Opinion | Say it louder, Bobby Singleton

Finally, someone was willing to say what needed to be said. To pull no punches. To put it down, as my grandmother used to say, where the goats can get it. 

“I think that my Republican colleagues are being cowards … and I said it, yes,” state Sen. Bobby Singleton said Thursday afternoon. 

Singleton’s comments came following a marathon filibuster pulled off by himself and fellow Democratic Sen. Rodger Smitherman, and after Singleton had, moments before, ran through a laundry list of failures by Alabama Republicans to take a stand against Elon Musk, Donald Trump and the hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts, job losses and random acts of insanity that have negatively impacted this state. 

The only problem with what Singleton said is that he didn’t say it louder and more times. 

But as it was, there was outrage among the rightwingers, which tells you that Singleton’s words hit home. He’s right, and deep down, they know he’s right. 

Republicans in this state have sat on their hands and kept their mouths shut as the co-president and his team of teenage programmers have slashed and burned vital institutions in Alabama, potentially costing the state billions in health care research funding and thousands of lost jobs. God only knows what awaits our military institutions and veterans services. 

Singleton specifically called out Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall for filing or joining a frivolous lawsuit per week when challenging the Biden administration’s efforts to aid the marginalized or protect the planet, but never uttering a peep when the state’s NIH funding was unceremoniously – and likely illegally – stopped by an unelected South African billionaire, who himself holds billions of dollars in government contracts. 

“It’s hurting institutions like UAB,” Singleton said. “Hundreds of millions of dollars can be taken from our research hospitals right here in this state. We could lose doctors in this state. Our attorney general hasn’t said anything. Twenty-two other states have filed actions on that executive order and it has been halted in all 22 of those other states, but Alabama won’t say anything.

“(Marshall) is always jumping in and wanting to file actions against everything else but he won’t file anything against this president and Elon Musk. I have a problem with that.”

It was at that point that Singleton called them all cowards. 

What else should he call them – these folks who are in power in this state but who stand idly by, hats in hands, and watch the good and decent people who work federal jobs be straight up vilified? Who watch their institutions, like Auburn University, the University of Alabama, UAB and all of our HBCUs, be defunded? Who stand quietly to the side as our veterans lose services? Who never utter a peep when vital services that aid some of Alabama’s poorest, sickest and neediest citizens are stripped away? Who look the other way as farmers are teetering on the edge of losing their family farms? 

I mean, no one’s asking for these people to be John McCain voting to save Obamacare, but damn, say something. Make a phone call. Hold a town hall and tell people that you’re going to have their backs, that you oppose the cuts, that you’ll fight for their jobs. 

Because I have to tell you, this is starting to turn very, very ugly for Republicans. The American public, even in this deep red state, is outraged by what they’re seeing and the bungled, callous way these cuts are being handled. Rep. Terri Sewell, one of the state’s two Democrats in Congress, said that her most recent telephone town hall had 20,000 callers. After an hour, at the very end, there were still 3,000 people on the line. That ain’t normal. 

You can repeat all you’d like that the American people voted for cuts, but that’s like saying the American people voted to eat steaks after you served them rancid beef crawling with worms. 

Because no one voted to fire a bunch of FAA employees and then watch planes crash, or nearly crash, every other day. No one voted to fire nuclear workers and then rush to try and hire them back because you didn’t realize what they did. No one voted to vilify good people who were just doing the jobs we offered to give them. 

And by the way, if you’re one of the people out here trying to cast federal workers as moochers and spouting off about waste as an excuse to randomly fire people, your points would be so more well received had you even once voted to oust the incumbents lawmakers – the ones who approved the spending and all of the jobs you’re now complaining about. 

Thankfully, in addition to the public outrage, we’re starting to see the federal courts step in the way of many of these cuts and firings. That’s fairly par for the course for Alabama, where we’ve survived thanks to federal court rulings that have prevented the dumbest among us from ruling with impunity. 

That doesn’t make what Singleton said wrong. Nor does it lessen the need for someone to point it out. 

Honestly, it was just refreshing to see someone take a stand for the state and for the working people in it.