Donald Trump's controversial slavery comments reveal his secret weapon: report
David McAfee
January 10, 2024
WASHINGTON, DC - U.S. President Donald Trump greets U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley during an event celebrating Women's History Month on March 29, 2017. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Donald Trump and Nikki Haley are both GOP presidential contenders who made similarly controversial Civil War comments, but only one is paying for it, and that's because Trump has the advantage, a new report says.
Haley left slavery out of her answer when asked what caused the Civil War, and Trump suggested the Civil War should have been "negotiated," ignoring that doing so would have continued the establishment of slavery in America. These issues were essentially the same, according to a writer for The Atlantic.
"Though he mocked Haley’s answer as 'three paragraphs of bullsh-t,' a refusal to acknowledge slavery’s role in the war is at the core of Trump’s gaffe too: A negotiated settlement was unlikely, because the southern states were determined to continue enslaving Black people, and any negotiation that allowed that to continue would have been barbaric," the article states. "As Ta-Nehisi Coates explained in The Atlantic in 2011, arguing that the Civil War was 'tragic' misses the point of its triumph in ending slavery."
According to the report, the response from the public shows how Haley and Trump are treated differently.
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"But the reception of the two remarks has been distinctly different. Haley has centered her campaign on her competence and her no-nonsense affect, and the botched pander undermined both of those," according to the report. "She encountered a sudden surge of negative publicity and spent the next few days walking back and explaining her answer. Trump’s commentary, by contrast, elicited the same kind of shrug that so many things he says do. He’s made no effort at damage control and moved on entirely."
The report states that part of the reason for the different reactions is that Trump "produces so many outrageous comments that it’s hard to keep attention on any one of them for very long."
The report continues:
"Trump also benefits from being a very well-known quantity: No one expects him to know anything about history, and people know he approaches everything as a deal."
And that, it appears, is Trump's secret weapon against Haley.
"It’s that the lower expectations attached to him mean almost no misstep hurts him. Trump and Haley are effectively running in entirely different elections, yet only one of them can win," the article states.
Ben Carson says slavery is 'nothing to be ashamed of' while campaigning for Trump
David Edwards
January 11, 2024 
Ban Carson speaks to CBS News (screen grab)
Former United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson suggested slavery was "nothing to be ashamed of" while campaigning for Donald Trump.
While stumping for Trump in Iowa Thursday, Carson downplayed the importance of slavery in U.S. history.
"And interestingly enough, you look back to the beginnings of this country and our founders, a lot of people are trying to denigrate them now, saying that they were horrible people, maybe because some of them had slaves, and that America is a horrible place because we had slavery," Carson argued. "People who say stuff like that obviously don't have a good grasp on world history, because every society has had to deal with slavery, and there are more slaves in the world today than there have ever been at any point in time."
Carson pointed out that the U.S. fought a civil war over the institution of slavery.
"And if there's anything unique about the United States, if there's anything unique about the United States and slavery, it's that we had so many people who were vehemently opposed to it that we fought a bloody civil war to get rid of the evil institution," he said.
"And that's what we should teach our children," he added. "Our history is nothing to be ashamed of."
"There's good, there's bad, and there's ugly, as there is in every society inhabited by human beings, which is why we need a savior."
Carson has a history of referring to enslaved people as immigrants.
"Hundreds of years before that, other immigrants came here in the bottom of slave ships," he wrote in his book in 2000. "They worked even harder for longer hours for even less. They too had a dream. That one day their great-grandchildren could pursue the dream of freedom and happiness in this land.
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