December 5, 2017

Republicans Decide Roy Moore Is a Good Republican. He Is.

Richard B. Levine/Levine Roberts/Newscom via ZUMA

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Until today, Republicans could say that, officially at least, they have repudiated Roy Moore’s noxious behavior.¹ Not anymore:

President Trump on Monday strongly endorsed Roy S. Moore, the Republican nominee for a United States Senate seat here, prompting the Republican National Committee to restore its support for a candidate accused of sexual misconduct against teenage girls.

….Mr. Trump’s endorsement and the party’s reversal hours later came a day after Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, had stepped back from his earlier criticism of Mr. Moore, saying Alabama voters should “make the call” on whether to send Mr. Moore to the Senate. Taken together, the week’s developments suggested that Republicans were increasingly confident that Mr. Moore is well positioned to defeat Doug Jones, the Democratic nominee, in next week’s special election.

This is the most depraved conduct possible from the Republican Party. They could have stood by Moore from the start, saying that the charges against him weren’t credible. Alternatively, they could have publicly denounced Moore but continued to hope in their hearts that he won.

But no. They publicly accepted that the charges against Moore were credible. They agreed that this made him unfit for office. But then, when it looked like he might win, they turned around and decided to support him anyway. And this all came on the same day that Moore said this about Jewish philanthropist George Soros:

Speaking about financial bubbles, John Maynard Keynes once said “the markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.” Right now, we seem to be stuck in a sort of Republican immorality bubble, and it’s already continued its surge for far longer than I would have imagined possible. But it won’t last forever. Someday the Republican Party is going to pay a price for its stunning lack of a moral compass.

¹Which, just for the record, goes far beyond molesting teenage girls.

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