Like a long-awaited coup de grâce, Democrat Doug Jones’ senate victory in Alabama has put an end to the suffering we’ve all endured during this shameless campaign season. By a breathtakingly slim margin—and one that will most certainly require a recount—Jones defeated Roy Moore, a man, who at this point, needn’t an introduction. I think you’ll agree that his infamy precedes him. For the sake of a brief brushing up though, Moore is the man credibly and repeatedly accused of having engaged in or attempted sexually inappropriate relationships with minors. While in his thirties, and acting as Alabama’s district attorney, Moore would scout malls and diners for harlots to feed his hebephilia. He preyed on at least eight young ladies, all of whom were at an inviolate age when femininity encounters its earliest blossom. Thinking little of the sanctity or vulnerability of such an age, Moore pursued these girls rapaciously.
As victims often do at such an impressionable age, these young girls kept quiet. Traumatized, they plodded day by day with heads down and stories stifled. Not knowing that they weren’t alone, and that their experience was in fact a shared experience, they chose to remain in silence as they themselves became adults. All the while, Roy Moore’s status as a public servant was soaring. After serving as district attorney, he became a circuit judge and then a twice-removed state supreme court justice.
He left the supreme court neither voluntarily nor ignominiously. Rather, he departed oddly enough as a kind of folk hero. He was seen as a homegrown martyr—a regular red-neck Saint Stephen. The reason for his dismissal was his inveterate inability to separate church from state. Giving no priority to the Constitution over the Pentateuch, he refused to remove a statuette of the ten commandments plastered in his courtroom. Then, when the recognition of same-sex marriage became the law of the land, he refused to acknowledge its legitimacy citing Sodom and Gomorrah.
Thus, ousted from the state supreme court, Moore sought a new elected office. He was unclad of his judicial garb and unarmed of his gavel, but he still had an aura about him. And it was an aura people wanted to bask in. He began a campaign for the Senate special election—an off-year election called to fill the vacant seat left by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. In the public-eye (both locally and nationally) he put his ultra-conservative charisma to work.
It worked so well, that he handily defeated the incumbent Luther Strange, a fellow Republican who was temporarily keeping warm Sessions’ seat. All looked auspicious as Moore entered the general election against Doug Jones. As a Democrat running in a state whose blood pumps crimson red, Jones’ prospects didn’t augur well. Indeed, a Democrat hadn’t been elected to the Senate in twenty-five years. Bucking this trend would require something beyond a catchy campaign slogan or a kiss on a babe’s forehead.
For a Democrat to win, there needed to be nothing short of a deus ex machina—some sort of unexpected intervention to get him to the finish line in victory. Such an intervention appeared on the stage when Moore’s victims—the lot of them adults, with daughters of their own—stepped forth and told their tales. It should be noted that they weren’t goaded into doing this. There was no prize to be had for pouring out the contents of a violated youth. They merely felt compelled to relieve themselves of the pent-up burden and to warn an unassuming nation about Roy Moore, the man who might soon represent them on Capitol Hill.
The Washington Post broke the story, which recounted in nauseating detail Moore’s predation. Each woman, ultimately totaling nine in number, gave accounts that ranged from sexual harassment and misconduct to molestation and assault. Even one credible charge of having preyed on an underage girl is cause for disqualification, but an aggregation of such barbarous charges, is downright horrifying.
But Moore, the recalcitrant rube he is, held fast and denied all allegations. He vehemently denounced and disparaged his accusers. He combatted them with vapid invectives of his own. He denied not only carnal knowledge, but also of having ever met them or known their names. All the while, Americans watched in disgust and despair as the Republican National Committee and President Trump continued support him. They did this tepidly, and then ardently, until election day two days ago.
In a result that saved whatever exiguous amount of morality this country had left, Jones won with a vote of 49.9% to Moore’s 48.4%. A not insignificant 1.7% (or about 20,000 votes) went to write-in candidates. Among these write-ins were University of Alabama and Auburn’s extraordinarily popular head football coaches, Nick Saban and Gus Malzahn (had either won, they likely would’ve declined with a Shermanesque reply). Jones, for his part, gathered over 90% of the black vote, a key demographic representing 30% of Alabama’s population. He also carried women and independents. Moore, on the other hand, counted among his ballots white males without college degrees and steadfast Trump allegiants (I daresay the two groups are nearly indistinguishable).
Speaking of the president, as one is forever obligated to do, he responded to the loss with uncharacteristic tact. He humbly conceded that a “win is a win”, and appeared to be gracious in defeat. While I’m skeptical that the message was of his own doing (the syntax, grammar, and punctuation belie the traditionally erratic Trumpian tweet), it was well-stated and it was what the country needed to hear. Contrast this with Roy Moore’s response, which sounded like a desperate esperance to the divine. Even after the final votes had been tallied and the election called, he urged his remaining supporters to “wait on God” for the ultimate decision. It was a pitiful end to his campaign and career. A better man might have my sympathy.
The take-away message from this election isn’t completely clear. Anyone reading into it honestly would have to agree. In the fever and freshness of victory, though, hasty conclusions are being drawn. Liberals have jumped to thinking that this is the sign of a changing tide in the deep south; a state once flowing in crimson, will now trickle blue. They think this election, like all to come, is and forever will be a referendum on Trump. In part, it may well be, but that doesn’t tell the whole tale. More than anything, this election revealed just how far you can push a voter before he or she breaks. And Alabamians, as we saw, were willing to bend quite a bit. This, above all, will be the story of a candidate who’d become so unpalatable, so mightily detested, that the inert opposition couldn’t stay home, and the supporters couldn’t cast a vote in good conscience. And finally, remember this: it’s not that Roy Moore almost won, but that he just barely lost.
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