Nikki Haley: Confederate flag could not be taken down in South Carolina in today's 'outrage culture'

Jeanine Santucci | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Nikki Haley on the personal toll of the 2015 shootings in her state Nikki Haley, the former Governor of South Carolina and UN ambassador, talks about the impact of the 2015 mass shooting in Charleston.

Nikki Haley, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and South Carolina governor, wrote in an op-ed published Wednesday that today's "outrage culture" would not allow for the removal of the Confederate flag in her state.

Her op-ed in The Washington Post comes after the swift backlash she faced over an interview she gave earlier this month, when she said that South Carolinians once equated the Confederate flag with "service and sacrifice and heritage" before the shooter in the 2015 deadly attack on a Charleston church "hijacked" it.

Haley wrote on Wednesday that these comments are similar to ones she has made before, including in a speech calling for the flag's removal in 2015. At the time, she noted that the Confederate flag represented "a brutally oppressive past," but that others considered it to stand for "traditions of history, of heritage and of ancestry."

"As a state, we can survive, as we have done, while still being home to both of those viewpoints," Haley said in 2015. "We do not need to declare a winner and loser."

"Those words were well received by South Carolinians," she wrote in the op-ed. "They played a part in healing our state, and in bridging the decades-long political divide over the flag."

Nikki Haley: Confederate flag was 'hijacked' after Charleston church shooting

Haley said she is not sure South Carolina would be able to remove the flag today, not because of a rise in white nationalism that she called "disturbing," but because compromise is no longer valued, and "today’s media hysteria that makes it far more difficult to have the kind of thoughtful and prayerful dialogue we had following the Charleston murders."

"Everyone knows the flag has always been a symbol of slavery, discrimination and hate for many people. But not everyone sees the flag that way," Haley wrote.

She went on to say she "will never understand" those who use the flag as a symbol of their white supremacy.

"But there’s also another group of people. It’s a group that today’s outrage culture wants to either deny exists or to condemn in the harshest terms. These are people who do not see the Confederate battle flag in racial terms. While I don’t agree with their view of the flag, I respect them," Haley said.

She wrote that when she met privately with Republicans in South Carolina to urge them to vote for the flag's removal in 2015, she was able to reach a middle ground.

"I made the case that no child should feel unwelcomed at our state capitol because the Confederate battle flag was flying there," Haley wrote. "...Today’s outrage culture would instead have made the case that everyone who respects the Confederate flag is an evil racist."

USA TODAY interview: Nikki Haley isn't running for president. That is, not yet.

After her comments earlier in the month, many on social media expressed dismay at her view of the flag.

State Representative JA Moore, who lost his sister in the shooting, tweeted, "Let’s be clear @NikkiHaley continued use of this tragedy for political reasons is disgusting.”

Michael Steele, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, tweeted: "Really, Nikki?! The Confederate Flag represented 'service, sacrifice and heritage'? To whom? The black people who were terrorized & lynched in its name? You said it should never have been there. Roof didn’t hijack the meaning of that flag, he inherited it."

Contributing: Savannah Behrmann, USA TODAY