Trent Lott--A Post Mortem

It was two weeks ago I first came across Trent Lott's Comments at Strom Thurmond's Birthday Party. Angry at the initial lack of media coverage, I reprinted Lotts comments and called for his resignation. It's the sort of red-blodded all American thing I do often--taking a position on an issue immediately, without really thinking about it in depth. After having thought about it, I do think I was right however. Trent Lott would have held a position of representing the Republican party and the American people. He had to be removed.

However, let it not be said that the Democrats hounded him from office. That would be foolish. The real people who removed Trent Lott from power were his fellow Republicans. The President helped by refusing to show Lott even trace amounts of support. But in truth, the Repbulicans are glad to see him go. In their eyes, it was not his comments at the Birthday Party that were damning; it was his appearance on BET that did him in. There the Senator looked weak. He capitulated to his audience on Affirmative Action, claiming he supported it. To many Republicans, this weakness in articulating their opposition to affirmative action must have seemed either a cynical ploy to preserve his speakership or a continuation of his ongoing weakness in basic republican principles.

Lott commented, "There are some people in Washington who have been trying to nail me for a long time. When you're from Mississippi and you're a conservative and you're a Christian, there are a lot of people that don't like that. I fell into their trap and so I have only myself to blame." I'm not sure exactly what Mr. Lott means by a trap. Did somebody monkey up his cue cards? Or should he not have been invited to the birthday party at all?

Two final comments on the issue. From the right, Robert Novak writes, "As principal author of Lott's demise, Bush must now face its consequences: limiting his freedom in policy touching on race. He has to decide whether to approve Solicitor General Theodore Olson's proposal for U.S. intervention against the University of Michigan in the racial quota case before the Supreme Court. He has to decide whether to renominate U.S. District Judge Charles Pickering, a friend and Mississippi Republican ally of Lott's, for the appellate bench. To go with Olson and Pickering would raise accusations of "racism." "

From the Left, Seth Sandronsky, of Sacremento's Because People Matter, writes "Lott’s remark’s on the spurned glories of the South threatened to partly alter the administration’s orchestration of a benevolent U.S. imperialism in oil-rich Iraq. He had to go, and did depart as Senate leader of the Republican Party."

Breaking News

Well--it used to be breaking--now it's pretty much broken. Trent Lott has stepped down from the majority leader position, but will stay in the senate--worst of all possible outcomes for the Democrats. By getting rid of Lott, Republicans can go back to pretending that racism is a non-issue. Democrats can keep pressure on for a little bit, but aren't likely too. And by keeping their one seat majority, Republicans are likely to push forward with the entire Bush agenda (tax cuts for the wealthy, weakening of environmental protections, and so on).

Still maybe the Democrats will grow spines and fight back. One never knows.

A History Lesson

“Dangerous men, who are trying to win followers for their war on democracy, are attacking Catholics and Jews and Negroes and other minority races and religions.”
Harry S. Truman, October 25, 1948, Chicago, Ill.

“Our determination to attain the goal of equal rights and equal opportunity must be resolute and unswerving.”
Harry S. Truman, October 29, 1948, Harlem, NY.

"All the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army cannot force the Negro into our homes, our schools, our churches."
Strom Thurmond, 1948

“Pressed by ADA leaders to cut Wallace’s lead on civil rights, Truman issued executive orders in July 1948 desegregating the armed forces and banning discrimination in the federal civil service. He also endorsed a plank on racial equality that he personally considered too strongly worded. In response, some 300 southern delegates bolted from the Democratic National Convention and formed a States’ Rights (“Dixiecrat”) ticket headed by Governor J. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, known for his segregationist views.”
John Mack Faragher et al. Out of Many A History of the American People.

"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, either."
Trent Lott, 2002

Trent Lott should resign as Speaker of the House. It is a sign of how comfortable the Republicans are that he won’t and won’t be asked to. Rush and others have pointed out that many democrats (Robert Byrd, Al Gore’s Father) are not exactly clean on this issue. Fair enough. But neither Robert Byrd nor Al Gore are calling for segregation today, as Trent Lott apparently was.