Roy Moore is probably a child molester.
OK, who here is shocked that that guy is a child molester? Honestly, I was so convinced before yesterday's news that I was scouring my own comments here thinking that I had been making Dennis Hastert jokes about this fuckin' creep. Something about him just screams "stranger danger" to me. In fact, I haven't made such comments openly, that I can find, but when yesterday's news broke, my surprise was only that the kids he was molesting were girls. Like I said, when I looked at this creep, before the news broke, I had been thinking "Dennis Hastert." Something about this guy...
Regardless, he'll probably still win his Alabama Senate race because he passes the Edwin Edwards test. The girls were... girls. And they were alive, not dead. Former Rep. Gary Condit (D-CA)? Remember him? Chandra Levy turned up dead, and since he was having an affair with her, despite the fact that he had nothing to do with her death, he had to leave politics. Remember Senator Larry "Wide Stance" Craig? The guy caught soliciting male prostitutes in the Minneapolis airport? (He claimed that the foot-tap signal he was using was because of his "wide stance"...) Live boys...
Roy Moore? Live girls. Does it matter that they were under age? Morally, yes. He was 32, she was 14. Legally, no. The statute of limitations is up, as I understand it.
Politically? Let's ask President Pussy-grabber. You know, the guy who brags about being able to get away with sexual assault. Hey, remember that time that Trump told a 14-year-old that in a few years, he'd be dating her?
Or, you know, him going backstage to harass naked beauty pageant contestants?
Or, you know, the fact that there are a dozen women accusing him of sexual assault?
Edwin Edwards. Dead girl, or live boy. If Roy Moore had been caught diddling a live boy, he'd be toast. In Alabama, they don't tolerate that. (Remember, the Klan hates Catholics too! Double-zing!) Dead girl? Nope. No dice. As is? Roy Moore is in the clear. This is the era of President Pussy-grabber.
Could a strong Democratic candidate take advantage of a bad scandal? In principle, maybe. Who is Moore's opponent? Doug Jones. Not Saru from Star Trek: Discovery. (Not that Alabamans have ever heard of Star Trek...) Doug Jones fails to meet the basic qualifications in political science for "strong candidate." He has never held elected office before. He'll get trounced. By a child molester.
Why? Because it's fucking Alabama, and the child-molesting piece of shit has an R after his name.
If there is one lesson I try to beat into my students' skulls about elections and voting behavior, it is this:
Party identification.
Party ID beats damn-near everything. Alabama is a majority-Republican state. The Republican majority electorate in Alabama is going to hear Roy Moore tell them that everything is a "fake news" liberal elite conspiracy. And they'll believe him, just like they've believed every other bit of bullshit following that formula, dating back long before Trump. And then they will elect a child molester, unless something very specific comes out in addition to what we already have now. Video, a bunch of witnesses, boys... Something. With what there is now, Moore probably still wins.
Dennis Hastert served as Speaker of the House. He was a child molester, but he paid blackmail money to keep it a secret. If he had only known that all he had to do was scream "FAKE NEWS," he could have saved himself a lot of money.
Once enough legislators of a certain variety are serving together, they organize into a formal group called a "caucus." I wonder when we get a "Sex Offenders' Caucus."
In case you are wondering where rock-bottom is, there is a fantastic book series by N.K. Jemisin that will soon, supposedly, be turned into a tv series-- the Broken Earth series. There is a scene in which a character named Alabaster is on a rock, but is physically dragged down, through the rock, by a supernatural being called a "stone eater." We are all Alabaster right now.
If you have read the books, um... you know what comes after that.