TRENT Lott’s resignation from the post of Senate majority leader was greeted by an outburst of self-congratulation on both left and right. Liberals were pleased that the Republicans, having been unmasked as closet racists, would be less able to craft covert racist appeals in the future; conservatives were relieved that they would no longer be burdened by connections to covert racists like Lott.
Not only is Lott no longer majority leader, but it seems universally acceptable to describe him with little or no qualification as a racist who defended segregation. Thus Peggy Noonan: “And then some guy comes along and speaks the old code of yesteryear and seems to reinforce the idea that those who hold conservative positions are really, at heart, racist.” Or Jonah Goldberg: “Trent Lott’s indefensible comments [and the conservative reaction to them] . . . represented the death rattle of conservatism’s racist fringe, not its re-emergence.”
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