The cartoonist in our local newspaper, the Birmingham News, has posted a series of cartoons in successive papers with the faces of prominent Republican politicians who have endorsed Roy Moore in the upcoming US Senate election with the caption reading, “I am Roy Moore – You condone it, you own it”.  That is true not only for Alabama’s prominent deplorables who are supporting Moore, it is also true for Donald Trump and the national Republican Party should Moore win this coming Tuesday.

Of course if Doug Jones, a very successful former federal prosecutor with a sterling reputation, wins the election, Democrats everywhere win.  The already tenuous Republican Senate majority in the will be cut to a single vote which will make it much more difficult for the Senate Republicans to pass their agenda, maybe even tax reform.  With all 49 Democrats voting “Nay”, and with the difficulty Republicans have recently had getting on the same page, even with the Vice President ready to break any tie, passing any Republican backed bill would get a lot harder should Jones win the election.

On the other hand, if Roy Moore wins, I will also count the election as a Democratic victory.  Yea, I know that’s a strange thing to say, but hear me out.  Like Republican politicians in Alabama, Donald Trump, Senate Republicans, the RNC, and the entire national Republican Party will own Moore should he win.   With Democrats in Congress cleaning house and forcing out Congressmen accused of far lesser offenses, the very presence of an accused child molester in the Senate will create a such a stench that the Republicans will never be able to coverup  with verbal air freshener spray.  On the other hand, if Senate Republicans attempt to remove Moor after claiming, “it is up the voters in Alabama to decide”, they will anger the many populist Republicans in their ranks led by Bannon and Trump and stoke the flickering fires of civil war in their party into a bonfire.

And the damage Moore will inflict will not stop there.  This is a judge who was twice removed as Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court by the Alabama Court of the Judiciary (composed of his fellow judges) for refusing to implement the orders of the US Supreme Court.  His reason – “God law takes precedence over man’s law”, apparently including the US Constitution. Moore is also prone to making stupid and very controversial statements which, if they come from a member of the US Senate, will make national headlines. These are some of the statements he has made in recent past:

• In 2015 Moore said, “I think homosexuality should be illegal.” He then equated homosexuality with bestiality.
• He also said, “I was informed’ that there are U.S. communities under Sharia law.” When asked to qualify his statement Moore doubled down, ““Well, there’s Sharia law, as I understand it, in Illinois, Indiana – up there …”
• Moore insinuated that 9/11 may have happened “because we’ve distanced ourselves from God. You know, we’ve suffered a lot in this country. Maybe, just maybe, because we’ve distanced ourselves from the one that has it within his hands to heal this land.”
• He wrote in an article indicating that Rep. Keith Ellison (a Muslim) should be prohibited from taking the Congressional oath on the Koran and then insulted the entire Muslim religion. “Islamic law is simply incompatible with our law. In 1943, we would never have allowed a member of Congress to take their oath on ‘Mein Kampf,’ or someone in the 1950s to swear allegiance to the Communist Manifesto. Congress has the authority and should act to prohibit Ellison from taking the congressional oath today!”
• As a circuit court Moore ruled that a mother who was a lesbian could not visit with her children unsupervised stating that such visits are “forbidden both by the laws of the State of Alabama and the Laws of Nature”. (There is no such law in Alabama.)
• As late as last December he was still a birther,  “My personal belief’ is that Obama wasn’t born in America”.

Since the Republican Party will own Moore if he is elected, they will own his past and future statements as well, and heaven knows what will come out of that man’s mouth in the future.  With his reputation as an accused child molester and his propensity to make abhorrent statements, Moore will join Trump as twin albatrosses around the necks of Republicans in the 2018 and 2020 elections, if they both last that long.

Frankly, I think that the best thing that could happen to the Republican Party in Tuesday’s election is for Roy Moore to lose.  (It certainly would also be best for us and the rest of the nation as well.) However, whatever the result, one thing is abundantly clear – the Republicans will lose.

Cajun     12/10/2017