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A big, heartfelt “thank you” to the good people of Alabama tonight.
With 97% of precincts reporting, today’s special Senate election has been called for Democrat Doug Jones, who looks to have defeated accused pedophile and confirmed racist Roy Moore by less than one percentage point. Jones seems to have won due to a combination of factors, including significantly higher than normal black voter turnout, and the fact that 1.7% of those who cast ballots decided to take Senator Richard Shelby’s advice and write-in a choice other than either Jones or Moore. This, as we’ve discussed before, is absolutely huge, as it not only keeps the reprehensible Moore out of the Senate, but also puts the Democrats in position to possibly take back the chamber in 2018, assuming things continue to trend the way they are in Arizona and Nevada. The question is, what will Trump and those loyal to him do now that it’s clear the tide it turning, and that the recent Democratic victories in Virginia weren’t a fluke? Granted, we were running a very good candidate against a likely pedophile in this Alabama race, but, still, this is huge. When a Democrat wins in Alabama, it’s a sign that tremendous change is afoot. And it’s got to be scaring the shit out of the Republicans and their donors, who, by the way, still haven’t gotten those enormous tax cuts that they’d been promised.
And, speaking of those tax cuts, it’s now sounding as though Rand Paul may vote no on the reconciled Republican bill when it comes out of the joint House-Senate committee, which means that the they may not have the votes to pass it. [Now that we have Jones in the Senate, the Republicans can only afford to lose two votes, and they’ve already lost Corker. So, if Paul also votes no, that means the bill will fail 51 to 49. And, even if Paul votes yes, it’s still possible that either Collins or Flake could vote against the massively unpopular giveaway to the rich.] And, if Trump fails to deliver on his promise to wealthy Republican donors, it’s really difficult to imagine why they’d continue to support him.
I know it’s probably overly optimistic to say what I’m about to say, as Trump could wake up tomorrow and fire Mueller, declare martial law, and go on Fox News to announce his intention to wage war against the “deep state” coup being waged by Hillary Clinton and the FBI, bone spurs be damned, but I really do think we could look back on today as the beginning of the end… the point when Republicans started acknowledging the abject failure of the Trump administration, and looking toward the future. [Just a quick reminder… Trump has failed to pass even a single piece of legislation over one year’s time, in spite of having control over the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate. And, as I noted above, the Republican he was backing in the Alabama Senate race just lost to a pro-life Democrat.]
If I were a betting man, I’d say that quite a few Republicans tonight are wondering if now might be the right time to cut Trump loose in an attempt to save their party. Personally, I think the party was already long gone when Trump pulled its withered husk around himself and used it to take the White House, but I suspect there are still some who think that they can bring the party back with an epic post-Trump reboot, and I know they have to be thinking that, unless they want to be swept completely in 2018, they need to do something now. But thinking about ousting Trump, and actually doing it, are two very different things, and I don’t know who in the Republican party actually has the guts to stand up and do it. We’ll see, though. Maybe a leader will emerge…
I mean, miracles can happen, right? Look what just happened in Alabama.
