Republicans Are Burning Themselves To The Ground As Roy Moore Refuses to Quit The Senate Race

Roy Moore just spat on Mitch McConnell. Figuratively speaking, of course.

Don't Miss Sarah Jones's Essay On Kristi Noem Titled Predatory Is The Point On The Daily.

Republican Judge Roy Moore, whose brother likened him to Jesus in response to multiple allegations of sexual misconduct – at least one instance illegally with a 14-year-old girl, just called the Senate Majority Leader’s bluff. Moore will not be stepping aside in the Alabama special election senate race. Instead, he called on McConnell to do so.

That is to say that Roy Moore exemplifies all that “Makes America Great” under Donald Trump. Sure, many women have come forward to say that he was inappropriate sexually with them, including a girl who was 14 at the time, but no sir that doesn’t make him unqualified. Just look at the inspiration Moore must be getting from the President’s own campaign.

Women accusing a Republican of rape, even, is not disqualifying. It is just proof for some Republican voters that the persecution they were primed to believe in is real. (Don’t tell them they are in the majority of the House, Senate, and their party is also running the executive branch so persecution should be hard to come by.)

McConnell said Monday morning that he “believed the women” – which is Republican for we are going to lose other races if we don’t distance ourselves from Roy Moore and also we never wanted Roy Moore in the first place. So it was perhaps tempting for McConnell to get to the part where he called on Moore to drop out.

This is the part where Moore spat on McConnell. Because he’s publicly saying that he’s not only not afraid of McConnell, but thinks McConnell is so impotent in Republican politics that Moore can humiliate the Majority Leader in public and still get elected.

McConnell probably didn’t want to pit himself against Moore this way, even though he didn’t want Moore for this seat and Moore has been running against McConnell, but McConnell has little choice. The Republican Party can ill afford to be so consistently branded as the party of predators and pedophiles.

McConnell just made it easier for Moore to keep running against McConnell and use the allegations as further proof of his imagined Christ-like persecution. There’s nothing the conservative base loves more than their persecution complex, and it is so rare – especially when in complete power – to come by a good persecution story. But here McConnell can be the Devil along with Democrats, the women, and the media. Together, they wipe out reality.

McConnell knows that if Moore takes that seat, Democrats can make 2018 about the party of pedos and preds. So McConnell has to try to stop Moore even if it feeds right into Moore’s strategy.

It would be beyond ironic if Donald Trump’s agenda were derailed by the outing of a sexual predator – that is to say, if Moore loses the seat to the Democrat because of these allegations.

But it would also be ironic if Moore were not derailed by these accusations and he got into the Senate because then McConnell would be faced with the Boehner-esque misery of trying to get Republicans to stand together for something, and McConnell has not shown that he is capable of Pelosi-level caucus whipping.

If Moore gets in, it means McConnell has been cut off at the knees. By a Republican.

… And the Chief Obstructor will have just been brought down by the very movement he cultivated with his nihilistic approach to governing for eight years under Obama.

All of this is a win for Democrats. Either they get the seat now, or they attach predator Senator Moore to every Republican running in 2018.

Sarah Jones

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