Roy Moore is Bad News for Everyone

If I were to ask you what you thought I was going to write about this week, I guarantee you would say something along the lines of, �The controversy over the NFL and the debate over the protests during the national anthem.�

            Well you would be wrong. I will not talk about that issue tonight because everybody and I mean EVERYBODY is talking about it. Every influential figure and anybody with a platform has given their opinion about it. I decided that it would be unoriginal to add to that circus.

            However, before I get into tonight�s main subject, I�m going to talk about it. It�s a subject that I have been following and I could easily write a lengthy blog about. I�ll try to keep it short. Fox News had me fuming as I analyzed their coverage of the event. They effectively twisted the purpose of the protests and painted a picture that these athletes are anti-American millionaires who are ungrateful and are kneeling to disrespect our military. The entirety of Fox News�s opinion page on their website concerned the kneeling controversy with words like �disgrace� and �ungrateful� plastered on the headlines.

            The truth is that these protests are not gestures of disrespect towards the flag. Nor are these players �ungrateful� for their success. In fact, the notion that these athletes and celebrities are ungrateful when they protest because they are rich and do not directly face the problems that they protest has racist undertones. The idea that black athletes and celebrities should be grateful for their success in this country makes it seem like we gave them permission to be successful. It implies that we will only allow black people to be successful as long as they say what we want them to say and not step out of line. It�s that hint of supremacy that exposes the lack of progress we have made in this country in terms of race since the Civil Rights movement. The Daily Show ran a very good segment on this issue on Monday. I will include it down below. That�s all I am going to say on the issue� for now.

            Besides the circus surrounding the NFL this week, a major primary election was held in Alabama on Tuesday. The winner of this Republican primary was Roy Moore who ran against Senator Luther Strange, a man backed by the President and many Republicans in Congress. This election signaled the rejection of the Republican establishment by the Alabamian electorate, a solidly conservative state. Strange, who was backed by Republicans like Mitch McConnell and President Trump, spent over $10 million to run negative ads on Moore and still came up short.

            This displeasure and frustration among conservative voters foreshadows a bad election cycle for the Republicans in 2018. Back in April, I offered some advice to Republicans in order to not lose the majority of seats in Congress next year. That advice was to deliver on their campaign promises. Almost 5 months later, those promises have yet to be delivered. Their biggest failure has been healthcare which seems to be on its deathbed right now as the Graham-Cassidy bill completely fell on its face this week and could not garner enough votes to proceed to the Senate. This is the third time that Republicans have tried (and failed) to repeal and replace Obamacare. If Graham-Cassidy does not succeed (which it won�t) the Republicans will have failed for the final time on reforming healthcare.

            Other promises that have yet to be delivered on are tax reform and border security. Republicans promised to cut spending, lower taxes, and ease regulations for businesses. There has yet to be a piece of legislation passed by the House concerning taxes. The wall has not been built and DACA is still in place. Political figures like Ann Coulter (whom I despise) have noticed the lack of effort to secure the border and have effectively turned on Trump and has encouraged others to do so.

            In my opinion, I am quite glad that the Republicans have failed to pass meaningful legislation thus far because most of their proposals are simply horrible.

            Despite all of these failures by the Republicans, it�s important to ask, �Who is this Roy Moore?� Is he the symbol of the disillusioned conservative voter since Trump was not good enough? If so, he must be really insane.

   And that he is. Moore, who was removed from the Alabama Supreme Court twice, is quite a character. He was removed the first time for refusing to take down an inscription of the Ten Commandments outside of the Supreme Court of Alabama following a federal order. He was removed a second time in 2015 when he struck down an Alabama state law that legalized gay marriage. He was known for sometimes putting the Bible before the Constitution when he made decisions on various court cases. He targeted same-sex parents in a 2002 case where he wrote that homosexual parents are, �detrimental to the children,� and that homosexuality was grounds for losing custody of a child. He pedaled conspiracies about Obama�s birth certificate. He said that Islam is a �false religion.� And he wrote some oddly graphic poetry which reads, �Babies piled in dumpsters, Abortion on demand, Oh, sweet land of liberty; your house is on the sand.�

            I think we all understand the kind of person we are dealing with here. And no matter if you are a Democrat or a Republican, we can agree that Roy Moore is bad for America. If he were to win a seat in the Senate, it would be the beginning of the radicalization of conservatism where church and state are not separate and non-Christians are viewed as inferior. Hopefully the people of Alabama can prevent this man�s ascension to power and prevent the further polarization of our country. Moore is the last voice we want to be in the Senate. 

Here is The Daily Show piece I was talking about: