Of Republican Support For The Confederate Flag

South Carolina, a state that’s nearly 30% African-American, celebrates”Confederate Memorial Day” and proudly displays the flag of the Southern Confederacy at its statehouse in Columbia — a longstanding practice that’s under increasing fire following this week’s Charleston massacre, in which a white supremacist gunman is suspected of murdering nine black churchgoers.

In 2000, state lawmakers reached a “comprise” on the controversial symbol, voting to move the flag from the top of the dome to smack-dab in front of the statehouse on the front lawn. In the first state to secede from the Union in 1861, this was what passed for progress.

By now we are all familiar with the defensive refrain from supporters of the Confederate Flag: it’s heritage, not hate.

But that’s a load of crock. It’s been noted that after the Civil War, Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens wrote a revisionist account entitled A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States, which helped push the myth that the war was really about states’ rights.

According to a 2011 Pew Research poll, just nine percent of Americans had a positive reaction to the Confederate flag. But while the ranks of stars-and-bars fans may be thin nationally, much of the modern Republican Party, defined as it is by white Southern support, cannot bring itself to condemn the symbol of racial apartheid.

Republican South Carolina Senator and presidential candidate Lindsey Graham said following the massacre that although the flag “been used in a racist way” in the past, it remained ”part of who we are,” shrugging off the symbolism in favor of “what’s in people’s heart.” Defending his state’s supposed “comprise,” Graham said “It works here, that’s what the Statehouse agreed to do.”

And remember: Graham is supposed to be one of the “sane” Republicans.

Republican politicians have stumbled over themselves to pander to GOP South Carolina primary voters at the expense of the truth, their fellow Americans and potential voters (granted, the 2012 primary garnered a pathetic 1% turnout from African-American voters) for entirely too long.

During a 2000 Republican primary debate in South Carolina, moderator Brian Williams asked, “does the flag offend you personally,” to which George W. Bush defensively retorted, ”What you are trying to get me to do is express the will of the people of South Carolina. Brian, I believe the people of South Carolina can figure what to do with this flag issue. It’s the people of South Carolina’s decision. I don’t believe it’s the role of someone from outside South Carolina and someone running for president to come into South Carolina.

Lost on Bush was the irony of citing states’ rights — long the doctrine of choice for segregationists and Confederate nostalgists — to defend South Carolina’s right to fly the stars and bars. His response was met with raucous support from the GOP crowd.

For his part, brother Jeb ordered the Confederate battle flag be taken down from Florida’s capitol building back in 2001, arguing that “the symbols of Florida’s past should not be displayed in a manner that may divide Floridians today.”

In 2008, both John McCain and Mitt Romney ran into trouble when they refused to cave to Confederate Flag fetishizers who then took out ads in the early primary state attacking them for speaking out against the hateful symbol.

McCain, learning his lesson from the infamously racist 2000 primary during which he delivered a tortured but typical defense, said “some view it as a symbol of slavery; others view it as a symbol of heritage. Personally, I see the battle flag as a symbol of heritage,” went on to apologize for his inability to forcefully denounce the flag, calling it one of the “worst decisions” he’d ever made.

McCain revealed the truth in the GOP’s struggle to admonish the flying of the Confederate Flag, recounting his own flip-flop, “[I]t could come down to lying or losing. I chose lying.”

So much for the Straight Talk Express.

In 2012, former House Speaker and advocate of child labor Newt Gingrich made clear his opposition to national demands that the flag be taken off public property, “I have a very strong opinion,” Gingrich said. “It’s up to the people of South Carolina.”

Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee defiantly declared that “outsiders” were not allowed to debate the Confederate Flag.

But there seems to be some hope that the 2016 primary may change.

Rick Perry, who supported Texas’ rejection of Confederate-flag license plates that was upheld by the Supreme Court this week, called the issue a state’s matter today but added that “I agree that we need to be looking at these issues as ways to bring the country together….And if these are issues that are pushing us apart, then maybe there’s a good conversation that needs to be had about [it].”

Gov. Nikki Haley, the state’s Republican governor who had previously defended not demanding the flags removal because no business owners had complained to her, said today, ”I think the state will start talking about that again, and we’ll see where it goes.”

We shall see how 2016ers handle the GOP South Carolinan primary voters’ demands to proclaim state’s rights and let the Confederate Flag fly free.

 

By: Sophia Tesfaye, Salon, June 19, 2015

 

June 22, 2015 Posted by | Confederacy, Confederate Flag, Lindsey Graham | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“No Longer May It Wave!”: If It Were Up To Me, This Emblem Of Treason And Racism Would Be Pulled Down, Permanently

So there’s a reason for the grotesque fact that even as the US and South Carolina flags were lowered to half-mast in recognition of the murderous terrorist attack on Emanuel AME Church, the Confederate Battle Flag in front of the Statehouse continued to fly at its full height (per Schuyler Kropf of the Charleston Post and Courier):

Officials said the reason why the flag has not been touched is that its status is outlined, by law, as being under the protected purview of the full S.C. Legislature, which controls if and when it comes down.

State law reads, in part, the state “shall ensure that the flags authorized above shall be placed at all times as directed in this section and shall replace the flags at appropriate intervals as may be necessary due to wear.”

The protection was added by supporters of the flag to keep it on display as an officially recognized memorial to South Carolinians who fought in the Civil War.

So it would take a full act of the legislature to bring the Confederate flag down.

I tell you what: If I were in charge of the Statehouse grounds, I’d be real tempted to bring down that flag to half-mast and defy anyone to do anything about it. But then if it were really up to me this emblem of treason and racism would be pulled all the way down, permanently, and consigned to a museum. We’ve just witnessed another deadly data point for burying the Lost Cause beneath a mountain of opprobrium so high and so heavy that it will be no more acceptable an emblem for gun-toting “loners” and “drifters” than a swastika.

Ta-Nehisi Coates is demanding that step as a small token of historical honesty in the service of long-delayed justice for African-Americans. I’m demanding it even more basically as a gesture of southern self-respect. No, we cannot ensure that people like Dylann Roof won’t find inspiration in the Confederacy for the evil in his heart. But we can deny him respectable company. That’s particularly important in South Carolina, where the disastrous moral and material failure of the Confederacy began.

UPDATE: WaPo’s Justin Moyer adds two details to the flag story: (1) the law protecting the Confederate Battle Flag stipulates that it can only be repealed by a two-thirds vote (!); and (2) the flag on the Statehouse grounds is not raised and lowered daily on pulleys, but is permanently affixed to the flag pole.

This doesn’t move me much. Just as the flag was attached to the pole at some point, it can be unattached, and if the whole rig doesn’t allow for half-mast displays, the people of South Carolina can do without a Confederate Battle Flag for a few days or weeks.

As for the law: again, who’s going to enforce it if Nikki Haley orders the flag down? There’s also something inherently screwy about legal protections for a symbol of rebellion and lawlessness.

 

By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, June 20, 2015

June 20, 2015 Posted by | Confederate Flag, Emanuel AME Church, Racism | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“A Charisma-Free Divider”: Scott Walker’s Pathetic Fall, Another One Bites The Dust

On the very day that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s scandals became big national news, Politico’s Mike Allen is out with his Playbook Snapshot 2016 – the top 16 Republicans most mentioned in Beltway chatter – and Walker is at the top of the list (along with erratic Tea Party Sen. Rand Paul). It’s a perfect example of how and why Walker has persisted as a top presidential contender: the national media knows little and cares less about Wisconsin politics.

Walker is an interesting contrast with embattled New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Poor Christie. Live by the media, die by the media. There’s no question that the national media made Christie, though he gave them plenty to work with. He is an outsize personality, and the fact that he’s the governor of New Jersey and used to be a federal prosecutor working in the world’s major media market played a huge role in his rise as a national figure. Now, though, the attention of the national media is (however belatedly) focused obsessively on Christie’s troubles, and every new subpoena, every wronged mayor, and every unsavory crony tied to the George Washington Bridge scandal is a major story.

Scott Walker, by contrast, has actually managed to benefit from his distance from the national media. Sure, it kept him only in the second tier of potential 2016 candidates – but tough media scrutiny would have excluded him from any tier. No one has ever explained how a governor can have six associates convicted of illegal campaign activities – including three “top aides who sat just feet from his desk,” in the words of the Wisconsin State Journal — and come away from it entirely unsullied. At minimum it raises questions of management and judgment.

But even leaving aside the two John Doe investigations that have ensnared his office, Walker has never been ready for national prime time. He’s a charisma-free divider who got big attention for ending collective bargaining for public employees and then surviving a union-led recall election. All of that made him a hero on the right, of course, but Walker was never going to survive close inspection. He’s given to dim-bulb platitudes, like defending a state law requiring women to undergo an ultrasound before an abortion by saying blithely, “I don’t have any problem with ultrasound. I think most people think ultrasounds are just fine.” As though the procedure involved looking at kidney stones, not invading a woman’s privacy. In a cycle when Republicans are supposed to be trying to solve their problems with women, that’s not all. Walker signed a bill repealing Wisconsin’s equal pay for women law and has crusaded against Planned Parenthood.

Personally, I thought Walker was toast when he got pranked by someone pretending to be David Koch, and he yukked it up about how “stereotypical blue-collar workers” supported his attacks on unions, but I was wrong about that. No one really cared.

I firmly believe that if the global media establishment was based in Milwaukee, the idea that Walker had the political talent to become a top tier presidential candidate would never have taken hold. Even Mike Allen would know better.

Well, the treasure rove of 27,000 emails related to the first John Doe investigation of Walker’s office – which led to the criminal conviction of six Walker staffers, including three top aides – is forcing national reporters to pay attention. In the last 24 hours we’ve learned that Walker staff set up a secret email system, complete with a separate router, where public workers could plot strategy with campaign staffers – and Walker regularly participated in the email round-robin.

“Consider yourself now in the ‘inner circle,’” administration director Cynthia Archer wrote to Walker deputy chief of staff Kelly Rindfleisch (who was convicted in the first John Doe probe) after they exchanged a message to test the system. “I use this private account quite a bit to communicate with SKW [Walker] and [Walker chief of staff Tom] Nardelli,” Archer confided. “You should be sure you check it throughout the day,” she wrote. Walker defenders say the governor didn’t know about the secret email system though he participated.

The newly released email also featured staffers forwarding racist jokes, making light of the death of a mental hospital patient because “no one cares about crazy people,” and recording Walker’s personal decision to fire a public health doctor because she had once modeled thongs. The emails show Walker ran a daily conference call that mixed his public and his campaign staff “so we can better coordinate sound, timely responses, so we all know what the others are doing,” according to Nardelli. Although the first John Doe investigation ended in convictions for six associates but no charges against Walker, a second probe, into whether his recall campaign illegally coordinated with outside right-wing backers, is ongoing.

Now, some in Wisconsin say even the new revelations won’t doom his reelection, though it certainly makes it more of a fight. But Mike Allen notwithstanding, it seriously damages the boomlet that has made him the potential establishment “front-runner.” To benefit from Christie’s stumble, and become the big donors’ new savior, Walker had to be squeaky clean, in contrast with the investigation-tarnished Christie. With his own ethical troubles now growing, and renewed attention on the scandal he survived, Walker is almost as bad an investment for donors as Christie.

As I’ve written before, that “deep bench” of Republican 2016 contenders has completely splintered. Walker was a second string candidate who was on the verge of becoming a contender only because of the troubles of Christie, toxic Ted Cruz, Florida’s Marco Rubio, Louisiana’s deeply unpopular Gov. Bobby Jindal and disgraced former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell.

But hey, there are always folks ready to step up. Allen’s Playbook 2016 list features South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley as “rising.” If only.

 

By: Joan Walsh, Editor at Large, Salon, February 20, 2014

February 21, 2014 Posted by | GOP Presidential Candidates, Scott Walker | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“Travesty In Chattanooga”: Republicans Making Sure Their Own People Are Kept In As Submissive A Position As Possible

I wish I could say I’ve never seen the likes of the campaign of intimidation that led to the vote against UAW representation at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee on Friday. But I did, as a child growing up in a Georgia textile company town in the early 1960s, where public schools began the year on Labor Day, the word “union” was not said out loud, and people still graphically remembered National Guardsmen being called out to break a strike at Callaway Mills back in 1935—the same year Congress enacted the National Labor Relations Act.

I’m a little rusty on my labor law, but I’m reasonably sure that any employer who issued the sorts of threats made by Republican politicians in Tennessee (including Sen. Bob Corker, Gov. Bill Haslam, and a variety of state legislators, backed by national conservative figures like Grove Norquist) against a unionization effort would have been in blatant violation of the NLRA. But that’s what makes the incident such a travesty: it wasn’t the employer fighting the union (VW by all accounts was neutral-to-positive towards unionization, which would have facilitated establishment of the kind of “work council” the company had set up at other international plants to help maintain good employer-employee relations). As Brent Snavely of the Detroit Free Press reported (probably incredulously):

The crusade by anti-union forces in Tennessee, including the state’s governor and senior senator, is as much a fight with Volkswagen management as with the UAW.

Not only are Republican legislators accusing Volkswagen of backing the UAW, some of their leaders on Monday threatened to withhold tax incentives for future expansion of the three-year-old assembly plant in Chattanooga if workers vote this week to join the UAW.

So addicted are Tennessee Republicans to the “race to the bottom” approach to economic development that they are willing to risk the good will of an existing employer in their zeal to make sure their own people are kept in as submissive a position as possible. President Obama’s reported comment during a Democratic retreat last week that the pols involved in this union-busting effort are “more concerned about German shareholders than American workers” is one way to put it; I’d say they’ve internalized the ancient despicable tendency of the southern aristocracy to favor the abasement of working people as an end in itself.

This incident is also a pretty good symptom of the radicalization of the Republican Party. It’s one thing to oppose collective bargaining rights for public employees, or to defend “right-to-work” laws that interfere with the contracting rights of employers and employees and create “freeriders” who benefit from union collective bargaining without paying dues. But now the very existence of private-sector unions, a familiar part of the American landscape for most of the last century, is under attack from Republican politicians.

I thought it was bizarre when SC Governor Nikki Haley said in her 2012 State of the State address: “We don’t have unions in South Carolina because we don’t need unions in South Carolina.” Turns out she was ahead of the curve.

 

By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, February 17, 2014

February 18, 2014 Posted by | Collective Bargaining, Unions | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“Gun Crazy In South Carolina”: America’s Next Top Shooting Gallery

Is South Carolina America’s next O.K. Corral?

If that sounds like an exaggeration, then take a look at the radical, pro-gun proposal just endorsed by Governor Nikki Haley, the Tea Party favorite who is running for reelection this year, after a tumultuous first term. Crafted by state Senator Lee Bright of Spartanburg, one of Lindsay Graham’s opponents in the GOP Senate primary, the “Constitutional Carry Act” would eliminate the state’s permit and training requirements for citizens who want to carry guns.

That’s right: If you were a resident of South Carolina and wanted to carry a weapon—concealed or otherwise—then under this law you could. No classes, no tests, no background checks, no questions. I have no problem with guns—I grew up in a gun-owning household, and I’ve used firearms myself—but this is insane.

Sen. Bright, explaining the proposal, told The State newspaper that the Second Amendment “gives Americans the right to carry firearms without any government restrictions.” Permits, in other words, are unnecessary. And Governor Haley, offering her take, told reporters that “criminals are dangerous,” and that she thinks “that every resident should be allowed to protect themselves from criminals.”

Because this bill lowers the barrier to owning a firearm in South Carolina, there’s a good chance it would spark a measurable increase in gun ownership, as well as guns owned per person. And while someone, somewhere, might stop a crime with their firearm, it’s far more likely—in the absence of any kind of safety training or background checks—that this law would exacerbate accidents and violence involving guns, to say nothing of boosting the export of firearms to other states, where South Carolina is a national leader—the state has the sixth highest rate of “gun exports,” i.e., guns sold legally in South Carolina that are later used in crimes in other states.

Yes, Vermont has a similar law on the books, but it doesn’t have South Carolina’s terrible reputation for gun violence. Haley’s state is the seventh-deadliest for gun crime, with 5 gun murders for every 100,000 people in 2010, compared to the national average of 3.6 per 100,000. Overall, from 2001 through 2010 there were 5,991 people killed by guns in South Carolina. Law enforcement officers are especially vulnerable—between 2002 and 2011, sixteen law enforcement agents were killed by guns, the fourth worse rate in the nation.

Worse, South Carolina is the fourth worst state in the country on the rate of women murdered by guns—64 percent above the national average—and it ranks second-worst on the rate of women murdered by men in domestic violence incidents. In half of those crimes, guns were used.

When you also consider that South Carolina has a “Stand Your Ground” law that—like Florida’s—is a boon to the trigger happy, then—if this bill becomes law—you have a recipe for even more gun violence in the name of “stopping criminals.”

Now, if you see the Second Amendment as inviolable—a sanctification of our supposedly God-given right to firearms—then I doubt this weighs on you. Senseless death is just the price of freedom. For the rest of us, however, the prospect of a fully armed state—where guns flow freely and the law is biased toward shooters—is terrifying.

 

By: Jamelle Bouie, The Daily Beast, February 13, 2014

February 14, 2014 Posted by | Gun Violence, Guns | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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