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12.10.2002
A Lott of Questions It was supposed to be Strom Thurmond’s night on Thursday. He was supposed to be the guest of honor with his illustrious Senate career behind him, and the Senate newly returned to Republican hands. The champion of the GOP in the Senate was there, one Trent Lott. The Senate majority-turned minority-back to majority leader praised Thurmond’s “Dixiecrat” run for president in 1948 and declared that Mississippi (Lott’s home state) had voted for him and that if the rest of the nation had joined in, there would not be all these “problems”. Not long after of course, people found the clip of Thurmond proclaiming that there were not enough soldiers in the wake of World War II to force the “nigger race into our schools”, homes, and golf courses. Instantly the connection was made that Lott was trying to win brownie points with Southern nostalgia. Except it was probably the wrong piece of nostalgia. Lott was most likely referring to the platform of “states’ rights” and the ever more increasing bite that the federal government took out of state autonomy. The destruction of slavery and the Civil War was just part of a two hundred year struggle with the “gummint” and “freedom”. And there is no doubt that Lott paints himself as a fan of states’ rights. But with the great expansion of federal power after domestic terror, Republicans often were chided as discarding their fear of big government for more protection. And with Lott’s base the biggest Navy yard in the south, he’s likely to vote for any defense pork. In 1998, he even went so far to introduce legislation that trumped state laws about “rebuilt wrecks”. So why then does it surprise us that Lott is a hypocrite, not a racist? Well it is because the Council of Conservative Citizens continues to praise Lott for his association with him. And they want him to use federal troops to patrol the border. The real irony, federal troops cannot serve because of states’ rights legislation: the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 at the end of Reconstruction. So if this whole matter appears to be confusing, don’t worry. Instead of a nice way to celebrate Thurmond’s life and the resumption of Republican control of the Senate, Lott has provided more questions. Lotts of them. |
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