In 2015, according to the talking points being floated by former South Carolina governor and Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley and her team, she alone heroically removed the Confederate flag that flew on the grounds of the state capitol and so healed racial wounds. She implied as much right after it happened, again at the 2020 Republican National Convention, and in subsequent interviews. This "achievement" remains a critical part of her story about why she aspires to become president. Given the weakness of the South Carolina governorship, Haley doesn't have a lot to show for her time in office or, for that matter, defending President Donald Trump as his ambassador at the United Nations.
Still, even her claim to that is problematic on multiple levels. First, she and other state Republicans like Senators Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott had ignored decades of resistance to that flag by African Americans and their local allies. And unlike Haley and crew, those protesters, of course, never bought into the "Lost Cause" rhetoric of the Confederacy, the historical revisionism filled with intentional mythology that has long suggested the stars and bars are nothing but a benign neutral symbol of "our" past.
