When one of America’s most ultra-conservative and racially backward states stuns the nation by rejecting a Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate endorsed by the president, there’s no state in the union where Republicans running for election next year aren’t in danger. That goes for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and the state’s incumbent Republican legislators and congressmen (including House Speaker Paul Ryan) who thought they were safely gerrymandered into lifetime jobs.
Virtually no one predicted Democrat Doug Jones’ upset victory over Republican Roy Moore in overwhelmingly Republican Alabama until the votes actually starting coming in hours after the polls closed. But both Republicans and Democrats now see the toxic toll that hateful Republican rhetoric and policies under Donald Trump have taken on the president’s party. If Republicans can’t win in Alabama, they’re not safe anywhere. The shocker in Alabama followed total wipeouts for Republicans in statewide elections in Virginia and New Jersey a month earlier.
Here are a few emerging political truths that appear to be propelling Republicans toward their well-deserved, imminent destruction:
• Never a Good Idea to Nominate Reprehensible Candidates
Sure, Republicans somehow got away with nominating Trump, but only temporarily. Since his election, Trump’s raw racism and religious bigotry, vile misogyny and steady stream of outrageous lies have suppressed the Republican vote and passionately energized Democrats. Roy Moore, an accused child molester, claimed he didn’t remember dating underage girls as a prosecutor in his 30s, but if he did, he got their mothers’ permission first.
The important Alabama lesson for Democrats is, for God’s sake, support good candidates. As the prosecutor who convicted two Klansmen for killing four little girls in the notorious civil rights-era bombing of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church, Doug Jones was always a strong candidate. But the national Democratic Party didn’t put any substantial funding into the race until Jones had already raised enormous amounts of money from progressives across the country. Sure, it was an uphill battle, but Democrats can now win uphill battles with good candidates in the Trump era.
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• Black Votes Matter
The mutual admiration between Trump and white supremacists is powering phenomenal voter turnout among all racial minorities. Alabama’s black turnout of 29% of the electorate in an off-year special election for Jones, a white candidate, actually exceeded what are usually much higher turnouts in the presidential elections of 2008 and 2012 when Barack Obama, the nation’s only African American president, was on the ballot. And that black vote went 96% for Jones.
Jones campaigned in black communities with prominent African Americans including Alabama native Charles Barkley and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker. Jones’ candidacy also was boosted by former Republican Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice—a childhood friend of the four girls murdered in Birmingham. Moore’s black support was limited to former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke appearing with white supremacist Trump strategist Steve Bannon to proclaim electing the deplorable Moore was vital to “the survival of this republic.”
• All You Creeps Who Treat Women as Your Prey
This is a terrible time to be identified as the party of sexual predators with Trump and Moore as your poster boys. Decent men who care about women are beginning to learn about the inhuman treatment many women face throughout their lives. Alabama women were far from raging feminists: 63% of white women voted for Moore. But the women’s vote overall, powerfully influenced by women of color, went 57% to 41% to Jones.
• That Old-Time Religion Ain’t What It Used to Be
In another potentially revolutionary change, opposition to abortion appears to be losing its punch as a political issue. In both Virginia and Alabama, Southern voters elected Democrats who openly supported abortion rights and funding for Planned Parenthood as women’s health issues. That could be significant in Wisconsin where not a single female Republican legislator supports a woman’s right to choose—including State Sen. Alberta Darling, a former board member of Planned Parenthood.
Evangelical voters are giving Christianity a bad name by supporting morally repugnant politicians such as Trump and Moore. An evangelical minister even compared accusations of Moore preying on young girls to Joseph’s relationship with the teenage Virgin Mary. Joseph was never banned from a mall.
Just a year after one of the most morally shocking national election victories in American history, Republicans suddenly find themselves in a completely new world. That explains why they’ve decided to use their fading power to grab millions of dollars in tax benefits for themselves and their wealthy friends while they still can.
In Wisconsin and in every other state where Democrats and working people have been completely shut out of power, the opportunity to throw off the corrupt Republican perversion of democracy under Trump has arrived ahead of schedule.
