Maybe, just maybe, Tommy Tuberville is our fault.
The fault of the sane people. The fault of the non-crazies.
Because we’re not harsh people. We don’t like to try and force our beliefs and thoughts on others. We prefer rational conversations and honest debate. And God bless us, we still, after all this time and Donald Trump, expect the best of people.
And so, when a former mediocre college football coach who just last year was telling ESPN how much he loved living in Florida showed up and announced that he was running for U.S. Senate in Alabama, we all dismissed it as a sideshow not worth our time.
We assumed — and you know how that usually goes — that even the Republicans in Alabama would tire quickly of Tuberville’s pandering routine.
That his six finger-salute to Alabama fans a few years ago would spell his doom.
Or the fact that his entire campaign platform consists of him saying the word “Trump” as often as possible would eventually wear thin
Or that his complete and utter ignorance of anything even remotely having to do with the senate, the U.S. government or Alabama would make quick work of his campaign.
But, yet again, that’s on us. Because we just never imagined that a senate candidate traveling around the state and saying dumb and racist things, without ever speaking a word of specifics about policy, programs or initiatives, would attract a significant number of voters.
Wrong again.
Tuberville remains near the front of the GOP race to take on Doug Jones, who is in the unenviable position of being a sane, qualified, decent human being and also a politician in Alabama. Internal polling taken by the campaigns after the initial announcement by Jeff Sessions that he was coming out of the tree to reclaim his old seat has shown Tuberville fairly even with Sessions — to the surprise of pretty much everyone.
Aiding Tuberville’s poll numbers is the backing he received from ALFA.
(Is there a group of people less interested in voting for their own interests than Alabama farmers? Trump’s policies have KILLED farmers in this state, sending major purchasers of Alabama crops to other countries for better deals. Which will hurt ALFA members well into the future. But no matter. They’re still backing Trump and they’re backing Tuberville.)
And why wouldn’t ALFA members back Tuberville? After all, who has done more for the Alabama farmer than … well, actually, pretty much everyone else in the state has done more than Tuberville.
No matter. There he was on Monday evening at the Farmers’ Federation annual meeting, with a prime speaking spot. And boy, did he ever deliver.
Tuberville told the crowd, according to the Montgomery Advertiser’s Bryan Lyman, that “God sent Donald Trump” to us. He later proclaimed that Christianity is “dying” and that we need to do something to save it.
This is the guy hundreds of thousands of Alabama voters want to send to Washington D.C. to represent this state.
The guy who drove past the state Christmas tree, the City of Montgomery Christmas tree, thousands of Christmas lights decorating the downtown area of Montgomery, where a Christmas parade was held just last week, to tell a crowd full of people, who were undoubtedly missing a small group meeting, that Christianity is dying.
That, kids, is a special level of stupid.
And our apologies for not saying so sooner.
In fact, let me just be clear: If you vote for Tommy Tuberville, you are an imbecile who should be hit repeatedly over the head with a history book in the hopes that some knowledge eventually seeps from the pages and into your brain.
What is wrong with y’all?
Are y’all actually saying that all it takes to win votes in Alabama is the willingness to travel the state saying awful things about people?
Forget understanding how government works. Forget understanding the issues facing the people of the state. Forget understanding how a U.S. senator could address those issues.
Just rail against LGBTQ people, disparage immigrants, play the oppressed majority role and work Trump’s name into every other sentence and you can start picking out the drapes in senate office.
Pathetic.
This is the reason Alabama is last in everything good and first in everything bad. The majority of voters in this state vote FOR the awfulness. In many cases, and Tuberville is certainly one of them, the awfulness is the only qualifying attribute for them.
And the rest of us sit quietly by, hoping despite all the historical evidence, that this time it will be different. That people will come to their senses. That surely the folks who claim to know Jesus couldn’t possibly vote for candidates who quite clearly don’t.
It’s pretty clear where keeping quiet has left us.
