Strom Thurmond

[[File:Thurmond_bioguide.jpg|thumb|165px|
Making
 Keeping America white before [[Donald Trump|the Donald]]]]{{uspolitics}}
{{cquote|Yo [[Jesse Helms|Jesse]]…Why the fuck won't you just hurry up and die? And take that punk bitch Strom Thurmond with you!|||{{wpl|MC Hawking||,}} "Why Won't Jesse Helms Just Hurry Up and Die?"}}

'''James Strom Thurmond''' {{lived|1902|2003}} was a [[United States|U.S.]] [[United States Congress#The Senate|Senator]] from the state of [[Fun:South Carolina|South Carolina]] from 1954 to 1956 and 1956 to 2003.<ref group=note>He was elected in 1954 as a write-in candidate in protest of the undemocratic selection of a replacement nominee for deceased senator Burnet Maybank; he promised to resign in 1956 to force a competitive primary, did so, and won that and every later such contest. Winning as a write-in candidate is impressive notwithstanding what a total bastard he was, and only [[Lisa Murkowski]] has been elected to the Senate since on write-in votes alone.</ref> A career [[States' Rights Democratic Party|Dixiecrat]]-turned-[[Republican Party|Republican]] who could point to {{wpl|Pork barrel|pork-barrel legislative victories}} as evidence of his efficacy, he never shied from abusing the power of his (perpetual) incumbency to try to downplay any, ahem, past misdeeds, while cynically pretending that all those years were reformative when it was really [[identity politics]] and blatantly [[racist]] policymaking [[New Right (United States)|that had become unpopular.]]

He served eight terms in the Senate, a total of 47 years.<ref>[http://www.senate.gov/senators/Biographical/longest_serving.htm United States Senate: Longest Serving Senators]</ref>

==Society advances one funeral at a time==
He filibustered the 1957 Civil Rights act and for several decades his speech was the longest filibuster ever, lasting 24 hours and 18 minutes. He lost this record in 2025, thanks to New Jersey senator Cory Booker.<ref>[https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/01/cory-booker-record-breaking-senate-speech-00265142 So long, Strom: Cory Booker breaks Thurmond’s Senate record with 25-hour speech] 4 April 2025</ref>  This was his greatest achievement as a U.S. senator. Next.<ref>[http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,90552,00.html Fox News: Thurmond Holds Senate Record for Filibustering]. 27 June 2003.</ref>

===Presidential run===
[[File:ElectoralCollege1948.svg|thumb|1948 US presidential election results; Thurmond won states in orange.]]
In 1948, Thurmond (then the governor of his home state) and like-minded [[The South|southern]] [[Democratic Party|Democrats]] became concerned when President [[Harry S. Truman]] began demanding equal rights for black people. Their response was bolting from the Democrats and starting an [[States' Rights Democratic Party|independent run]] headed by Thurmond, in the hopes that they would split the vote enough to prevent a majority in the [[Electoral College]], throw the election to the [[United States Congress#The House of Representatives|House of Representatives]], and force Truman (or his GOP opponent, [[Thomas Dewey]]) to make concessions.

Sadly for the Dixiecrats, the Democratic vote remained solidly Democratic, and Thurmond had to resort to replacing Truman's name with his own on the ballots in some southern states to get any electoral votes.<ref group=note>Allies of Thurmond's controlled the state parties in [[Fun:Louisiana|Louisiana]], South Carolina, and [[Fun:Mississippi|Mississippi]], the last being the turf of his running mate Fielding Wright, so they made him their official Democratic presidential candidate. [[Fun:Alabama|Alabama]] took this {{wpl|up to eleven||,}} however, as it ''didn't even put Truman on the ballot''.</ref> Despite Thurmond's run and another bid from a disgruntled Democrat, namely [[Henry A. Wallace]]'s radically ''de''segregationist Progressive Party run, Truman then went on to win [[Dewey Defeats Truman|a solid, if not landslide, electoral victory]] anyway.<ref>[http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/national.php?year=1948 View the victory in all its glory.]</ref>

Thurmond may have gotten the last laugh, though, as he went on to outlive the others by three decades plus.<ref group=note>Wallace died in 1965, Dewey in 1971, and Truman in 1972.</ref>

===Staggering hypocrisy===
Though he hated most black people, he had an illegitimate mixed-race daughter he fathered with a girl who was 16 at the time, to whom he paid reparations.<ref>[http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-12-17-thurmond_x.htm ''USA Today'': Thurmond's illegitimate daughter speaks out]. 17 December 2003.</ref>

===Oh, go away===
When not hating people darker than himself, he could be found in the U.S. Senate, hating gays and promoting [[divine retribution|the theory that gays deserve AIDS]] with his buddy [[Jesse Helms]].

===The times, they be a'changin'===
His replacement in the Senate after he finally left at the age of one hundred years was the quite more benign in comparison [[Lindsey Graham]], who seemed more benign until [[Donald Trump]] turned him about.

===Admirers===
Senate Majority Leader [[Trent Lott]] was forced to resign after praising Thurmond's presidential run in 1948 at Thurmond's 100<sup>th</sup> birthday party, claiming that America would have fewer problems if they chose him. The main reason Strom Thurmond ran in 1948 was to maintain segregation.

[[Joe Biden]] gave a nuanced eulogy of Thurmond to 2003, praising his ability to change with the times even in late age ("I watched vote for the extension of the [[Voting Rights Act]]. This is a man who I watched vote for the [[Martin Luther King]] Holiday." and "And over the years, I remember seeing a lot change, including the number of African-Americans on his staff and African-Americans who sought his help.")<ref>[https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/joebidenstromthurmondeulogy.htm Eulogy for James Strom Thurmond] by Joseph Biden (delivered 1 July 2003, First Baptist Church of Columbia, Columbia, SC) First Baptist Church of Columbia, Columbia, SC. 1 July 2003 ''American Rhetoric.</ref> In 2024, Biden said that the current crop of Republicans are worse than Thurmond:<ref>[https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/22/biden-strom-thurmond-republicans/ Biden calls today’s Republicans in Congress ‘worse’ than Strom Thurmond] by Maegan Vazquez (February 22, 2024 at 9:01 a.m. EST) ''The Washington Post''.</ref>
{{cquote|I’ve been a senator since ’72. I’ve served with real racists. I’ve served with Strom Thurmond. I’ve served with all these guys that have set terrible records on race. But guess what? These guys are worse. These guys do not believe in basic [[democratic]] principles. … By the time Strom left, he did terrible things. But by the time he left, he had more African Americans in his staff than any other member in Congress. He voted to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act.}}

==And now something completely (censored)==
Strom Thurmond and [[Al Gore]] worked together to 
eliminate entertainment that nonwhite people enjoyed
 restore morality to the media. Or supposedly just their wives. Mrs. Gore and Mrs. Thurmond would create the [[Parents Music Resource Center]], which wanted to ban any "immoral" music. They partially succeeded, with the result being the "Parental Advisory Warnings", also known as "Tipper Stickers", on various music albums.

While not truly censorship, the warnings did enable ''de facto'' censorship and restrictions on the music industry. For instance, Walmart refuses to carry any offensive material, which meant that the albums had to be heavily edited to be sold in Walmart or not sold at all. From the industry side, this meant printing out two different versions of the album, which was inefficient for reasons that should be obvious, making a "wholesome" artist slightly more valuable than a "rougher" artist even if they sell the same number of albums. From the consumer side, Walmart had obliterated the small town shops, including the independent record store. If you wanted the unedited album, you either had to buy from Walmart or travel several hours to the nearest major city. Luckily, we have the Internet now.

Unofficially? It was nothing more than a distraction from a proposed blank tape tax, according to [[Frank Zappa]].<ref>Zach Schonfeld, [http://www.newsweek.com/2015/10/09/oral-history-tipper-gores-war-explicit-rock-lyrics-dee-snider-373103.html "Parental Advisory Forever: An Oral History of the PMRC's War on Dirty Lyrics"], ''Newsweek'', 9 October 2015.</ref> The idea behind it was that if blank tapes cost as much as the ones from the album store, then piracy would be uneconomical. But the unmentioned result would also be that independent artists would '''also''' have to pay more for blank tapes, making it all but impossible for an independent music group to get started, unless of course they signed with the record company.

==Notes==
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==References==
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