By Josh Moon
Alabama Political Reporter
Apparently, this needs to be said again: Alabama does not deserve better than Roy Moore.
Back when former Gov. Robert Bentley was first rumored to have misused taxpayer money to facilitate an affair with his top advisor, there was this crazy idea among many around the state that somehow Alabamians deserved better than Robert Bentley.
He was an embarrassment to the state, they said.
He was making us look foolish, they said.
We deserve better than this man, they said.
I wrote at the time that we didn’t deserve better than Bentley. And we don’t deserve better than Roy Moore now.
Because the voters of this state elected both men, along with convicted felon and former House Speaker Mike Hubbard, felon and former state Rep. Oliver Robinson, plea-dealing state Rep. Greg Wren and an unimaginable number of worthless, pandering, fear-mongering politicians who have left this state broke, sick and hopeless.
No one forced people to vote for this bunch of crooks.
This is who voters in Alabama chose to put in charge. Despite all evidence and facts and history, this is the sad group of politicians duly elected and seated. And if given the opportunity, voters in this state would very likely put these same men back in charge.
Evidence: Roy Moore.
It makes me incredibly angry to hear Republicans, particularly the ones from this state, express a desire now to be appalled by Moore’s alleged actions. Where the hell have you all been the last 20 years?
Remember when Roy, the chief justice of the state’s Supreme Court, said it was illegal to be gay?
Y’all were cool with that?
Remember when Roy, the chief justice of the state’s Supreme Court, said a duly elected Muslim Congressman shouldn’t be allowed to serve because of his religion?
That wasn’t enough to keep you from filling in the bubble beside his name?
What about when Roy, the chief justice of the state’s Supreme Court, defied a federal court order over a Ten Commandments monument?
I won’t even ask if that was OK, since you all re-elected the man to the same position.
And I guess I shouldn’t bother asking if you’d re-elect him a third time, after he was tossed from the bench a second time for ordering state probate judges to disregard a Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage, because you’ve answered that one by voting this embarrassment to a step away from the U.S. Senate.
Seriously, consider what I’m saying here.
This clown show is one step away from being one of 100 people who play an important role in shaping the country.
Except, now there are women claiming that Roy Moore chased young girls. One of the alleged victims was under the age of consent. Another has claimed Moore forcibly assaulted her. Of the five women who have gone on the record, only one was 18 when Moore, then in his 30s, was pursuing and trying to date them.
Since that original story broke, there has been no serious holes punched in it. And now the locals around Gadsden, emboldened by the sudden exposure of juicy town secrets, have started to spill the beans on a host of creepy Roy Moore stories.
The guy was banned from the mall for trying to pick up teens. His coworkers found his obsession with younger women peculiar.
And suddenly, Roy Moore has turned into a national pariah, and state GOP officials are trying to figure out what they should do about the man.
And here comes that line again: Alabama deserves better than Roy Moore.
But it doesn’t.
He’s the lesson voters in this state need. He’s the lesson GOP voters nationally — who just watched their party be kidnapped by racists and a Russian sellout — need.
Because they need to learn the consequences of voting based on fear and greed, instead of on the betterment of all people and fairness.
That’s what this is really about.
The people in Alabama didn’t vote for Roy Moore because they believed he’d help them find better jobs or fix their schools or provide them an opportunity to purchase better, more affordable health care, and now they’re surprised to find that he’s nothing like that.
They voted for him because he scared the hell out of them.
He convinced them that their Christianity was under attack, that gay marriage was going to destroy America, that transgender people were going to attack their kids in restrooms, that God was angry and that we’re all going to hell.
That fear of change and of anyone or anything slightly different has ruled the Alabama voting booth since this place was founded. And greed has followed a close second.
The people of this state — generation after generation of people in this state — have been shown the consequences of such ignorance. And yet, time and again, election after election, the voting majority in this state enter voting booths and pick the people who promise to protect Confederate monuments and cut their paltry taxes and put prayer back in schools and force store clerks to say Merry freakin’ Christmas.
And then, when it all inevitably blows up in our faces, and we’re left a steaming pile of national embarrassment by these conmen and charlatans, these same voters have the gall to shake their heads in disgust, throw up their hands and proclaim that Alabama deserves better than this.
But the sad fact is we don’t.
We’re getting exactly what we deserve.
