…this shouldn’t be close. It shouldn’t be within screaming distance of close. Roy Moore shouldn’t be able to see Doug Jones with binoculars. This should be about a 50 point spread, and in a sane state, it would be. Instead, it’s 50-50. Instead, we’re back to hoping that a turnout of 25% and a third of the white vote will be enough to vote in a bog-standard blue-dog Democrat, a lauded federal prosecutor about as radical as buttermilk, so that we don’t get a literal religious fanatic who believes in Christian-flavored Sharia law and has literally been thrown out of office twice since 2000 because of it.
The man is manifestly unqualified for office. He sits far outside the mainstream of conservative thought, as difficult as that is to imagine in Alabama in 2017. He is manifestly unpopular with elected Republicans who view him as a show horse and a glory hound. He is a repository for the kind of performative redneckery that leads most people in Alabama to point and howl at New York City and California for slandering their Southern culture and heritage. Listen here, hilljacks: the libel is coming from inside the house. No one is stereotyping Southerners more than the Southerners who run on those stereotypes and get votes from them.
This, too, is exactly why Democrats write off Alabama. It’s hard, and it’s harsh, and it’s unfair on the nonwhite population or those precious few Caucasians who actually want better for their state. But this should be a layup. This should be a fish, a barrel and a smoking gun. Money has poured into this race, national help has poured into this race, everything that can be done has been done. Who knows, the Democratic Socialist purity flowers may even find a way to hold their nose and bubble in for Doug. This is throwing everything that can be thrown. If it doesn’t work now? If the bastard child of Boss Hogg and Yosemite Sam as sired out of the love scene in Deliverance can win through anyway? Then tell me exactly where the percentage is in throwing money into a Senate race in Alabama ever.
Win the districts you can until the VRA lines get redrawn. Maybe pour some of this money into trying to retake the state legislature and work your way up from there. But give up on turning it blue. Retake the Congress and the White House by other means and then use the power of the federal government to do for those who deserve it despite the state’s best efforts. You know, exactly as we’ve had to do for the last fifty years, and will have to do until every white person born before 1970 lies dead in the cold red dirt.
If you can Argo the other folks, do. Rescue the ones who deserve better. But forget about the Roy Moore voters. They deserve nothing less or more than the consequences of their actions, and I have better things to do with my life. You see that sign outside my house that says Captain Save-A-Neck? You know why you don’t see that sign? Because saving necks ain’t my fucking business any more.