Alas, if recent polls are right, Roy Moore is likely to win his Senate race in Alabama. That means we’ll have to spend at least the next two years doing something that fills me with abject dread: hearing the name “Roy Moore.”
Moore’s supporters seem to break into roughly two camps. The first accepts that the twice-ejected judge probably did prey on underage girls when he was in his 30s. But they say that policy matters are just too important: Take Tully Borland who argues at the Federalist that because of Jones’ support for abortion, a Moore vote is a moral must. (Our Chris Deaton, who has been reporting from Alabama, has found many voters for whom this is a compelling argument.) Borland-like arguments have come in for quite a bit of criticism, but give them this: They’re coherent. They also accept what looks plainly factual: That Moore is a creep. They just say that’s not as important as the “issues.”
The second camp of Moore-ons is far more troubling. They, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, don’t believe the allegations against the Republican candidate. Here’s a stunning and frightening finding: Only 9 percent of Trump voters in Alabama even believe the charges against Moore, according to a recent poll. This despite the fact that the charges have been extensively documented, and that Moore, despite claims he would do so, has done absolutely nothing to refute them. And James O’Keefe’s recent failed attempt to entrap the Washington Post only served to further validate the charges against Moore: In a hilarious own-goal for O’Keefe and his ilk, the failed sting demonstrated that the Post is in fact vetting the claims against Moore with the utmost rigor.
Now, I suspect that some Moore supporters are simply claiming to not believe his victims because they don’t want to admit to pollsters (or to themselves!) that they plan to vote for someone who has been accused, repeatedly, of child molestation. But you can be sure there are many as well who really do think that this is all a big conspiracy, or that the truth is relative. This kind of postmodernism is not a good sign for the future of our politics.
