The Two Party Monopoly Is The Reason Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, U.S. Senator Bob Smith and former Vice-President Al Gore All Had To Go
The United States Constitution does not mention the words political party. Yet, these institutions were well know to the founding fathers.
The Two Party System is not grounded in the Constitution, it is extra-constitutional. The Constitution itself is non-partisan, except for the amendment which makes the President and the Vice-President run together.
The current fracas over Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott's comments at the 100th birthday party for Strom Thurmond is an eyewash. Lott is not being forced from office for the suddenly discovery of his past racism or of the racist roots of the Republican Party in the South. President Lyndon Johnson, when signing the voting rights bill in 1964, said he was delivering the south to the Republicans for a generation.
And George Bush's hypocrisy is truly breathtaking. Just three weeks ago, he was campaigning in Louisiana for a Republican on the basis that having a Senator of the majority party was better for the people of Louisiana. All during the fall campaign, he criss-crossed the country pleading for a Republican controlled Senate. Who did Bush think was going to be the Majority Leader if the Republicans took back control?
Partisan Republicans pointed out no end of the Democrats with racist pasts, Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, allegedly once having belonged to the Ku Klux Klan. And William Fullbright, Senator from Arkansas and President Bill Clinton's mentor, who was a segregationist the whole time he served in the Senate.
No, Lott's error was not his racism, it was his statement that implied that maybe the country would have been better off in 1948 with a third party president, rather than a Republican or a Democrat. This is the sacrilege that cost Lott the Majority Leader's post.
This is also why the Republican Party targeted U.S. Senator Bob Smith of New Hampshire. The Republican Party ran Congressman John E. Sununu, the son of the former Governor who was President Bush's Chief of Staff, against incumbent Republican Senator Bob Smith of New Hampshire, to punish him for having flirted with the idea of running for President as an independent in 2000.
Now, if the Republicans were really so keen on taking control of the United States Senate, do you think they would have risked what otherwise would have been a sure safe seat with an incumbent Republican with an internecine squabble in the Republican primary? No, the issue was bigger than control of the Senate. It was absolutely feudal fidelity to the seigneur lord, the Republican Party and the Two Party System.
And that is why Al Gore did not pursue his victory in the 2000 election and allowed the Supreme Court to have the final say, even though the constitution prescribes further avenues of appeal in closely fought and contested elections. Gore threw in the towel and let Bush become president rather than try to get 2 electors to support the popular voice of the voters.
Gore took the fall for the Two Party System. And the Supreme Court has consistently made rulings including phrases like "preservation of the two party system is important" without any reference to the constitution or statute, because there is none.
The United States is in a dangerous situation. The economic difficulties and the drift toward war faced by the United States is typical of a nation with an autocratic or dictatorial form of government. The Bush Administration is not a constitutional government, that is why there is detention without trial (in Cuba, no less) and why the freak attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon is being used as an excuse to shred the rest of the constitutional protections.
Trent Lott, like Al Gore, is a sacrificial lamb of the Two Party dictatorship that is being imposed on the United States constitution. Trent Lott's error was in becoming partisan. Lott was elected to the House of Representatives in the 1970's on the strength of his opposition to the impeachment of Richard Nixon, a principled position consistent with constitutional values. But when it came time to defend Bill Clinton from impeachment, suddenly Lott was on the other side. Big mistake.
Once Nixon was ousted from office, Gerald Ford came in and appointed all the people: George H.W. Bush (head of the Republican National Committee, head of the CIA, UN Ambassador, Representative to China); Dick Cheney (Chief of Staff); Donald Rumsfeld (head of the Office of Economic Opportunity, I think) and the rest of these frauds who helped George W. Bush steal the 2000 election. The first appointed president in history appointed all major players who stole the 2000 election to high office.
The truth is that the country is being run by the CIA. In the past, the two party system could be maintained by fraud. But as more and more voters become independent, the fraud has yielded to force. That is why, inspite of declining support for the two parties in both elections and in poll after poll, the Republicans and Democrats still maintain a virtual monopoly on all the political offices in the country.
And Strom Thurmond is a great man in spite of his reprehensible beliefs. He ran for President as an independent in 1948. He is the only person elected to the United States Senate on a write-in vote. He was a Democrat and then a Republican. Hey, why didn't Lott point that out that Thurmond had been a Democrat when he was his most racist? And who do they think they're kidding? Malcolm X said, "Racism is as American as apple pie." And that is still true today, even in the North.
You don't get to spend 48 years in the United States Senate because you're a fool. There should have been a national day of celebration on Thurmond's 100th birthday, to salute a man whose entire life is the reification of the non-partisan greatness of the United States Constitution. Instead, the Two Party Stalinists deep sixed the celebration, and then purged the Senate Majority Leader who had the audacity to attend.
All is not lost, yet. Lott could run for president as an independent in 2004, and with Colin Powell as his Vice-Presidental candidate, they would sweep the nation. But he won't. That's why the nation is in trouble and on the brink of war; although I think this has destroyed the effectiveness of the Senate and will eventually derail the march toward war in Iraq. (Which is a good thing.)