I think the fundamental argument here is this: clearly the Confederate flag has been spoiled -- the racists won out and now people associate the flag more with racists than Southern/rural pride.

What should happen? There are people who I think have a legitimate non-racist benign claim to the flag but they're now in the minority and being drowned out by racists. And the public discussion on the matter is an absolute shitshow because those people see the desire to ban the Confederate flag as a racist symbol as an attack on Southern culture/pride. Worse! We have people in this fight who actually are doing that because there is a very real anti-rural anti-Southern sentiment that exists in the US. And on the other side we have racists who are hiding behind Southern pride in an attempt to keep their symbol. Ugh.

So everyone thinks everyone else is arguing in bad faith, nobody believes anything anyone else says, some of the people are actually lying and arguing in bad faith and we're all arguing against caricatures of our opponents.