One of the few gratifying things about the Trent Lott controversy has been the quickness of his friends to repudiate his offensive sentiments.
After he praised Strom Thurmond’s 1948 campaign for president, which was aimed at preserving white supremacy, conservative commentators were among the first to condemn the sentiment and to call on Lott to step down. President Bush rebuked the Senate Republican leader last week, and Monday, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer conspicuously refrained from saying Lott should keep his leadership post.
What was more surprising was that administration officials have said privately that the president is prepared to lose ground in the Senate over the matter. If Lott were to step down or be voted out as majority leader, he might then feel obliged to resign his Senate seat as well. That would give Mississippi’s Democratic governor the chance to replace him–creating a 50-50 tie that, thanks to Vice President Dick Cheney, would preserve GOP control, but tenuously. Bush and most of the faithful seem to grasp that it’s critical to cleanse the party of this stain even if it means paying a political price.
The president deserves credit for his firm stand. But getting rid of one leader with a knack for stepping on racial toes won’t solve his party’s bigger problem, which Lott illuminates and magnifies: Black Americans generally don’t think Republicans have their interests at heart.
One big reason is that many whites who opposed racial equality migrated to the Republican Party after Lyndon Johnson committed Democrats to civil rights. Richard Nixon saw these voters as the basis of his “Southern strategy” to make Republicans–the party of Lincoln–competitive in a region where they had long been a nullity. That often meant exploiting the racial fears and prejudices of whites.
Blacks didn’t miss the cues. In 1956, 39 percent of African-Americans voted for Dwight Eisenhower. But in 1964, the GOP nominated Barry Goldwater, who voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Since then, no Republican nominee has gotten more than 15 percent of the black vote.
George W. Bush got just 9 percent despite making conspicuous efforts to woo black voters. And the post-election battle in Florida created bitter feelings among African-American voters who felt disenfranchised by ballot snafus.
But Bush has laid the groundwork to shed the party’s unwholesome racial baggage. He’s used inclusive language aimed at making minorities of all kinds feel more welcome.
When the courts struck down racial preferences in public university admissions in Texas, Bush, as governor, replaced them with a system that preserved minority representation based on high school performance. As president, he appointed two of the most powerful black officials in American history–Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, who are plainly there because Bush values their advice, not as window dressing.
Republicans can’t and shouldn’t abandon their basic political philosophy, which many blacks don’t share. But they can purge the lingering remnants of prejudice in their ranks.
Bush has made a good start in changing black perceptions of the party. Getting rid of Lott would help as well. But removing the distrust of African-Americans is a job that will take years, if not decades.
As the Lott embarrassment shows, the party needs to make it a priority.
