Posted on 12/15/2002 7:36:26 AM PST by Dog Gone
Journalists finally are shedding full light on what they and most minorities have known for decades: that the Republicans' ugly secret and the secret to some of their success is their subtle appeal to racists. The trigger for this national discussion was Republican Senate leader Trent Lott's warm tribute to Strom Thurmond and that retiring senator's 1948 presidential campaign, which was based on a racist platform.
What took journalists so long?
Part of the answer is that Republicans have been too hard to pin down. They have played a two-faced strategy exceedingly well.
They have to. This country hasn't been predominantly segregated for decades. Even as long ago as the 1948 election, Thurmond captured only four Southern states, including Lott's Mississippi. In Texas, though, Thurmond won only 9 percent of the vote.
Successful national Republican politicians know how to get elected. They know they have to win the good will of Americans who believe in equal rights, while at the same time winning the votes of the minority of Americans who remain racist (and sexist, homophobic and anti-Semitic).
The Republican party's public face says it is the party of Lincoln, that it stands for all that is good, including equal rights. The other face peeks out of the darkness and whispers to the good ol' boys who wish for the good ol' days, "Boys, you know who your friends are. We're the party of Jesse Helms, not Jesse Jackson."
Since they can't appear to be insensitive to equal rights, much less racist, Republicans appeal to both factions by using code words and buzz words. The words are a wink to the racists, who understand the language.
Minorities know the code/buzz words, too, of course: "states rights," "affirmative action," "special interests," "special rights," "liberal ideas," even "Al Sharpton," even "Hillary Clinton." Is it any wonder that most blacks, even conservative ones, simply can't pull that lever for the GOP?
Now, an incautious moment in the life of Trent Lott, the putative Senate majority leader, has opened the door widely on the party, and racism has come out of the closet. How the Republican Party ultimately handles the scandal will be a measure of its soul.
This is what Lott said recently about Mississippi, the state he represents in the Senate, and Thurmond, who ran for president in 1948 on a segregationist platform:
"I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years."
Racists and minorities, especially blacks, know the true meaning of these words. Here is the translation:
"I want to say this about my state. When Strom Thurmond ran for president on a segregation- now, segregation-forever platform, we voted for him, that is, we whites in Mississippi voted for him. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have all these problems with blacks (and Hispanics, homosexuals and uppity women) over all these years."
Some conservatives dismissed Lott's praise of Thurmond as a kind gesture to a 100-year-old senator who will not be returning to the chamber. Why such a symbol of a heinous past was even being lionized is beyond explanation to many Americans.
For a while, it seemed that Lott's tribute would quickly be forgotten in the spate of news about war and terrorism. It was not meant to be.
Slowly, first with black politicians and black groups, then spreading to conservative institutions, criticism of Lott began to snowball. To many right-thinking Republicans, Lott has turned into embarrassment hurting the president, his party and their programs.
So, Lott, who seemed to have an air of defiance when he lauded Thurmond, tucked tail between legs and apologized, saying that "a poor choice of words conveyed to some the impression that I embraced the discarded policies of the past." Everyone knows he's lying. He meant to say what he said, and his regret is that his intemperate statement about what he really believes has already cost him dearly.
President Bush, who, after all, has a black secretary of state, a black security adviser and many other minorities in his circles, has been persuaded to publicly censure his own party's Senate leader. But in doing so, he also tried to put an end to the matter by saying that Lott has apologized. In other words, the matter is now closed. Things will go on as before. The president does not appear willing to show courage in defying the ugly face of the party, even as he tries to shore up the other face.
And that's exactly what it will take, courage, to tell the American people, the good-hearted and the racist alike, that the two major parties differ on many issues, but not on this one, that all men and women are created equal and that anyone who diverges from that principle no longer has a home in either party, and that includes you, Trent Lott.
President Lyndon B. Johnson showed that kind of courage in the 1960s. As he signed civil rights legislation, this son of the South told one adviser that he was also signing away his party's hopes of keeping the South for years to come. He was right, and the Republican Party took advantage of that fortitude.
Thurmond, who ran for president as a so-called Dixiecrat in 1948 after bolting the Democrats over the party's strong civil rights platform, opposed integration at all levels, including the military. President Harry S Truman, the Democrat who won the nomination of his party that year and who was expected to lose, had preferred a softer civil rights program, but in the end he accepted the tougher plank, and days later, four months before the election, he showed his stuff, signing Executive Order 9981.
That order began the process that resulted in the integration of our military forces. Truman surprised everybody and won the election anyway.
Truman's courage, like Johnson's, needs to be remembered as Americans of all colors prepare for the possibility of waging war together, which, under a President Thurmond, would never have occurred.
As more journalists look into Lott's life, we are told every day of his previous impolitic remarks and actions. It is clear that what he said was not a slip of the tongue, a one-time mistake. He has said this before. Will Lott save himself with a more forthright apology? If he does, will we believe that he means it or that he is merely trying to save his hide?
Already a movement to have him resign his leadership role has gained momentum.
Many Americans wonder why that would be enough. They wonder why Senate censure-- even resignation from the Senate-- is not warranted. They wonder why the party that became livid over a president's lies about his sexual escapades is not as enraged over a Senate leader's longing for a shameful and unconstitutional past in which some Americans did not enjoy full rights, and over his lies -- to say nothing of his incredible stupidity -- about having expressed such keen longing in public.
Dovalina is a playwright who retired as an assistant managing editor of the Houston Chronicle. He is one of the founders of the Houston affiliate of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
The Liberal Media and Democratic Party have declared war on the Republican Party and especially their Conservative wing....using Racism as a Nuclear Weapon. I'm dead serious and my tin-foil hat is off.
FOXNEWS, RUSH, SEAN, G.GORDON, and FREEREPUBLIC.COM are under attack.
Me thinks the Bloody Socialists have awakened a sleeping giant? Let's Roll!!
Let's get this Segregation topic out in the open and discuss it. We'll come out on top, I know it.
I know I've been thinking long and hard about my own upbringing, my past attitudes and my current attitudes.
BWAHAHA! You've been using that Shakespearean insult generator, haven't ya...
Don't hold back, dude, tell it like it is!
Republicans are under attack from people who see political blood in the water. Robert Byrd, whose racist views have been well-documented, is/was the President pro tem of the Senate. Where's the outrage?
I don't like Lott as the Majority Leader, and he did enormous political damage to the party with his remarks. I'm not convinced he's a racist today, but it's pretty clear that he once was.
Nonetheless, he's being sacrificed on the altar of Political Correctness, and it's pretty obvious that anyone who supports Lott remaining as Majority Leader is going to be accused of being a racist, too.
It's a hideous double-standard when political correctness is used as a weapon only against conservatives, while liberals openly say racist things all the time.
Still, I agree that racism in the GOP, especially in leadership positions, is not acceptable. We want minorities to think conservatively and vote for Republican. We want more of them in leadership positions. We have reached out and have made a lot of progress, particularly among hispanics.
But all this fingerpointing and talk of racism is big plus for Democrats, especially racist Democrats, and it just drives me nuts.
During Reconstruction, many white southerners were disenfranchised, and "carpetbaggers" and blacks ran the governments in the South for about 20 years. From contemporary accounts, many of those in charge during this time were corrupt, incompetent, or both. At least in the case of the blacks, this wasn't necessarily their fault, as many had not been allowed to be educated before the Civil War.
Backlash to the policies of Reconstruction (which apparently were much harsher than Lincoln would have implemented had he not been assassinated) ended up leading to the KKK, Jim Crow laws, and other problems. White southerners at least up to the 1960s would not have voted GOP on a bet.
That said, up to FDR, the Democratic party was the party of limited government, giving power to the states and not the federal government -- which most on this board would agree with.
In fact, if one reads the Dixiecrat platform from 1948, except for the explicit support of integration and Jim Crow laws, I'd bet that most FReepers would agree more with it than with either the Democratic (post FDR) or GOP platforms of that year.
At the risk of being branded a racist myself, the Dixiecrat platform was also rather prescient of some current problems - such as affirmative action, quotas, and government bureaucracies - that the GOP now opposes.
Perhaps it was the intrusive Federal government that Lott was referring to in his comments, but it certainly sounded as if he was supporting segregation - which is not only wrong, but stupid.
I believe it was Mafree who said on another thread that perhaps it's time for a discussion of states rights vs. the Federal government, without the baggage of slavery and segregation - and I agree that there should be such a discussion, but I'm not sure it could be done with all the emotional baggage the term "states' rights" now conveys.
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