An Election in Alabama

I’m told that there’s a special election in Alabama today with the fate of the free world hanging in the balance. It’s an election to replace former US Senator Jeff Sessions, who took a job as Attorney General in the Trump administration. It features the infamous Roy Moore running against some democrat, who ordinarily wouldn’t stand a ghost of a chance in this reddest of states. But, this is 2017, and Judge Moore has some rather unpleasant baggage. So, there’s a chance he could lose to the random democrat guy who’s running against him. A lot of political heavyweights and entertainment stars have turned up in Alabama over the past few days. Whoever had...There will be a Uma Thurman sighting in Alabama...in the office celebrity-sighting pool just made a fortune. Robocalls have been recorded and deseminated across the state’s phone lines, which I’m sure has delighted Alabamians about as much as a visit from an LSU recruiter. Last night there were dueling rallies, where the Judge’s wife assured the crowd that her husband was not anti Semitic by announcing that One of our lawyers is a Jew! Meanwhile, over at what’s his name’s rally, the keynote speakers where Charles Barkley and an actress from Orange Is The New Black. I have no idea what the significance of these two are to the election prospects of a democrat in Alabama, but I wouldn’t think it would be a good sign.

I have made my views known on Judge Moore in this space before so there’s no need to go through it again. But, here’s what I know for sure...there will be one loser tonight, and that’s the Republican Party. If the democrat dude wins, the party will have lost a reliably Republican seat in the Deep South. If Moore wins, the democrat party will hang the Judge around the neck of every Republican Candidate who runs for everything from dog catcher to Senator for the next ten years. The next time a high profile democrat running for office is found to be involved in some horrendous moral failing the democrat answer will be, Roy Moore. The next time a Republican politician feels compelled to lament the moral decay of our increasingly pagan culture they won’t bother because...Roy Moore. But hey..at least they will have saved the seat, oh...and, abortion!!!!!

So, tomorrow morning this time, the continued destruction of the Republican Party will have been advanced, whether by the election of Roy Moore or the election of the other guy. As I have watched the evisceration of the Grand Old Party since Trump was vomited onto the scene, the only worry I’ve had is what would become of a country dominated by an unrestrained democrat party? Without a viable opposition force, would that party give in to its most extreme voices on the left? Or would they be sobered by their new ascendancy and try to govern by practical consensus? In other words, would they be Clement Attlee of post war Britain, or Joseph Stalin in 1932 Ukraine? The answer seems to be neither. When I look at the democrat party today, I mostly see a collection of relics and fossils who couldn’t sell hacksaws in a prison. Maybe a new generation will rise up. Maybe the Republican Party will one day rise from the ashes of what will be an epic repudiation in 2018. Who knows? It’s politics, after all.