Moore or Less the GOP's Soul

(By American Zen’s Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari)

The right wing's ambivalent rallying around accused child molester Roy Moore involves more than just the soul for the state of Alabama- It involves what passes for or what's left of the soul of the Republican Party's. The nadir of this debate was delineated perfectly on Sean Hannity's show when during Hannity's broadcast, the Fox chyron openly asked, at the expense of some big sponsors, "What if the child consents though?" As if that's even up for debate, as if children that age are legally able to give their consent (In Alabama in 1979, as now, the age of consent was 16).

     Some Republicans have done the right thing even if only in the interests of political survival. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, an otherwise scurvy and reliable human sawhorse to anything remotely resembling human progress, has called for Roy Moore to drop out of the Senate race. But that's in 15 days and Alabama law dictates that a candidate dropping out of a race has to give 76 days notice for the simple reason that the ballots are printed up that far in advance of an election. So they're stuck with Roy Moore as their man whether they like it or not.

     While Trump has decided not to campaign for Moore (look what his support did for Luther Strange in the GOP runoff election). he's tacitly putting his support behind a man who's been accused by a woman for fondling her and soliciting her for sex in 1979 when she was still a 14 year-old child. Then there's the story, albeit unproven, that Moore during roughly this time having been banned from a mall in Gadsden, Alabama for ogling and approaching other underage girls. Then there's the growing list of other women who said they'd been approached if not sexually assaulted by Moore, many of them while they were in their teens.

     In a way, Moore is like Trump redux, who himself had pending litigation in Manhattan for raping a 13 year-old girl while she was held captive in the apartment of fellow billionaire Jeffrey Epstein (before the charges mysteriously and quietly were dropped, again, just before Election Day). Many mainstream Republicans, of which McConnell was not one (Trump's Transportation Secretary is his wife, after all), had opposed Trump. John McCain, after tacitly giving his endorsement to Trump even after his, "I like guys weren't captured" comment, quickly withdrew his endorsement exactly a month before the election, a political rarity on a par with a lawmaker kicking a lobbyist out of their office. McCain's outgoing colleague Jeff Flake has taken to social and print media as well as the airways to publicly humiliate Trump. Bob Corker, another retiring Republican, is doing much the same.

     And as anyone can tell you, the waning Republican support for Roy Moore, a guy who hasn't held a public event in 10 days, revolves around one single issue- The tax cut for the rich bill. Trump can't get ObamaCare repealed much less TrumpCare passed, almost entirely because of John McCain, so he's pinning what may prove to be his legacy on the tax cut bill that will devastate poor and middle income families while providing tax cuts on corporate jets and savings to the Walton and Koch families to the tune of tens of billions.

     Here's the problem- The Republicans hold a slender 52-48 majority in the upper chamber, meaning if the Democrats win back three of their seats (even though virtually all of them are in deeply crimson states), they get the majority and Trump's tax bill goes down in flames like the ObamaCare repeal had.

     And Republicans can't have that. That is why people like Hannity and the Trump-backed Jailbird Jimmy O'Keefe's Veritas Media are busy trying to do everything to discredit Moore's accusers regardless of how tender their age at the time of their encounters rather than giving Alabama voters an actual reason to vote for Moore aside from him having the "R" after his name. Jeff Flake calls the GOP support of Roy Moore, "political tribalism at its worst."

     The congressional majority leaders McConnell and Ryan practically have dry heaves when the subject of Trump comes up. They secretly acknowledge that getting into bed with Trump was the biggest mistake of their political careers but they acknowledge that he's a useful idiot and will sign any legislation that's a boon to their wealthy bosses on Wall Street and their overseers in the Bible Belt.

     Except Trump hasn't signed any major legislation. Aside from ramming or shoehorning in religious and Big Business zealots into the Cabinet, it can't be said Congress has done a hell of a lot, either. And now, Republicans are handed seemingly a golden opportunity to welcome into their ranks a fellow Republican who's a sure vote for tax "reform" who also just happens to be an accused child molester, one who had not actually denied the allegations as much as he's simply avoiding the media and the voters of Alabama.

     Is it worth their soul to help this man get elected, for one vote that will take all of five minutes? This is what Republicans, and Alabama voters, have to decide. And if they do help get this man elected, or to at least not stand in his path to Capitol Hill, it may not even be a question of whether or not they save their soul but the outcome determining whether they still have one.