Using hate to feed the state: the case of Trent Lott illustrates the establishment media's use of a totalitarian tactic described in George Orwell's 1984. (Smear).

"A lot of people in Washington have been trying to nail me for a long time," commented former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) shortly after his forced resignation from that post. "When you're from Mississippi, when you're conservative and when you're a Christian, there are a lot of people that don't like that. But I fell into their trap and so I have only myself to blame."

Senator Lott provoked a media hurricane with his remarks during a birthday party for retiring South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond last December. Referring to Thurmond's 1948 presidential bid as the nominee of the States' Rights Party (which defended state-imposed segregation of the races), Lott suggested that if Thurmond had won the presidential race, then "we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years."

Although televised live by the C-SPAN television network, Lott's comments initially caused little stir. However, within 72 hours the media had been handed a new script: Lott's off-handed praise for Thurmond was a covert endorsement of racism and enforced segregation. The mainstream media, including TV, radio, and newspapers, tirelessly denounced Lott for supposedly endorsing official racism. Lott's supposed friends and allies in the Republican Party leadership -- including President Bush -- readily lent their voices to the chorus of denunciation. When the president, addressing a black crowd in Philadelphia, condemned Lott for making comments that "do not reflect the spirit of our country," it became a foregone conclusion that Lott would have to step down as majority leader.

Lott's post-resignation comments, though seasoned with self-pity, reflect an important fact: His ouster as majority leader exemplifies a media tactic that can be called the "Two Minutes Hate." As described in Orwell's 1984, the "Two Minutes Hate" was observed daily by the residents of totalitarian Oceania who would cluster around the "telescreen" to participate in a media-abetted orgy of vilification.

An Orwellian Approach

"The program of the Two Minutes Hate varied from day to day, but there was none in which Goldstein was not the principal figure," wrote Orwell. "He was the primal traitor, the earliest defiler of the [ruling] Party's purity. All subsequent crimes against the Party, all treacheries, acts of sabotage, heresies, deviations, sprang directly out of his teaching." Goldstein "was hated and despised by everybody" and condemned "every day ... a thousand times a day, on platforms, on the telescreen, in newspapers [and] in books...."

Thus conditioned to hate, the hapless citizenry performed on cue during each morning's ritual:

The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretense was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp.

While the campaign to vilify Lott didn't reach such violent extremes, the media programmed tens of millions of Americans, absolutely unharmed by the Mississippi senator, to see him as the embodiment of hate and organized bigotry. What is most remarkable about the anti-Lott campaign was that it began with, and was largely sustained by, the so-called conservative press.

According to Larry J. Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, "the real spark for [the campaign against Lott] was the fact that conservative organizations and media picked up on this.... Once the conservative media started attacking Lott that's how the man in the street learned about it." The December 14, 2002 Washington Post corroborated that analysis, pointing out how "a powerful faction within the GOP -- an array of columnists, southern newspapers and opinion leaders -- [demanded] that Lott resign from his position of leadership."

According to the Post: "The explicit pressure to dump Lott comes from such sources as National Review, the founding magazine of the contemporary conservative movement; a host of southern newspaper editorials; and many ... conservative columnists.... The Wall Street Journal editorial page, while not explicitly calling for Lott to step aside, said three other Republican senators would make better leaders.... Lott has also been condemned by such conservative commentators or columnists as Peggy Noonan, Thomas Sowell, William Kristol, Linda Chavez, Cal Thomas, and William Bennett. [On December 13th], at least six more southern newspapers suggested that Lott step down: The State in Columbia, S.C.; the South Florida Sun-Sentinel; the Memphis Commercial Appeal; the Charleston (S.C.) Post and Courier; the Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal; and the Greenville (S.C.) News."

As "conservative" commentator John Podhoretz approvingly pointed out in a December 13th column for the New York Post (which is owned by CFR media magnate Rupert Murdoch), "conservatives didn't circle the wagons, claiming that Lott was being mistreated and he'd already apologized and Bill Clinton did worse. Rather, they turned their wagons outward and commenced firing at Lott."

The "conservative" media organs are allegedly supposed to offer a different perspective than that found in the mainstream liberal media, and the Lott affair presented a perfect opportunity to do so. After all, Lott never explicitly endorsed either segregation or racism -- meaning that he was being pilloried and forced to apologize repeatedly for something he didn't say and probably didn't mean. Furthermore, "conservative" media commentators should have challenged the media caricature of Strom Thurmond as a hidebound bigot.

New York Post writer Eric Fettmann, after leafing through yellowing pages in the New York Times' newspaper morgue, reported in a December 18th column that "back in 1948, Strom Thurmond -- though an ardent segregationist -- was widely considered a Southern moderate when it came to race. Indeed, the New York Times hailed him editorially for his anti-lynching efforts, which the paper reported had won him the 'gratitude' of South Carolina blacks." Fetterman also pointed out that as a school superintendent in 1929, Thurmond "began an adult reading and writing program that decreased black illiteracy in [his] county by one-fourth. Indeed, in his inaugural address [as Governor], he pressed for 'better educational facilities' for blacks."

Given Thurmond's record at the time, Lott's praise for Thurmond's 1948 presidential candidacy could be construed as an endorsement of federalism coupled with even-handed application of the law and encouragement of educational opportunities for blacks. But no "conservative" media figure of significant stature was willing to make that case.

Some fight-leaning media figures, such as reigning radio blabmeister Rush Limbaugh, did point out that the Democratic Party has never disavowed Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), a former member of the Ku Klux Klan who actually used the notorious "n-word" during a recent Fox News interview. Syndicated columnist Ann Coulter noted that Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) has praised the Soviet-supported 1948 Progressive Party presidential bid of Marxist Henry Wallace. And a column by THE NEW AMERICAN'S Senior Editor William F. Jasper pointed out that President Harry Truman, whose 1948 campaign caused Thurmond's Dixiecrat faction to mount a third-party challenge, had actually been a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

Pre-setting the Dials

Once again, other sides to this story were begging to be told. But the "conservative" media almost entirely ignored them, choosing instead to join the frenzied mob in front of the telescreen as Lott underwent his "Two Minutes Hate." Why?

Part of the reason was cynical loyalty to the Republican Party. But even if the "conservative" media were willing to challenge the CFR-dominated Establishment's hegemony, the simple fact is that the right is badly outgunned. Furthermore, key conservative media institutions like National Review and Fox News were founded by CFR members (William F. Buckley Jr. and Rupert Murdoch, respectively) who have made no secret that they accept the Establishment's ground rules for debate.