How Polarization Weakened Confederate Flag Support

reaction to Dylann Roof’s act of racial terrorism would be, I would never have come up with “the collapse of state- and corporate-sponsored Confederate nostalgia.” We have, after all, had numerous acts of racial violence and gun violence in the past few years, which have spawned discussions of a broad swath of issues: Stand-your-ground laws, the justifications for rioting, the scope and effects of privilege and inequality, gun control, sentencing reform, police brutality . . . but not the Confederate flag.

Perhaps more importantly, I’ve witnessed various attempts to remove...