I’m reading a lot of ink about what Roy Moore’s primary victory over Luther Strange really means to the GOP party discipline. Is it a GOP Civil War? Jesus. Really? That’s the overriding question? Did everyone lose their minds? Mass amnesia? No, the GOP is just rotting from the inside.
Let me remind y’all what led up to this.
In early 2016, Alabama’s Republican Governor, Robert Bentley, fired Alabama Secretary of Law Enforcement, the head police officer. The now ex-Secretary accused Gov. Bentley of using state money for affair with his chief advisor, Rebekah Caldwell Mason, then using more state resources to cover it up.
Despite lots of denials, things went downhill as evidence mounted up, including a sexually explicit phone call the Governor’s wife recorded. (She later asked for a divorce.)
In February, 2017, Trump chose Alabama Senator Jeffery Sessions to be his Attorney General. That left Alabama without one of their Senators, and Alabama needed their Governor to appoint a new one.
Bentley appointed this guy he knew: Luther Strange. He knew him because Strange was the Alabama Attorney General, and Strange had been publicly discussing whether the AG’s office should investigate Gov. Bentley’s corrupt behavior.
Yup. Governor Bentley nominated the guy charged with investigating him. Because that’s ethically simple. This is your modern Republican party: the corrupt using the government’s resources to buy favors from the more corrupt.
Strange accepted and became the newest Alabama Senator, in what everyone in that same time zone understood was a bribe. Thankfully, the Alabama Republican party publicly disavowed any relationship with the nomination that was obviously illicit.
Ha! Did I fool anyone? No? Ah, well.
Yeah, the Republican party accepted it without a ripple. Within a month or so, Governor Bentley agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanors. He got a fine and community service, and resigned as governor, but Bentley avoided jail time, and he won’t get a felony conviction, so he can run for office later. The Republican party was cool with that deal, either.
Even with Trump coming down to campaign, “Luther Strange for the Senate!” wasn’t anyone’s vision of a sweet deal. And the only other choice was Roy Moore, is a bible-thumping, theocratic goon who doesn’t believe in the rule of law and was dismissed — twice — for premeditated unethical and illegal behavior.
Alabama is deep, deep red country. The primary winner is almost guaranteed to win the general election. The only measure is that ‘R’ after their names.
Now, Beltway blowhards are writing about ‘the Republican revolution’, and how Moore’s primary victory proves that the establishment GOP cannot maintain party control. I’m watching David Brooks on Meet the Press. (I think calling Brooks a ‘pundit’ is false advertising, but he’s a great measure of Republican rationalization.) This was how he discussed the “GOP Civil War”:
Listen, the Republican party…. What strikes me about this week is they thought they could beat the Nationalists — the Steve Bannons, the Roy Moores — with money and with organization. And they can’t do that. They need a story.
— David Brooks, Meet the Press, Oct 1, 2017
A story, David? Really, that’s the only lesson here? Brooks went on, saying the real problem was that the GOP didn’t spend enough time talking about… policy.
Nothing about the horrific corruption on both sides? Completely unethical behavior unmoderated by any meaningful oversight? Yeah, no, I didn’t hear anyone talking about that, either.
The Republican party obviously doesn’t care. It’s like they’ve given up on everything except staying in power. Hell, they’d support Cthulhu if that meant another Republican win.
I know this is dull. The only phrase less interesting than ‘Republican hypocrisy’ is ‘NATO funding’. It’s like an automatic ‘off’ switch for my mind. Republican hypocrisy is so boring nobody even reports on it anymore. It’s just too goddamn common.
They use that against us. Under the cover of criminal, inhuman dullness, Trump managed to add a breathtaking level of self-dealing and open corruption to the new ‘normal’, and nobody said anything.
Don’t just blame Trump. It’s what the Republican party stands for these days.
