No Coup
An argument Trent Lott should stop making.

By NR’s John J. Miller & Ramesh Ponnuru
June 4, 2001 12:50 p.m.

rent Lott, the top Senate Republican, has been subject to two lines of criticism that are, if not exactly contradictory, at least in tension with each other. One faults him for being insufficiently tough and partisan, for not fighting the Democrats or twisting liberal Republicans' arms. A lot of conservatives have been making this case for at least four years, but the establishment media has hardly noticed their grumbling. The press favors another criticism: that Lott has been too tough, turning off Democrats who might otherwise work with Republicans for the public good and finally driving Jim Jeffords away.

Lott appears to be more concerned about the conservative criticism than the conventional one, to judge from his comments to Sean Hannity, Oliver North, and Paul Gigot. He's shoring up his base. Additional evidence is provided by a memo he released Sunday. The first action item on the memo? "We must ensure that the decision by Senator Jeffords is accurately portrayed, now and for history. It was a 'coup of one' that subverted the will of the American voters who elected a Republican majority. Neither the American people, nor even the people of Vermont, voted to put the Democrats in control of the Senate. Senator Jeffords, conspiring with the Democrats, has subverted the votes of the people."

Items two through five are calls to support the president's agenda, block tax-and-spenders, etc. Then the last item: "Finally, and most importantly, we must begin to wage the war today for the election in 2002. We have a moral obligation to restore the integrity of our democracy, to restore by the democratic process what was changed in the shadows of the back rooms in Washington. . ."

Lott is obviously, and wisely, tending to his base. Conservative senators will have more say as to whether he stays on as majority leader than the people who write front-page "news analyses" will. His immediate need is to rally his troops. But he could do it more deftly.

No doubt a lot of conservatives are angry at and feel betrayed by Jeffords. But this "coup of one" rhetoric is ludicrous. The American people did not vote for a Republican Senate; a Republican Senate was not on the ballot. In America, there are rules that govern how "the will of the people" is divined. Those rules are set forth in the Constitution and in laws made under its authority. So, for example, the party that gets the presidency is not necessarily the one that gets the most votes nationally. It's the one whose candidate is determined, by proper legal means, to have gotten the most electoral votes.

Organizational control of the Senate, meanwhile, belongs to the party that can get a majority of senators to vote for it. The law contemplates that senators can switch parties. There is nothing illegitimate in this. There has been no coup or even "coup."

In November and December, Republicans and conservatives fought for the principle that political outcomes should be governed by (true) legal rules. (Didn't we?) There are people who call the presidential outcome a "coup" that thwarts the "will of the people," of course. But we call them whiny losers and say they should get over it. Let's take this shoe off the other foot.

Dept. of Self-Parody
Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter in today's Washington Post: "People send me e-mails full of dopey attacks — 'I bet you've never written anything positive about a Republican in your whole life' — obviously never having read any of the columns I wrote praising John McCain during the campaign."