Jesse Helms

From RationalWiki

Jesse Helms was the utterly batshit loony U.S. Senator from North Carolina for far too many years. Due to his stand on racial issues, he was often referred to as "the Senator from South Africa". In general, he was racist, homophobic and ultra-conservative on every issue imaginable. Inevitably, Conservapedia's entry for Jesse Helms glosses over the fact that he was an out-and-out racist, and portrays him instead as a freedom fighter crusading against affirmative action and political correctness.

He is also the author, in many ways, of American post-Cold War unilateralism, often railing against the United Nations and anything else that undercut American "sovereignty." This put him directly at odds with the administration of Bill Clinton, and Helms was known to use scorched-earth parliamentary tactics to get his way, even holding up the nomination of a Republican governor who was to be ambassador to Mexico.