Trent Lott And The Neo-Confederate Movement

by Jeff Elliott

Trent Lott in happier times, when his neo- confederate views were ignored by the media

The Senator attempted to excuse his remark because it was made during "a lighthearted celebration," but Lott and his supporters couldn't claim that it was a slip of the tongue; he had made almost identical comments twice before, including Thurmond's 81st birthday bash. "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."

Repeated apologies over the next two weeks -- including an appearance on BET TV -- rang false as the similar statements in his past were recounted, such as, "racial discrimination does not always violate public policy" (1981). Many people learned for the first time that he voted against making Martin Luther King's birthday a national holiday in 1983 ("we have not done it for a lot of people that were more deserving").

Lott finally resigned his Senate leadership post, and immediately claimed religious persecution: "A lot of people in Washington have been trying to nail me for a long time," Lott said. "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."

But Lott can't claim to be a martyr of the "liberal media." His racist comment was mostly unreported until a groundswell of outrage made it significant issue, just as his earlier statements had been ignored.

What was remarkable was that for a few days in early December, the public mask slipped a bit; Lott, like many Republicans -- and Democrats, including Bill Clinton -- have courted southern racists since the days of segregation.

IN THE MONITOR

The Heritage Of Trent Lott Trent Lott's Whole Lot Of Trouble Lott's Love Affair With Racism But Strom Did Win In 1948

Racial integration, Strom Thurmond told voters in 1948, meant that Washington would "force the nigger into our homes, our schools, our churches." Thurmond and others later dropped the n-word, but their message didn't change; fighting to maintain the status quo or rollback segregation remained a popular campaign theme for decades. In 1968, Nixon won the presidency thanks to his "southern strategy." Promising to put integration programs on the back burner, Nixon took votes away from race-baiting independent candidate George Wallace. The tactic -- cynically called "positive polarization" by GOP strategists at the time -- transformed the Republican party by drawing extremists that forced it far to the right on social issues, where it remains today.

Lott is also among the Republican neo-Confederates who view the Civil War as unfinished business, going so far as to call it "the war of northern aggression." (MORE on the neo-Confederates.) He has pandered to groups like the Sons of Confederate Veterans, where he said that "the spirit of Jefferson Davis lives in the 1984 Republican Platform." But he is most closely linked with the racist Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), writing a column for their newsletter and sometimes addressing national meetings.

Trent Lott's offered yet another apology on BET TV

But with Strom Thurmond retiring, Georgia Rep. Bob Barr booted from office, and Trent Lott no longer a party leader, the most powerful neo-Confederate today is Attorney General John Ashcroft. The former Missouri senator -- who lost his Y2000 reelection to a dead man -- met that year with a leader of the CCC to discuss a prominent member indicted for plotting murder of an FBI agent. Ashcroft later claimed he did not know about the CCC connection, but has never explained why a senator would consider intervening in such a case.

Ashcroft has made comments far more extreme than those that damned Trent Lott. In a 1998 issue of "Southern Partisan" magazine, Ashcroft made one of his many statements praising the Old South:

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 [Confederate President 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.   (Quote courtesy of American Prospect)

But the Attorney General is not the only Republican in Washington with confederate skeletons in the closet. Others include Senator George Allen of Virginia and Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Will any of them receive the well-deserved scrutiny that was given to Trent Lott? Almost certainly, there will be no further pursuit of the topic, and Washington will pretend that Lott was an isolated case. A pity; it would be great fun to watch the Attorney General of the United States -- the man entrusted with enforcing civil rights law -- explain to BET viewers why he thinks slavery was not a "perverted agenda."