South Carolina's Confederate flag has been seen as untouchable, with Republican presidential candidates offering it tacit support, steering clear of the issue, or paying the consequences, and South Carolina Republicans standing firmly behind it. It looks like the massacre of nine African-American people at Bible study in a historic black church, including a state senator, may have changed that:
Gov. Nikki Haley will hold a news conference in Columbia at 4 p.m. today at which, sources said, she will call for the Confederate flag to come down from the Statehouse grounds. [...]
Lawmakers have an unfinished budget, but are considering using the current extended session to address wording that would remove the flag from the Confederate monument as part of the 2015-16 state spending plan.
It takes the murder of nine people in a historically resonant setting for the state to consider giving up its symbol of racism? Not really a fair trade—and note that, as welcome as it would be to see the flag come down, this was not the first response from Haley or her fellow South Carolina Republicans. Even after the massacre, they had to be pushed on this point. Still, progress is progress, however delayed and halfhearted.