Posted on 12/15/2002 8:56:59 AM PST by where's_the_Outrage?
The spectacle of conservatives scurrying to denounce Trent Lott has provided comic relief in a Capitol otherwise obsessed with a dubious war. But it's hard to take Lott's GOP critics seriously. After all, he is not the only reactionary in their ranks.
The simple fact is that the modern Republican Party has built a Southern power base by accommodating racists. Lott may become a sacrificial goat --- forced to give up his assumed position as the next Senate majority leader --- but that won't change the dirty little secret that fuels the GOP's Southern juggernaut:
Whenever it is politically expedient, Republicans cozy up to segregationists, Confederate sympathizers, anti-immigrationists and other mossbacks who still resent the civil rights movement.
As political scientists Earl and Merle Black note in their book, "The Rise of Southern Republicans," the ascension of the Republican Party in the South can be traced to Barry Goldwater, who ran for president in 1964 on a states' rights platform that rejected desegregation.
With Goldwater's campaign, they wrote, "the [Republican] party attracted many racist Southern whites but permanently alienated African-American voters. . . . Gradually, a new Southern politics emerged in which blacks and liberal to moderate whites anchored the Democratic Party while many conservatives and some moderate whites formed a growing Republican Party that owed little to Abraham Lincoln but much to Goldwater and even more to [Ronald] Reagan."
Lott has spent the last several days apologizing for his endorsement of the segregationist platform from which retiring Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) ran for president as a Dixiecrat in 1948. At a party for Thurmond earlier this month, Lott had reminded his colleagues that his home state of Mississippi had supported Thurmond's bid.
"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, either," Lott declared.
His apologies notwithstanding, he meant what he said. He had made nearly identical remarks in 1980, after Thurmond gave a fiery speech in support of Reagan's presidential bid. Lott also has a long history of association with the Conservative Citizens Council, an heir of the old segregationist White Citizens' Councils of the 1960s.
But Lott is hardly the only prominent Republican who is comfortable consorting with bigots. In 1998, John Ashcroft, then a U.S. senator, was interviewed by Southern Partisan, the last redoubt of secessionism. Among other quaint views, the magazine celebrates the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, defends slavery and holds in high regard Nathan Bedford Forrest, a founder of the Ku Klux Klan.
Ashcroft praised Southern Partisan.
"Your magazine also helps set the record straight. You've got a heritage of doing that, of defending Southern patriots like Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis. Traditionalists must do more. I've got to do more. We've all got to stand up and speak in this respect, or else we'll be taught that these people were giving their lives, subscribing their sacred fortunes and their honor to some perverted agenda."
Yet President Bush still nominated Ashcroft as his attorney general, and he was easily confirmed.
Indeed, Bush himself yielded to the expediency of the Southern strategy when he found himself in a tough primary campaign in South Carolina. Bush boosted his chances by giving a speech at Bob Jones University, a bastion of ultraconservative Christianity that not only opposed interracial dating at the time but also espoused a virulent anti-Catholicism. In so doing, Bush sent a signal to the fergit-hell crowd that he was on their side.
As recently as this election season, Georgia's governor-elect, Sonny Perdue, sent a similar signal by campaigning as the champion of the Confederate battle flag, which had been exiled by the Democratic incumbent. Thousands of resentful whites threw their support to Perdue, assuring his victory over incumbent Roy Barnes.
Given the Republican Party's rich tradition of cozying up to bigots, Lott's remarks are no surprise. And his GOP colleagues' denunciations are no comfort.
Cynthia Tucker is the editorial page editor. Her column appears Sundays and Wednesdays.
cynthia@ajc.com
The last national figure segregationist I remember is Louis Farrakan that wants to partiion areas of this country for Blacks only. He is definately not claimed by the GOP.
Cythia, if this was true, according to your article you'd be a Republican.
1- for every alleged racist Republican, you can point out 3 or 4 or more Democrats who fill the bill, too.
2- the Dems already have a lock on 87-97% of the black vote... a 12% minority in this country. Getting a 100% out to vote will matter in only the tightest races.
3- it will prompt a reconsideration of that all-purpose slander "racist," and more people will see it for the dishonest fraud that it is.
4- it will prompt a backlash... I can see it building already.
Have at it, folks... the world is watching.
As with all leftist propaganda there is an element of truth to what they spew. What she of course fails to mention is that they were mildly cozying up to racist democrats in the south about forty years ago to help break the straggle hold the Democrats had in the south.
Yes, it's a hard call on what the GOP response to this should be. Do they...
1. Allow the most rabid members of the left (like Tucker) continue to be the face of the Democrat Party, or
2. Enjoin the debate and refute the charges as a long term, formal strategy.
Right after the Lott gaffe, I leaned toward 2.
But after observing the feeding frenzy of the GOP haters, I think 1. might be the way to go. Let them foam at the mouth. In painting the whole south with the brush of racism, they'll drive every single white person down there to the GOP.
If you want on (or off) of my black conservative ping list, please let me know via FREEPmail. (And no, you don't have to be black to be on the list!)
Extra warning: this is a high-volume ping list.
Naturally, there is no mention of the Democratic Party's rich tradition of giving a place by the fire to rabid racists.
In fact, they have two of the old geezers in the Senate right now (Byrd, Hollings).
Perhaps Cynthia is saving that for next week.
But thanks to Lott, it has a tiny patina of plausibility.
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