Alabama’s election results say only one thing clearly
… and it’s that a Democrat was barely preferable to a candidate so mired in allegations that he’ll probably get his own Netflix docuseries soon.
If 2016 taught me only one lesson, it’s that election dollars aren’t a lasting investment in communities and their people. If life doesn’t improve for the people of Alabama who voted for Roy Moore with the same rationale behind their choice as in the 2016 Presidential election, their vindication will only cement their resentment of establishment politics and the DNC.
Victory by a small margin is only what you make of it. Jones’ win in an election rife with some of the dirtiest politics imaginable was not the landslide of a beloved and heroic public servant — it was the marginal shrug of a people choosing the lesser of two offensive options. Jones’ stance on issues such as abortion is unacceptable to many people in Alabama, yet they did the thing and “took one for the team.” In doing so, they implied a more stringent covenant with Jones even if its terms are the same as for any public official — that he will fairly represent Alabama and do his part to improve its circumstances — despite a probable preference for Moore’s stated values (if not, ultimately, his candidacy).
We all know what happens if you win an election with any outcome other than a hefty majority of the popular vote. You can still be a tyrant, ignore your constituents, neglect your duties, and make arbitrary decisions that affect millions. But you do all of those things wearing golf shoes while dancing on thinner ice covering a rotting pond that could very well become a swamp tomb for your career.
Given that the DNC has systematically failed to uphold its responsibilities across the country when in the majority, to keep winning elections in any state as “the least bad option” does not bode well for the long-term health and wealth of the Democratic Party, and definitely not for the American people.
Frankly, some states may not take the trade off of the promise of a supposedly more humane approach to politics for the immediate if irresponsible action approach to governing that we’ve seen this year. Are enough allegations against Republican candidates lined up to win 45 more elections for Democrats if they can’t win on the strength of their platform alone?
Winning doesn’t mean very much if you don’t do enough in your tenure to markedly improve life for your constituents, or at least show your work on their behalf — it just means that you and everyone nearby who shares the same party affiliation, and subsequently, the responsibility for the party’s failures, will lose on the next pendulum swing.
With the Senate on the precipice of 50–50, I can understand my words coming across as a needless downer at a stressful time. I think it crucial to examine if inching closer to parity in the Senate comes at the expense of the people of Alabama largely doing something they never wanted to do, and how they will be repaid in kind by their neighbors and fellow Americans for not making the choice many red states were lambasted for in 2016. Wouldn’t many voters who pulled the lever for Jones have enjoyed greater success under Moore? If so, can we agree that the high cost of their choice deserves enough respect that we hold Jones to a higher standard than the Democrats have actually set?
Telling communities they must elect representatives preferable to other people somewhere else in the country — when they have plans and goals of their own that would be facilitated to greater success under leaders we outsiders may find distasteful — will lead to disappointment. Three clear examples of this reality are our President, the Senate Majority Leader, and the Speaker of the House.
Instead, turning the mirror on our own communities and demanding and supporting the development of a greater pedigree of leaders will allow us to hopefully provide suitable alternatives worth the individual cost. We must facilitate paths to success for the huge portion of non-racist non-scumbags out there who benefit personally from the reign of douche lords. Many have families to take care of and enough responsibilities to uphold that they make a shitty choice at the expense of neighbors and fellow Americans.
Alabama did not make that choice. If we truly believe in cooperation and camaraderie, we must ease the difficulty of doing the right thing. We must ease burdens. We must actually govern. Then, at least, we retain the right to criticize our opponents — for their actual failures, and not for unproven or untrustworthy claims against their character. Then, winning can mean something again — not that things won’t get worse, but that we generally agree upon the shape of change to come.
Doug Jones should wear his margin as a badge, a reminder that he owes the people of Alabama in exchange for their historical flip in his favor. He especially owes the people whose votes were suppressed by intricate and oppressive laws and practices endemic to many states. He owes all of them opportunity, his ear, and change. He has the chance to be the change the DNC needs to show across the country, and to make it sustainable.
Everyone celebrating Jones’ victory today (and an additional vote against the GOP in the Senate) should also wear celebratory posts as badges, promising a personal investment in the state of Alabama and its people. If we care who won this election, we have to care about the voters there too, and all the people who ended up unable to vote because of bullshit policies and practices present in our own hometowns. We have to care that whatever fraction of Democrats in leadership positions in Alabama are doing their jobs and doing them well. If the Democratic Party cannot offer candidates more suitable than a man with as many heinous allegations on his front lawn as blades of grass, then they do not deserve to govern either.
We need to start winning on the strength of our performance, not thanks to the mistakes made by our opponents. Over time, mistakes are forgivable, even appreciated, if accompanied by honesty and addressed to an audience fatigued by rhetoric. Doug Jones has the chance to be that example and prove he is worthy of Alabamans’ trust. In doing so, he might even help change his environment such that a blue victory there is no longer almost unimaginable. He could be the catalyst for an evolution in partisan politics, a Democrat from the deep South that has worked hard to gain the admiration and respect of more than 53% of Alabamans and whose endorsement of other Democrats might carry weight. If he is not up for the challenge — personally, or by virtue of budgets and staff — the party and progressives nationwide have a responsibility to either compensate for his weaknesses or to do better, and fast. He represents a step back from the edge of the abyss, but it cannot be a step back into the past.
