Last night Nikki Haley was asked about the cause of the Civil War. Oh, it was this and that, she said, freedoms and the role of the government, that sort of thing. How about slavery? “What do you want me to say about slavery?” Haley asked.
As near as I can tell, this is the accepted Republican view of the Civil War, along with climate change not existing, COVID coming from a Chinese lab, and Democrats stealing the 2020 election.
But the best part of this little gaffe came this morning, when Haley went on a radio show and said, well, of course slavery. Duh. And then said the whole thing was politically motivated:
Haley on Thursday also accused the man who asked her the question of being a Democratic plant.... “We see these guys when they come in. We know what they’re doing,” Haley said.
I suppose it's too subtle to point out that this question wasn't exactly the result of deep oppo research. I mean, the guy probably was a Democratic plant, but so what? It was a softball question. No one asked if Haley was still beating her husband. It's like asking if you disapprove of the Holocaust. The answer is yes. If you then want to add a few remarks about not forgetting the gay victims, the gypsies, and others in addition to the six million Jews, that's fine. But it's not a hard question.
Likewise, the cause of the Civil War was: disagreement over slavery and the expansion of slavery. If you then want to add some stuff about tariffs and federalism as other thorns in the side of the South, that's fine. But it's hardly a gotcha question, unless you happen to be running for the presidency in the modern Republican Party.
Well, fwiw, way back in the 1960s, the textbooks said "states' rights." Which really was backwards; the "rights" weren't asserted by the Traitor States, but by states who rejected enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act. Which was not taught, however, in my high school.
Somehow, outlawing slavery was a lucky side effect of the war? Go figure.
By the turn of the 20th century, the Lost Cause (along with the romanticization of plantation slavery) had become the mainstream narrative of the Civil War in a lot of the country, even in the North, where people decided to accept it in the name of "reconciliation."
To see the Republican Party morph completely into full-on Dixiecrats here in the 21st century is really something to behold.
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The woman was governor of a state chock-a-block with Civil War monuments and mementos. And she’s been asked this question before (and fucked up her answer before). If other presidential candidates can be lambasted for not knowing how to properly order a Philly cheesesteak or whatever it is they’re deep frying in Iowa these days, Haley can be raked over the coals for not knowing her own damn state’s obsession with losing the CW and having to free the slaves they depended on at that time. Fuck her and her smarmy form of Token “I’m one of the good ones!” Minority conservatism.
I'm guessing she just defaulted to an acceptable-to-South-Carolina-GOP answer, either because she's just soaked in that for so long or because she didn't think about how unacceptable that is outside of the gothic south.
The former is probably actually easier to fix.
I'm actually in South Carolina right now. Been a while since I've been in a place where everyone stares at the stranger.
I thought the southerners were so polite. Racist, homophobic sure, but polite.
Sure, that's what they claim. it has not been my experience in two southern states. Perhaps the "gracious living" is extended to those they feel are sufficiently important to cater to.
That was my first thought -- she assumed this was some MAGA clown, so she gave the answer that was MAGA-acceptable. In that way, she's just as despicable as all the rest of them. The only one who has freed himself from the MAGA shackles is Christie. And when Chris Christie is the paragon of virtue in a political party, that's one fucked-up party.
Or because there is no longer any difference between the Republican Party and the Gothic South.
Obviously Haley knows the real answer and could have provided it but chose to not risk getting booed on stage. And from a political standpoint she may have made the right calculation. Sure she walked it back after some backlash in the national media, but I think GOP voters actually don't care about that. Haley demonstrated she's all good with racism and white nationalism and they understand the walk back is just manipulation of the press. Trump does it constantly. Quote Hitler at a rally, then say "oh, i didn't know that was a hitler quote" in a follow-up interview.
Obviously Haley knows the real answer and could have provided it but chose to not risk getting booed on stage
Yeah, it kinda sucks having to campaign in a primary where you're fully aware that the Venn diagram of the voters you have to appeal to and the KKK is pretty much a single circle.
If I'm remembering right, she's a product of SC school systems. Judging from her apparent age, they were probably still calling it the "war of Northern aggression" when she was in school and not even mentioning slavery in passing (for a long time in there "servants" was the officially-preferred term for people who were owned as slaves). So I think it's likely she learned later than us Yankees what was really going on, if she ever did.
I'm sure it's naive but this was New Hampshire, for goodness sake, and I find it hard to believe that even a gop audience there would have any problem if she'd mentioned slavery. But of course she has to worry about the Super Tuesday primary voters, doesn't she. Sheesh.
I'm sure she was taught a bunch of nonsense in a southern school system, but she knows better now. And it's hard to believe, but unrepentant racism seems to be prevalent in the GOP everywhere in the country.
I think that her political calculus is way off. Ron DeSatan has demonstrated that it’s impossible to be more MAGA right wing crazy than Trump. The voters who’ve made up Haley’s improving numbers are soft R conservatives and R-leaning independents. These are not MAGA or necessarily followers of the Lost Cause.
I think this could have been an expensive mistake if Haley was actually trying to win the nomination.
there aren't nearly enough soft R conservatives and R-leaning independents to win her the nomination. in reality, i don't think there's any strategy that would win anyone besides trump the nomination unless he gets convicted of 1 or more serious criminal charges. and in that case haley is still going to need the racist maga voting block.
Some may not be aware of Lincoln's attempt to bar enslavement of people in thr nation's capital He apparently believed it appropriate & possible to stop it there, if not in the entire country, which seemed to require gradualism or only banning slavery in new states.
https://www.visitthecapitol.gov/artifact/congressman-abraham-lincolns-draft-bill-abolish-slavery-district-columbia-january-1849
What I am very disappointed by is our failure to refer those still yammering about states'.rights to the individual & CSA articles of secession in the National Archives site that disproves all of the lies that yhe enslavement of kidnapped Africans & their descendants was not an b ieeue, let alone the overriding one.
But even if civics classes were again required in most states, they probably wouldn't be allowed to include straightforward historical facts - after selecting, divisive politicians like Glenn Youngkin would condemn such facts as "divisive"
it was my intention to include the URL for the Archivs site, but since my new phone lacks some of the material that was supposed to transfer- after several hours - & I haven found the same one-page consolidation on the Archives site, there appears to have been a disappointing reorganization. The link below is not from that government source, but was included in my bookmarks that were installed on the new cellphone.
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states
Hard agree on having people read the articles of secession. They were meant as public state documents at the time and they don't mince any words.
It would definitely fall under CRT to describe anything about the Civil War differently than the approved books that were published after the writers were metaphorically beaten into submission to not say anything “divisive.”
Anything that might make precious white darlings uncomfortable is by definition CRT.
Not obvious why Kevin calls it "fumbling". As far as her campaign is concerned this is the right answer. It is dishonest and immoral, but not "fumbling".
If you have to backtrack the next day it isn't the right answer.
Not obvious. It depends how much this backtracking actually cost her in voters compared to the proper answer, which is not obvious.
The fact that her campaign allowed in somebody that asks such a question may be regarded as fumbling.
Exactly. She was fully prepared to accuse the questioner of being a Democratic plant (did she actually use the correct party name?), but should have expected & been prepared for that question.
“It was definitely a Democrat plant.”
It is a requirement for every member of the Republic Party to flaunt their ignorance of the difference between nouns and adjectives.
I think she's just following the Trump playbook: You say a horrifyingly racist thing, then walk it back the next day much more quietly. Then the media will dutifully chastise anyone who says you said the racist thing, since you "clarified" it later, while the base will continue to applaud the racist thing.
Backtracking isn't a sign of a mistake, it's a crucial part of the strategy.
Well, she got the “Freedom Is Slavery” part right.
She just whiffed on “War Is Peace” and “Ignorance Is Strength,” the other two planks of the Republican Party platform.
The problem is that her rapid rise in the polls was fueled by attracting more or less normie Republicans and Republican leaning independents. And I think this was the wrong answer for them.
To vote for a Republican is to have a severe mental disability and a deep need to harm as many people as you can get away with while thinking you're not responsible for it.
Democracy is about collective responsibility, and collective guilt, and that's one of the more obvious reasons why people who vote for Republicans are against it.
If you admit that your country is responsible for something, it means you have to figure out how to redress the issue, and that's something most voters don't want to deal with (unless they're the ones affected by said injustices). So which democratic principle to you favor? Collective responsibility or the will of a majority to refuse to acknowledge said responsibility?
That's only a majority in states that add up to a minority of the population, so I'll favor responsibility.
Another interesting thing about her original answer is that she made it sound like the bad guys won. If the war was about freedom from government interference in our lives, then you're with the side that tried to destroy the United States. Maybe that's not a big jump for people who regularly make excuses for 1/6.
I’m sure she would’ve enjoyed a life under the CSA instead of the one she’s lived in the USA.
The life of a "servant" must have been just wonderful in the southern states.
follow up question:
did the tyrants win or lose the civil war?
Nice! But how about dumbing it down to "Did the good guys win the civil war?" I myself would go with something along the lines of 'Slaver Agression' instead of 'civil war', but that's just me.
or... 'why do conservatives defend monuments to tyrants who raped women and sold their children as livestock?'
👍👍👍👍👍
Ten thumbs up! Plus two.
The southern hot heads wanted war in the worst way, yet they cried like babies when Uncle Billy Sherman gave them exactly that.
A real Democratic plant would have followed up with a question about treason, insurrection, and the 14th Amendment.
Right? If that was a plant, it was from one of her competitors.
When I grew up in Massachusetts the answer to this question was “slavery.”
Since moving well south of the Rappahannock it’s surprising how infrequently that seems to be the answer.
When I grew up in CA (and my wife in UT) in the 1950's and 60's it was slavery. Period.
In Lawrence, Kansas, it was about southern attacks starting in the 1850s & not ending until 2-1/2 years after the 34th star was added (no thanks to James Buchanan), & the slavery that the invaders wanted to impose on Kansas as a territory & as a state. The first of four proposed state constitutions was written by the proslavery Lecompton faction, but was defeated in Congress.
In the preternaturally old dominion, we have a governor who objected to a somewhat progressive notion by saying "that's not the Virginia I grew up in," which was incontrovertibly true, as a Virginia reporter has shown what was being taught in schools (& what was omitted) as late as the 1970s, & it wasn't historical facts.
outside of a high school classroom, it's surprising it's ever even a question.
It's not that you can't be successful in today's Republican Party by saying that slavery was the cause of the Civil War, but you must first prove that you don't really believe it.
Lincoln's Second Inaugural:
"... slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war."
But Abe's a swampy RINO who should be ignored. The real cause of the Civil War was the deep state rigging the 2020 election so that (it appeared) that Trump lost.
I've always wondered how many of the people who think it would be OK to own slaves would want to be owned as a slave themselves?
Maybe that question is outside their ability to comprehend, because they, of course, could never be slaves.
well, slavery is no big deal
but wearing an n95? now *that's tyranny
+1
“As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is not democracy.”
—Abe Lincoln (1858)
Lincoln’s legacy will endure forever. The party of Lincoln is no more.
he really was a great writer and orator.
If he'd written that on the internet he'd be getting just endless crap from people telling him he didn't know what he was talking about.
I have to say that the more I've learned about Secession and the War, the less sense it makes to me. The South wanted the right to extend slavery to the territories and enforcement of the fugitive slave act. By secession they entirely gave all this up. Maybe they thought they could pick off Cuba from Spain, but bear in mind that the entire white population of the eventual Confederate States was only about 5 million.
Some of Lincoln's voters were abolitionists, but mostly they were free-soilers who opposed expansion of slavery, because who the hell wants to have to compete with slave labor. Lincoln considered slavery to be protected by the Constitution in the existing slave states and was willing to support an amendment to make this explicit if the secessionist states would return to the Union. Secession of the South, though, would seem to achieve the stated goals of the Republican Party. Why fight it?
Then consider that Lincoln got less than 40% of the popular vote. If the Democrats had gotten their act together instead of splitting the party, they might have won. You'd certainly think that waiting and giving it another shot in 1864 would have made sense for the South. No big irreversible changes would have happened during those four years without the War.
Note that when I refer to "North" & "South", I'm really referring to the people with political power. Not entirely rich people, but mostly rich people. So I often find myself wondering about the motives of the rich.
IANAH, but my sketchy understanding is that the South thought they could at the very worst sue for peace on their terms. The South also thought that the war would be over in months if not weeks, the common knowledge being that any true Son of the South was worth at least four Blue-Bellies. Well, no one ever said the South was known for the braininess of its progeny. Or it's grip on reality, sigh.
Good questions, but one important thing they leave out is the bone-deep conviction among southern elites that the textile lords of Britain were utterly dependent on southern cotton, so they expected both quick recognition of the CSA and military and diplomatic backing from the Brits that would make any war a quick business. This is what James Henry Hammond (senator from, and former governor of-- SC!) was referring to in the "cotton is king" speech-- it wasn't about cotton's importance in the American economy or about planters running the US, but about British mills' need for cotton. British backing would extend, they were sure, to at least tolerating adventures to further extend cotton slavery in other places like Nicaragua.
And this hard economic calculation was heavily tinged with the supposed mystical relation between kindred aristocratic societies. Very Gothic-romantic-- Poe and Sir Walter Scott can give us a taste of that.
Beyond that, the domestic cross-currents were extremely complicated in ways I'm not equipped to discuss in detail (IAH but this isn't my area). However I can say that cotton's centrality in the 19C global economy, and particularly in feeding British mills, was crucial to the whole secessionist project. And if I wanted to be ironic I'd say they dreamed of independence from the North in order to make themselves economic slaves of Britain. Only a few of them would have understood that, though.
As it turned out (sad trombones), British mills quickly found other sources of cotton, millworkers themselves demonstrated against using slave-grown cotton, and British public opinion generally favored the Union side. So they lost that sure-thing bet. They did keep trying to make it happen, straight through to Gettysburg. But the retreat from PA was the end of that particular dream.
Quick follow-ups on a couple of points. "Why fight it," meaning the war, if you're the Republicans? For the same reason the constitution's framers were willing to compromise big-time-- to prevent fragmentation into regional groupings. Once the unity is broken, parts can be played against each other, and individual states can be played against others in the grouping. Divide and conquer and all that, and looked at from 1860/61, basically the history of Europe for a thousand years and of South America since independence from colonial powers. At the time, Britain had possession of at least half the continent and was not exactly friendly to the US, so destructive meddling wasn't completely a fantasy and was the established British practice. The Union as the basis of peace and prosperity, and not just in a mystical way, was then something to fight for.
Lincoln's 40% is striking, but there may be less to it than meets the eye-- it simply wasn't possible to vote for him in, I think, at least 9 of the 11 states that became the CSA (reasons are complicated). Not that he'd have gotten all that many, but there were strongly Unionist pockets in most of those states where he'd probably have done pretty well. Not enough for a majority, which is the main point, but a little better overall.
The sense of urgency among the fire-eaters seems kind of pathological from this distance. But it might compare with all the "flight 93 election" yowling we've heard from the right-wing nuts for what, two cycles now and heading into a third? And not just fear and despair; maybe also a sense that the cotton-Britain axis meant that conditions would never be better for a breakaway. Situations hardly compare, but that's the basic idea of Paine's Common Sense-- it's never been worse and can only go downhill, yet the bigger circumstances have never been better, strike while the iron's hot, and all that.
Whatever, Haley isn't going to be the nominee no matter how the media pushes the tightening up in New Hampshire narrative, or how much money the traditional pollute more and tax (rich people) less wing of the party shovels at her. The "right" answer, as far as the base is concerned, is that slavery was a good deal for the slaves as those people obviously can't compete on a level playing field and end up sponging off their betters. Trump maybe the world's most ignorant politician, but he understands this.
Kevin's a smart guy, but he doesn't seem to realize how much he has undermined his own credibility when it comes to statements like this one:
"I mean, the guy probably was a Democratic plant, but so what? It was a softball question. No one asked if Haley was still beating her husband. It's like asking if you disapprove of the Holocaust. The answer is yes."
I agree with all of this, but, at this point in time, it rings a bit hollow coming from Kevin. And the reason for that is the selective application of an otherwise insightful analysis.
Hence, one of the main differences between me and Kevin (and many of the commentators here) seems to be that I apply the same standards not just to Republicans but also to people on my "side."
And pretty much every observation in the quote above could quite easily be applied to condemn Claudine Gay. Elise Stefanik wasn't a Republican "plant," but she definitely asked Gay a carefully calibrated and explosive question with the intention of tripping her up. But, "so what"? The question regarding promotion of genocide against Jews was "a softball question." Just condemn the promotion of genocide against Jews! Then you can say that free speech policies may in fact allow that kind of hate speech. But don't leave out that one rather important caveat: genocide is bad.
Did Gay make that point clear elsewhere in her testimony? Yes. Does it matter? Not according to the standards that Kevin applies to Nikki Haley:
"But the best part of this little gaffe came this morning, when Haley went on a radio show and said, well, of course slavery. Duh. And then said the whole thing was politically motivated"
Republicans must respond accurately to each individual question, and their comments elsewhere (providing further context) are dismissed. Fine. But by those same standards, Gay's response to Stefanik deserves the condemnation it has nearly universally received except from certain outposts on the Left such as this blog.
So, I would respect Kevin's statements regarding the Republican candidate Haley an awful lot more if he would apply the same standards to the Democratic and very Left Harvard President who spectacularly fumbled the softest of all softball question on the promotion of genocide against Jews, serially plagiarized throughout her entire academic career (while using her administrative offices to penalize others for doing the same), and continues to shield the research for her PhD thesis from public scrutiny.
Claudine Gay was correct and Nikki Haley deliberately lied. That should be enough difference for you. I suppose you're being as disingenuous as Haley.
@Boronx:
And the double standards just keep shamelessly rolling in. They will be the death of this country. And the Left is deeply implicated.
You can easily say that both Gay and Haley were right in the sense that there were elements of truth in what they both said in their respective statements. Fine.
But you're acting in either a genuinely ignorant or an intellectually dishonest manner not to point out that they also both committed significant gaffes
And you simply discredit yourself by insisting on condemning your opponents with a set of standards you refuse to apply to your allies. The Left continues to sink deeper and deeper into that sort of ideological rot, Please stop. You're embarrassing.
Kevin, Californians probably don't get it, but there are plenty of Republicans in New Hampshire who are still bitter about the war and South Carolina's role in it in particular.
The funniest thing is that Haley, by claiming the questioner was a Democratic plant, openly admits that she stepped straight into the simplest trap imaginable. If I were her I would keep that accusation to myself--always assuming I'd be dumb enough to have answered the Civil War question the way she did.
So let me get this straight:
A) The Civil War was not about slavery or racism.
B) We have to honor our ancestors and their heritage, even (maybe even especially) Confederate heritage.
But if Point B is important, then you have to remember that they put the slavery issue first in EVERY act of secession. It was front and center all the way. So Point A is A DIRECT DESECRATION of the exact words and actions of those "hallowed ancestors." They would be ashamed of Texas putting slavery "third" among the causes, both in the sense of triggers and in the sense of principles. If anyone had printed that statement in 1861, the southern mobs would have trashed their printing presses.
Of course, these are the same conservatives who refuse to answer who are the people yelling at the Little Rock Nine in the old pictures.
I suppose it's progress--pitifully small, but progress--that conservatives are ashamed enough to at least demote slavery and/or try to cover up their own racist attitudes somewhat. And it's not like the ghost of John Calhoun is going to come and haunt anyone for that demotion. But we really do need to point out that the tepid and self-serving defense is a dishonor to those ancestors who were very clear where they stood and why. That the former governor cannot bring herself to admit this raises the question of whether she could approach any uncomortable but necessary subject with the needed leadership skills. The answer seems to be No.
BONUS OBSERVATION -- a friend who does not wish to be named points out that the MAGA explanation of election losses is exactly the same as post Civil War southern explanations of defeat: "They cheated." I take that for what I paid for it.