He almost won

Yay! No, seriously, fucking yay. Roy Moore was defeated last night. Just in case there is cause to read this after we've all forgotten this happened (probably sooner than is safe to consider) he was trying to be elected a U.S. senator for Alabama. He is also a racist, homophobe accused of child molestation and sexual assault. And I am very glad, nay ecstatic, that he was defeated by Doug Jones. The celebration is on amongst Democrats, liberals and well, right-minded people. Some phrases that keep popping up: "morality wins", "sanity reigns", "hope is restored" and my personal favorite display of meta-irony, "thank God". And, yes, by all means, let's celebrate. But.

Where do we find ourselves when we are thrilled that this nightmare of a candidate receives 48.4% of the vote? How the in the name of all that is sane and right is it close? How could he possibly even be a candidate, much less narrowly defeated? Consider:

- he was dismissed from the Alabama supreme court for refusing a federal court order to remove a monument to the ten commandments he had installed after becoming chief justice

- he was dismissed again - skipping over the question of how the hell the got back to the bench - for telling Alabama judges to ignore another federal ruling, this time legalizing same-sex marriage

This means he ran for the senate after he was dismissed from the bench TWICE for pissing on the Constitution. How is this even possible? Is anything disqualifying? No. Not even things revealed in his own words:

"Homesexual behavior is a crime against nature, an inherent evil, and an act so heinous that it defies one's ability to describe it."

"There is no such thing as evolution."

"What's going to unite us? A president? A congress? No. It's going to be God."

The Sandy Hook shooting was "because we have forgotten the law of God."

"Transgender people don't have rights."

Now, I try to believe in a free democracy, and that candidates should be able to run on whatever they believe in. In fact, I wish we could get more honesty and transparency in campaigns, so while I actively despise this guy and wish he would shut up and disappear, he is not the problem. He isn't even the worst candidate you can look up and I haven't even gone into his batshit crazy attitudes towards other fraught topics like immigration, gun control and reproductive rights. The problem is that he could run and get half the vote. That is what terrifies and depresses me, and doesn't even take into account the recent allegations. Shouldn't this have been enough? He had the support of the RNC and the GOP and was going to win - probably decisively - before the allegations surfaced. He should've been reviled, ridiculed, dismissed and disqualified before the allegations surfaced. He has to be a child molestor and sexual predator before we can decide to rally the troops and keep him out of the senate?? 

The fact that the RNC pulled their support after the allegations came out was heartening, as were the conservative voices that called for his candidacy to be suspended. "We can't have this guy in the senate, he's a scumbag" to paraphrase. But then the realization dawns they might actually lose a senate seat and imperil their chance to enact all the soulless policies on the oligarch's wish list and any chance at sanity and rightness evaporates. The conservative media contort themselves into ever more amazing positions of justification, denial and defense of the indefensible, the RNC gets back on board, Lord Dampnut (thank you Colin Mochrie for one of the great all-time anagrams) endorses and now it takes the full weight of progressive social opinion, the (admittedly feeble) full strength of the Democrat machine and reliance on the very Republicans in Alabama who just couldn't bring themselves to vote for the unrepentant sack of shit that is Roy Moore. And the truly cynical among us have to wonder if the party support came about only because of an opportunity to gain a seat and not out of a sense of right or wrong, which makes them in some ways no better than their GOP counterparts. Moral or opportunistic? Yikes.

So while I am very glad, joyful even, that Roy Moore was defeated (and yes I am the pot accusing the kettle in not an inconsequential part of that joy rising from the gaining of a seat) and trying very hard to take heart in his victory - I want to have my faith bolstered, I do! - I cannot help but be horrified that he almost won. I am glad that being accused of child molestation and assault is enough to keep an evil man out of the senate, but appalled that it takes that much to keep an evil person out of the senate. Sorry for not popping celebratory champagne, gang, I'm sticking to palliative scotch. He almost won.

Update: Fox and Friends said the election result was "not a referendum on Trump" but instead "a referendum on Harvey Weinstein". I shit you not. *Sigh*

And then there's this.