Jones Wins

/ Sirius Bizinus

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Reprinted under a CC BY SA 4.0 license.

Doug Jones, the Democratic candidate running against Roy Moore in the special election for the U.S. Senate, has won. Personally, I’m happy that an alleged pedophile did not get elected to the Senate. Based on the vote count and voter turnout, it most likely was these allegations which prevented Mr. Moore from winning.

Some people might be dismayed at how close the election was. Considering Alabama’s history as a solidly Republican electorate for the past several decades, the election was going to be close. Also, Senator-Elect Jones’s political platform is decidedly unpopular for many Alabamians. He supports Planned Parenthood, wants to increase wages, believes climate change is real, wants equal pay for women and men, and wants to work on decreasing student loan debt. Any one of these issues would have been a death knell to a campaign in an ordinary election. Jones overcame that and a 30-point GOP advantage.

Others might be talking about how this is a referendum on Trump. Based on what I’ve been seeing where I live (Madison County, just outside Huntsville), I don’t know if this is the case. Certainly people are worried that Trump’s election pushed things too far in favor of unhinged people who do not have the country’s best interests at heart. While that worry contributed to not being favorable to the GOP, I don’t know if it contributed to Jones winning.

I am happy that Alabama stood up for women who were abused as children. It had a noticeable and lasting effect on the election. Mr. Moore was denied the ability to possess power that he allegedly abused earlier in his political career.

My hope is that Senator-Elect Jones will fulfill at least one of his campaign promises – that he will engender trust people have for their leaders. That trust cannot be given in an election; it must be earned through good governance. Regardless of who voted for him, Jones now represents the state in the Senate.

6 thoughts on “Jones Wins”

    • Unless there’s a mass migration from NY or CA before 2020, I doubt that Jones will get re-elected. Alabama is 30 percent slanted towards the GOP by default. Too much of the electorate blindly votes party no matter the cost.

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      • Pink made a comment on my blog that included this: I have the impression conservatism is heavily influenced by birthright ideology.

        To me, it goes along with your last remark — “the electorate blindly votes party.” IMO, too many people simply “go along” with whatever party their parents belonged to. Few actually investigate the ideology behind the “politics.” (As we’ve seen, this tends to hold true for religion as well.)

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      • I would say that conservatism in Alabama is highly influenced by tribalism. Ever since the Civil War, politicians here have characterized races as being an “us v. them” prospect. When bad things happen, it’s always some outsider’s fault. You can kind of see that message underlying both campaigns.

        The most difficult thing in Alabama is to encourage people to think about who is actually doing the harm. Life isn’t easy in this state, and people have many reasons to be angry. They’re just convinced that it’s the ephemeral “other” that’s pulling the strings, and not the people they elect.

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  2. Nan and Sirius, you “hit the nail on the head.” I couldn’t agree more. I think it has to do at least partly with this whole concept of mimesis (mimetic theory.) We tend to believe and want what those around us believe or want, and then this becomes part of our identity. And, we tend to look for scapegoats “out there” to blame for whatever.

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  3. Well, as I previously stated after the election – after much struggle, thought and deliberation Alabama decided by a very small margin that maybe at least for now, we should NOT elect a child molester into office. After all, sexual assault has no place in the senate. That honor is reserved for the presidency. I’m glad he won but I doubt he will be re-elected. I don’t believe it is realistic.

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