Death of a bigot

Did he plan it? Did he struggle on life support until after the midnight hour, timing his last breath? Or had he been dead for days, his associates keeping the body on ice for the holiday announcement? Jesse Helms, dead on the Fourth of July.

Helms would have appreciated the symbolism, confirming his own mythic identity as a proud American, but Helms’ other legacy as a big fat bigot is well established. From his racist tirades on the radio and television in North Carolina during the 1950s and ’60s, to his vicious homophobic rants of the 1980s and ’90s, he left a highly quotable record of hate.

On the civil rights movement: “‘Candy’ is hardly the word for either the topless swimsuit or the Civil Rights Bill. In our judgment, neither has a place in America.”

“The Negro cannot count forever on the kind of restraint that’s thus far left him free to clog the streets, disrupt traffic, and interfere with other men’s rights.”

Or: “The government should spend less money on people with AIDS because they got sick as a result of deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct.”

In death it’s easy to dismiss Jesse Helms as a colorful buffoon or a relic of the bad old days, but that doesn’t do Helms' bigotry justice.

Jesse Helms was an important bigot. He didn’t just fume and huff. He used the language of cultural politics — called “morality” or “values” or just “freedom” — to shrink the state, reduce the social wage, enhance the interests of ruthless corporate profit mongering and promote U.S. military interventions.

Helms began his political career in North Carolina as a reporter, with ties to the banking and tobacco industries. As a “newsman” on WRAL radio and television in Raleigh, North Carolina, he didn’t just hammer opponents with red-baiting accusations like every other demagogue, he laced his commentaries on radio and television with the kind of creative rhetorical jihads against the New Deal and the civil rights movement that later gave the Republican Party its bad name.

Malicious rhetorician and image maker, major fundraiser and creator of the modern big money electoral campaign — Jesse Helms was so much more than just another bigot. He was a stalwart supporter of anti-union policies, and active in US foreign policy debates.

He supported inequality at home and violence abroad and gave it all the name Morality. To paraphrase Gore Vidal’s obituary for William F. Buckley: RIP J.H. — in hell.


Lisa Duggan is an author, New York University professor, and writes for The Nation.