The GOP's Good Side of Slavery

​It shouldn’t come as a shock that the Republican Party is having a difficult time this week with slavery.  After all, when your party leader is a racist who enables White Supremacist groups and has said that there are “many fine people” among the neo-Nazia, and begins echoing Adolf Hitler, and the base of your party is filled with White Supremacists, neo-Nazis and your standard, garden variety racists, and several Republican-led states have blocked the teaching of “Critical Race Theory” in their high schools and grade schools (a college-level subject, not taught in any high school or grade school), and even blocked teaching Black history classes, and with the Republican Party morphing into fascism – of which one of the core tenets is xenophobia and hatred of all minorities -- then not knowing how to deal with slavery in order not to offend your base just isn’t something that comes amazingly out of the blue.
 
So, that brought us Nikki Haley being asked about what she believed caused the Civil War and telling her Town Hall meeting that it was really all about “Freedom.”
 
Now, clearly Nikki Haley knows that the Civil War is not about “Freeeeeedom!”, but rather about slavery. She had the Confederate flag removed from the South Carolina capitol building, after all, when she was governor.  But when talking to your party’s voters, you just can’t afford to offend the base.  Even when it comes to saying that slavery is very bad.

(My favorite moment was not her woeful explanation, but after her questioner expresses surprise that in 2023 she didn't even mention slavery, to which she asks, "What do you want me to say about slavery??"  And he answers, "I'm not running for president.")
 
And she made it worse the next day when, after having a lot of time to think about how to stop the ridicule, she pretty much doubled-down and said that, while it’s a given that the Civil War was about slavery, it’s about so much more today, like “Freeeeedom!” and government and individual rights, saying that that’s what she was supposedly referring to, about what it means today.  Except…
 
Well, except that that wasn’t what she was asked.  She was asked very simply what was the cause of the Civil War.  And the thing is, even if you’re going to address what it means today, it’s certainly not about “Freeeeeedom!” (unless you mean the freedom of slaves), and it is still about slavery at its foundation.  And of course, slavery isn't about "individual rights," but the collective subjugation of a people.
 
She also made it worse later still, insisting that the question had been asked by a “Democratic plant.”  My immediate thought was that it’s pretty embarrassing if you can get tripped up by a Ficus.  Though in fairness, a Democratic Ficus was known to be especially wily.  That aside, even if this had been a sneaky Democrat who somehow got into the event and asked a “gotcha” question, if you want to be President of the United States, you had better be able a question – most especially if it’s as easy as “What caused the Civil War?”  A question most six-graders can answer.
 
By the way, “Gotcha” questions have become a big bugaboo the Republican officials ever since Sarah Palin was running for vice-president and asked what newspapers and magazines she read that informed her views.  And she got stumped, answering “All of them” and then later complaining about how unfair the question was.

(It should also be noted that as much as Nikki Haley  wants to blame this on Democratic vegetation, this isn't even a case of "gotcha" at all, since it's not the first time Nikki Haley has addressed this.  Video has since surface from 2010 when she's talking about the Civil War, and explaining that it was about a conflict between "tradition" and "change."  No mention of slavery.)
 
The Civil War is a complex issue.  And there’s certainly more involved with it than just slavery.  But slavery is the foundation of all the issues.  Which is why it’s, as Nikki Haley herself said, “a given.”

But still she’s gone on and on, defending her words to even more TV cameras.  Here’s the problem with that – every day that goes by with Nikki Haley doubling down explaining why she was right saying the Civil War was about "FREEEEDOM," rather than slavery is a disaster for her. After all, if it's a "given" the cause of the Civil War was slavery (which it is, as she herself has "of course" noted)...then say that.  And stop.
 
The only remaining question for her about this is if it will affect the possibility of her being selected to be Trump's VP running mate.  On the one hand, it’s become such an awful issue for her (that she keeps making worse) that it’s become an almost disqualifying distraction.  On the other hand, not saying that that the Civil War was caused by slavery but is about “Freeeedom!” might be a positive in today’s Republican Party.
 
And given the problems that Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) caused for himself when he brought up slavery on Sunday – perhaps in defense of Nikki Haley, perhaps because (being a Republican) he thought this was a good thing.
 
Cotton left a series of tweets trying to make the cool point that it was Democrats who actually supported slavery and caused the United States to split, when it was a Republican president who had to keep the country together.  And Democrats who still want to tear the country apart.
 
Apparently Cotton felt that when you write on social media, only your racist base can see it, not realizing that everyone can read what you’ve written, including those who understand actual history and reality.  And he was scathingly excoriated.
 
Actually, I thought there was at least one positive to come from Cotton’s effort – it showed that learning history of 160 years ago was A Good Thing.  And especially learning Black History.
 
After all, Cotton was correct about the Civil War.  The Southern states that defended slavery and seceded 160 years ago were, indeed, Democrats.  What Cotton left out was that the Democratic Party learned from his horrible mistakes and became aggressive defenders of civil rights for Black people, and that those conservative Democrats who refused to support this quit the party and became Republicans!  And this happened as long ago as 1948 when the “Dixiecrats” were outraged by Democrats putting a civil rights plank in their party platform, and many walked out of the convention.  And has become the base of the Republican Party since.  In 1964, Mississippi Democrats walked out of the Democratic convention when a Black slate was going to be admitted.  And in 1968, the switchover became pretty much completed when Richard Nixon had his “Southern Strategy,” going full racist, and the South became pretty much Republican.  And has been so since.  For the math-challenged, that’s 75 years since the Dixiecrats walked away.
 
And this week doesn’t even include earlier when Ron DeSantis explained the Florida education standard that there were “benefits” to slaves, thanks to the skills they learned while under inhumane captivity.
 
So, no, Republicans today don’t seem to have come to grips with how to deal with slavery as A Bad Thing so that they don’t offend their base.
 
Oh, and as for Cotton’s other whimsical suggestion, it was Republicans who were the Insurrectionists that stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and tried to overthrow the government.  Perhaps Cotton missed the story, but it was in all the papers.  And it’s been Republicans who have continued to defend the fascist Trump’s insistence to perpetuate this divisive lie that the election was rigged and stolen.
 
In the end, if we’ve learned anything from all this, it’s just really, really hard to defend the indefensible.  The only hope is that, among the “we” referenced here who have learned this incredibly easy and basic lesson of life, it includes Republicans.

Don’t hold your breath on that.  But miracles are possible.