Brent Budowsky: Armageddon in Alabama

Moms and dads in Alabama should ask whether they want their 14-year-old daughter alone with Roy Moore in a shopping mall elevator on a winter evening.

While I have never written about this before and will not write about this again, a woman I loved was the victim of an ugly sex crime committed by an evil man she knew. Words cannot express my rage and disgust about the behavior of Roy Moore or my admiration, respect and support for every woman with the courage and dignity to rise against abuse by Moore, Harvey Weinstein and others.

{mosads}If the widely respected Doug Jones defeats the man who cites the Lord in defense of his wrongs against the women, he will bring to Washington a bridge to bipartisanship that would lift the stature of the Senate in the eyes of a grateful nation.

The vote in Alabama is an Armageddon moment for the Republican Party, the future of Alabama, and the fate of the Senate that should stop governing itself like a one-party state more similar in process to Putin’s parliament than Jefferson’s Senate.

If Jones is elected he will give Alabama great influence, providing a critical vote in a closely divided chamber with a tiny Republican majority that would skyrocket the stock of bipartisanship that Jones represents.

When Senate Republicans govern only with Senate Republicans, treat Democratic senators as legislative nonpersons, and treat all Americans who did not vote Republican as noncitizens, the result is that almost three-quarters of the nation disapproves of the Republican-controlled Congress.

Do Republicans in this one-party Senate really want to appeal to voters with a humongous tax cut for the wealthiest individuals and corporations paid for by a massive increase in the budget deficit, support a tax increase for a significant number of middle-class Americans, and force-feed health-care provisions that would raise premiums for millions of Americans and lower the number of insured Americans by more than 10 million citizens?

If Jones defeats Moore on Dec. 12, it would effectively end one-party rule in the Senate and give America the more fair and functional government that voters crave.

Roy Moore will never serve in the Senate. He may well be defeated by a coalition of the decent. If he wins, senators will move to determine whether he is fit to serve. Moore will be called to testify at hearings and would resign as senator-elect rather than subject himself to potential prosecution for perjury, which would be punishable by prison if he is convicted, without any protection from a statute of limitations.

Alabama is now at the vortex of the swamp and distemper that surrounds the Trump presidency. Trump’s former campaign manager is under indictment. A former foreign policy advisor has copped a plea. His son has been shown to collude with an organization that his CIA director describes as a “nonstate hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia.”

The president’s son-in-law failed to list numerous contacts with foreign actors from nations hostile to America on forms to obtain his security clearance. His attorney general forgets so many things involving Russia that he repeatedly says “I cannot recall” in congressional hearings. His former national security adviser faces aggressive investigation of matters involving Russia and Turkey.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee considers ways to prevent the president from triggering nuclear war while he shamefully continues to praise foreign dictators.

The president and GOP allies in Congress now pressure the Justice Department and FBI to engage in partisan investigations against a political opponent that eerily resemble counts in the articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon.

The Russia investigation creates an Armageddon moment for the Trump presidency. The Alabama election pits courageous women and decent voters against a small man who abused his power while he victimized young women, creating an Armageddon election with enormous consequences for the state, the nation and the Senate.

Budowsky was an aide to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas) and former Rep. Bill Alexander (D-Ark.), who was chief deputy majority whip of the U.S. House of Representatives. He holds an LLM in international financial law from the London School of Economics.