Alabama and the Triumph of Sanity and Decency

Alabama rejected immorality and extremism

There were many losers in yesterday special election in Alabama in addition to the foul and delusional Roy Moore - who has refused to concede despite a roughly 20,000 vote deficit - that range from Der  Trumpenführer,  who endorsed a fellow sexual predator, Steve Bannon, the RNC , and GOP primary voters who backed a man that a majority of voters found repulsive.   The latter group here in Virginia, comprised on neo-Confederates, white supremacists and religious extremists, will likely nominate a challenger to Tim Kaine who will, like Moore, be far outside the mainstream and push yet more moderate Republicans to flee the GOP and vote for a Democrat.  Hopefully, the larger message is that the days of Donald Trump and his foul brand of Republicanism is moribund.  A column in the New York Times looks at what yesterday's vote might signify.  Here are excerpts:

Good riddance to Roy Moore and the horse he rode in on.  If I sound jubilant, you bet I am. And if I’m being snarky, well, Moore of all people warrants it.

In short order I’ll talk about the political implications of his surprising, jolting defeat by Doug Jones in Alabama, the first time in more than a quarter century that voters in this deep-red state elected a Democrat to the United States Senate.

But those can’t be divorced from the soaring emotions of his win. What it does for the spirits of people petrified by his country’s trajectory can’t be overstated.

For more than a year now, virtually all Democrats, many independents and even a significant share of Republicans have looked at President Donald Trump’s conduct and governing priorities and felt that they were suddenly in a foreign land. I count myself among this stunned and despairing group.

We saw decency in retreat. We saw common sense in decline. We saw a clique of unabashed plutocrats, Trump foremost among them, brazenly treating the federal government as a branding opportunity or a trough at which they could gorge. We saw a potent strain of authoritarianism jousting with the rule of law.

And we saw many Americans, including most Republican leaders, either endorsing or quietly putting up with this, to a point where we wondered if some corner had been turned forever.

That’s still an open question. But Alabamians provided a partial answer on Tuesday, showing that there are limits to what voters will tolerate, in terms of the lies they’ll believe, the vices they’ll ignore and the distance they’ll stray from civilized norms.

Moore, an accused child molester who sugarcoated slavery and seemed intent on some sort of extreme Christian theocracy, was simply too far.

With his defeat comes relief, yes, but also a desperately needed encouragement.

Trump openly supported Moore, urging the residents of a state that he won by about 30 points in November 2016 to reward him anew and smile again on the G.O.P. Their refusal to do so is vivid proof of the president’s vulnerability, no matter Moore’s flaws. If Trump can be foiled here, he can be foiled elsewhere.

[A]s Trump completes a crazily turbulent first year in office, Democrats are on a streak — or certainly feel that way. Last month, the party’s candidate handily won the governor’s race in Virginia, where heavy Democratic turnout translated into huge gains for Democrats in the state legislature.

Alabama adds to that, and it’s a different story altogether, a state in which the Republican candidate in recent gubernatorial and Senate elections has typically prevailed by a whopping double-digit margin similar to the one that Trump achieved.

Alabama amplifies Democrats’ sense of momentum going into the 2018 midterms, which, on the evidence of what happened Tuesday, could be a blood bath for Republicans.

Historical patterns already boded ill for the G.O.P.; the Alabama results are a brutal harbinger on top of that. I happened to speak midday Tuesday with one of the smartest Republican strategists I know, and he predicted a Republican comeuppance in 2018 so profound that it could alter the party forever or even jeopardize its survival.

And this was before Moore’s defeat, which the strategist did not feel comfortable wagering on. Think about that.  And about this: Trump, a man amply unbalanced, is being thrown further off stride and out of whack.

Democrats are the bigger victors. Scratch that: Americans are. If Alabama isn’t beyond redemption, then the country isn’t, either. To use a word that Moore would appreciate: hallelujah.