Republicans, Roy Moore, and the Politics of Cowardice

Chief Judge Roy Moore (R-AL)

Roy Moore is awful.  Like, truly and completely heinous.  For all of the press that Kid Rock got when he was randomly contemplating a run against Debbie Stabenow (and in the process showed how willing Mitch McConnell is to prostitute himself out to a third-rate rock star whom he's scared to denounce), Roy Moore is the true embarrassment to the United State Senate, and could well become a member in December.  Moore has literally said that he doesn't think that Keith Ellison deserves to serve in Congress, has said Supreme Court justices should be impeached for backing gay marriage, has stated that gay people should go to jail for consensual sex, and has said that gay people & women who have had abortions were the reason for 9/11 and Sandy Hook.  Suffice it to say, it'd be like electing Alex Jones to Congress.

And yet, Republican senators have said squat when it comes to Roy Moore up until yesterday, when Sen. Jeff Flake became the first Republican member of the United States Senate to state that he will not endorse Roy Moore.  This is stunning to me, and an indication that for all of the party's complaints about Donald Trump, they still back what he represents wholeheartedly.

When it comes to politics, you back your party's nominees unless you state otherwise; politicians fall under a different rule in this regard than an average citizen whose endorsements are private in this regard.  This is common sense, and for those who want to jump to the aid of people like John McCain, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski, none of these senators have taken even the rudimentary step of coming out against Roy Moore.  Some, like Rob Portman, have said that they aren't particularly familiar with Moore or tried to stave off some of the Alabama politician's more controversial stances, particularly when it comes to Muslims and LGBT citizens, but belonging to a political party means that you endorse unless you say something.  And there's no way in hell any member of the Republican Senate caucus isn't familiar with Roy Moore, so I'm calling baloney there.  Someone like Susan Collins, a lifelong Republican, is endorsing Roy Moore unless she, like Flake, says she's not.

But the problem here isn't just that they're being quiet, it's that even Flake isn't willing to do the obvious-and-true solution here, which is to endorse Doug Jones, the Democrat, for the Senate.  This isn't a particularly heinous action, though it feels like the sort of thing that Republicans are incapable of making the jump to do.  Jones is not a Bernie Sanders-esque liberal, but a longtime lawyer, respected US Attorney, and perhaps most importantly for the Republicans, not the deciding vote on legislation next year.  There is no doubt that, given the choice privately, someone like Flake probably would vote for Jones, and certainly if you took party out of the equation, would get behind him.  But he has yet to (in fact, no Republican in Congress has yet to) follow the path of someone like Bill Kristol, and admit that it's time to endorse Doug Jones to prevent Roy Moore from gaining such enormous power.

Moore's situation, followed by Trump's similar one last year, shows a lack of personal courage and acknowledging reality in the Republican Party-that if you aren't going to endorse someone, you need to endorse their opponent.  Elected officials should not espouse for throwing away their vote on a vanity write-in or to sit out an election-to do so flies in the face of democracy, and what they should stand for.  It would have been a different story if Moore or Jones had a third-party candidate that seemed valid, but there aren't any here (and despite protestations, there weren't any in 2016).  The only two people even on the ballot in Alabama this December are Roy Moore or Doug Jones.  By not saying to back Jones, you are essentially telling people not to vote or that both sides are equally bad, a fact that simply isn't true.

I can't stop thinking in this situation of the 1991 Louisiana gubernatorial election.  Louisiana functions in a "jungle primary" where the top two finishers, regardless of party, advance, and that year none of the candidates were particularly popular.  Most people assumed that Gov. Buddy Roemer, despite his intense unpopularity after a series of misfires as governor & a party switch that stunned the political world, would still win because his chief opponents were corrupt former Gov. Edwin Edwards (D) and former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke.  In an election that shook the political world, Edwards and Duke beat Roemer to advance to the primary, leaving the Republican Party with a choice-stand behind an avowed racist, or endorse the Democrat.  That year, many Republicans, including then-President George HW Bush, chose the latter, picking Edwards even though it would mean their party would go down in defeat.

It's hard to compare Duke to anyone-it feels like an offshoot of Godwin's Law.  But honestly-if Republicans aren't willing to stand up to Trump or Moore, despite their strong objections to them, what would a David Duke situation look like today?  Would they simply ask people not to vote, tacitly endorsing Duke, or would they finally find this to be the straw that broke the camel's back and back the Democrat, primary blow-back be damned?  The fact that I don't have a real answer, the fact that even honorable senators like John McCain and Susan Collins haven't shown this kind of backbone, terrifies me and should terrify you.  Doug Jones is a fine man, and Roy Moore is a monster-that Republican senators can no longer acknowledge the difference speaks to the dangerous position one of the major parties in the United States is currently suffering.