Why Didn’t We Riot? A Black Man Was In a Trump State of Mind. CNN Views of Issac Bailey
In addition to his work as a journalist, Issac Bailey is also a professor of communication studies at Davidson College. His book is called Why Didn’t We Riot? A black man is in a Trump state of mind. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. There are more opinions on CNN.
I met Haley at a luncheon at Magnolia’s in 2010 where she was campaigning for governor of South Carolina. I didn’t know she had served in the House of Representatives, though most people in the state did.
The luncheon was being hosted in the aftermath of the scandal plaguing South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, who had snuck out of the country to see his mistress but told his staff he was hiking on the Appalachian Trail. I asked if Haley would resign if she made a similar mistake like the one she made in the beginning of her tenure as governor.
As governor of South Carolina, she never messed up like Sanford, who also had strong presidential prospects before his escapades. But she messed up when she decided to embrace Donald Trump – rather than keeping him at arm’s length – providing further proof that even the most talented Republicans were willing to bend the knee to the former president.
Haley is in a good position. She is a good representative of the party. Trump looked stronger and her weaker after she embraced him. She will have to climb a mountain to get the nomination against him.
The top contender for the nomination is former President Donald Trump. His loyal supporters will not abandon him just because of losses in 2020 and 2022, which many of them wrongly believe were stolen from him.
In 2013, then-Gov. Haley and a Republican-dominated General Assembly denied the expansion of Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act to hundreds of thousands of low-income South Carolinians. She even opposed creating a statewide health care exchange under that law.
About 40% of the state’s uninsured adults would have received health coverage under an expansion, as well as low-wage workers in retail and hospitality who are concentrated in Horry County, home to resort destination Myrtle Beach, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
A White House study said expansion could have saved about 200 lives in the state every year through early detection and treatment. And a University of South Carolina study estimated the state could have seen an additional 44,000 jobs added by 2020 with the multibillion dollar federal investment from a Medicaid expansion.
How a woman of color defends the flag of South Carolina against accusations of political persistance in the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations
Indeed, Haley, a self-avowed “pro-life” advocate, stood in the way of life-saving Obamacare – exposing her hypocrisy on an issue that has come to define the modern-day Republican Party.
Her stance on taxes was the same as before. Haley adhered to the tax cuts today, tax cuts tomorrow, tax cuts forever boilerplate conservative talking point while in the governor’s mansion. She wanted to cut income tax in the state even though other Republicans said it would be too steep.
The Confederate flag has long been a hot-button issue in South Carolina. “Everyone knows the flag has always been a symbol of slavery, discrimination and hate for many people. A lot of people don’t see the flag that way. It is a fact, and it is hard for non-Southerners to understand.
“There is a place for that flag,” Haley said to CNN in July 2015 after the flag was removed. It does not represent all of the people in South Carolina.
Haley got bipartisan respect for her decision. Jim Hodges, a former Democratic Governor, said that he talked to Haley during that time, and that she recognized the need to take down the flag despite not being a fan of it.
The US ambassador to the United Nations was the type of position that Haley needed in a presidential run, since she landed the position in Trump’s administration. She could plausibly claim to have taken the position to serve her country – not Trump.
Her approach worked. She had a good standing among some Trump supporters, but she did not anger those who considered themselves moderates or never Trumpers when she left the UN. I was intrigued by what she had accomplished as a South Carolina voter who had just sworn off the Republican Party.
This is a nod to unity in one way or another. She is the first woman of colour to be a major candidate for the Republican nomination and she acknowledges her difference and then immediately blasts Democrats as racially divisive.
That’s precisely how Haley defended South Carolina against accusations that the flying of the flag of traitors who tried to establish a new country built on the premise of permanent black enslavement was harming the state’s image. You lose your version of identity politics.
One clear theme of Nikki Haley’s presidential announcement is unity. She referred to people in her Tuesday announcement video.
“We have turned away from fear towards God and the values that make our country the best in the world, despite what happened”, she said in the video.
“For those who like to show their respect for the flag on their private property.” You won’t be stopped by anyone in your way. But the statehouse is different,” she said shortly after the shooting. “Today, we are here in a moment of unity in our state without ill will to say it’s time to move the flag from the Capitol grounds.”
He told NPR that she probably did not focus on it in her second term. She should be given credit for moving quickly because of the moment.
She told the crowd at the event that the KKK came from out of state to protest in South Carolina. Last year in Charleston, we looked at true hate in the eyes. I want to fight a man who does not want to change his views about the Klan. That isn’t a part of our party. That is not who we want as president. We will not allow that in our country,” she added, to loud cheers.
Race was put at the forefront of American politics by Trump, including immigration, policing, and education. And Trump support has been correlated with certain racist beliefs.
But a 2019 interview with Glenn Beck, she drew heavy criticism for additionally saying that Dylann Roof, the Charleston shooter, had imbued the flag with racist meaning.
“And where does Dylann Roof get it from?” she asks. “Where does he get this association, the Confederate flag, with white supremacy and racist ideology? It doesn’t appear in the air. He didn’t steal anything.”
Not to mention that Trump supports and supports taking down the Confederate flag in South Carolina, and is angry that NASCAR banned the Confederate flag from its events, this happened against a background of arguments about whether Confederate monuments should stand in the South.
The Palmetto Patriots: An Interview with Doug Brannon, a former South Carolina lawmaker and former president of the Confederate flag
“I was the proud daughter of Indian immigrants. Not black, not white. She says she was different. My mom always tells me that my job is not to focus on the differences, but the similarities.
Casting Democrats as the enemy will not unify all Republicans, particularly those who feel disgusted with what the GOP has become. Doug Brannon is a former Republican lawmaker in South Carolina who led the 2015 charge to remove the Confederate flag.
Brannon told NPR that “Mr. Trump gave people license to say things that before him they didn’t feel comfortable saying.” “He gave them a mouthpiece and because of him, they were emboldened.”
Brannon doesn’t believe in a Republican anymore, but he doesn’t know if he will vote for a GOP or a democrat in the next election.
Teresa Cosby at Furman University points out that Haley is often mistaken for a moderate but right now, being more extreme may appeal more to primary voters in a swath of red states, including South Carolina.
The primary battle is between Republicans. And you don’t pay any penalty for playing to that extreme-right ideology that is replicated at the national level in states like Florida and Texas,” she explained.
“It’s just going to score her points with people who want the Republican Party to return to some normalcy. But how many of those groups are left in the Republican Party?” she asked.
Haley, who was running for South Carolina governor at the time, made the comments during an interview with the now defunct “The Palmetto Patriots,” a group which included a one-time board member of a White nationalist organization.
The interview, posted on the group’s website at the time, has gone back over the years and is included in a new book by a right wing group. CNN’s KFile reviewed the interviews as part of a look into Haley’s early political career.
One of the Palmetto Patriots’ interviewers was Robert Slimp, a pastor and member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and one-time board member and active member of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), a White nationalist group. The CCC is a self-described White-rights group that opposes non-White immigration and advocates a White nationalist ideology. Dylann Roof, a White nationalist who massacred nine people at a historically Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, is said to have been inspired by the group.
What do we really think about the seceded states in the U.S.? South Carolina, the First State, and the other two sides of the Civil War
When asked about secession, Haley said that while she believed under the Constitution that states have the right to secede from the rest of the country. When asked if she would support the seccession of South Carolina, which was the first state to secede during the Civil War, she said she did not think “it’s gonna get to that point.”
“You know, I’m one of those people that doesn’t think it’s gonna get to that point,” Haley said before describing how she might rally governors to go to the federal government to settle disputes over “federal intrusion.”
She said that it is part of a traditional. You can see that when you look at Black History Month, and Confederate History Month as well. As long as it’s done where it is in a positive way and not in a negative way, and it doesn’t go to harm anyone, and it goes back to where it focuses on the traditions of the people that are wanting to celebrate it, then I think it’s fine.
“I mean, again, I think that as we look in government, as we watch government, you have different sides, and I think that you see passions on different sides, and I don’t think anyone does anything out of hate,” Haley said. They do things based on tradition and beliefs that are right, and that’s what they do.
One side of the Civil War was fighting for tradition, while the other side was fighting for change, she said. Everyone is supposed to have the same freedom and rights as anyone else, and that is at the end of the day. I think it was tradition versus change.
“Well, I think that for me, you know what I continue to remember is that you know we also know that our creator endowed the rights of everyone having you know, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” she said. We need to make certain that we keep the three things in check, so that we are able to guide everybody.