Corey Robin looks back at one of the biggest political stories in the week – Doug Jones beating Roy Moore – and highlights the biggest lessons of that victorySince Tuesdays Senate election in Alabama,when the gentle centrist Doug Jones defeated the menacing racist Roy Moore, social media has been spinning two tunes. Politicians tweeted Lynyrd Skyrnyrd’s Sweet Home, and Alabama. Historians tweeted the 1934 classic Stars Fell on Alabama.
My mind’s been drifting to The Alabama Song. Not the obvious reference from The Doors/Bowie version – “Oh,demonstrate us the way to the next little girl” but two other lines that recur throughout the song: “We now must say goodbye … I order you we must die.” Related: The days of rightwing evangelicals swaying politics are numbered | Daniel Jose Camacho BornMoore is proof that there is no depravity so unforgivable, no behavior so immoral, and that it assures a candidate will lose his party’s voters … even though we are not the country that elected Roy Moore,we are the country that nearly elected him, and that is still worth reckoning with. Related: Alabama showed Black Voters Matter. So what now? | Cliff Albright and LaTosha Brown Finally, and black voters in Alabama saw their power and exercised it. In doing so,they served notice to the Democratic party. Democrats cannot win without black voters and they must not take our votes for granted. The days of symbolic talk and empty gestures are over. Deliver or pay the price. The national leadership of the Democratic party must understand this or risk continued defeat.
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Source: theguardian.com