It’s Not Complicated
BELL VIEW--This morning we woke to news of a miracle in Alabama: a tough-on-crime prosecutor who brought justice to unrepentant terrorists for murdering little girls in a church upset a child molester who was banned from the local mall for hitting on high school girls during his 30’s. Miraculous, eh? Well, for times like these, we’ll take our miracles wherever we can get them.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m super excited about Roy Moore getting beat. It’s a win for the good guys, and it gives me hope and blah blah blah.
The problem, of course, is nothing holds true for very long any more. As we crow about Jones’s victory, the white nationalists seethe and add Moore’s humiliation to the raging fire of their resentment. You have to remember that 68% of white voters in Alabama went for Moore, including a slim majority of college educated white women.
Let me say that again: a majority of white women with a college degree in Alabama supported Roy Moore for the US Senate.
That’s not to say that civilization does not owe a debt of gratitude to the 45% of soccer moms who got out and voted for Doug Jones – beating their husbands by ten percentage points in the race for common decency.
But it was black voters – particularly black women, who went for Jones by 98% -- who dragged Alabama back from the abyss. And young voters went strongly for Jones – the majority not shifting back to Moore until you hit the over-45 crowd.
Of course, the greatest heroes of this story are Moore’s victims, who braved the white-hot rage of the backwards South in order to speak the truth – and saved us all from the vile beliefs of Roy Moore and his army of hypocrites. (Photo left.)
Those of us who want equal rights, broad-based prosperity, sane environmental stewardship, equal treatment under the law, the end of racism and bigotry, healthcare for everyone are a majority. We simply live in a minority-ruled country. Doug Jones’s victory proves, however, that even in the reddest of red states, getting up off the couch and casting a vote does work.
The battle between the Trump/Moore faction of America and the rest of us has been depicted as a clash between the ignorant masses and the sophisticated elite. But that characterization misses a central truth: doing the right thing is rarely complicated. That’s why the Declaration of Independence describes its core truths as “self-evident.” Don’t trash the planet, because we have nowhere else to live. Poor kids deserve education, healthcare, food, and shelter. A nuclear war is unwinnable. Women are not objects. Child molesters do not belong in the Senate.
I believe these things not because I’m a nice guy, but because I want to survive and I want my kids to survive. I’m an environmentalist not because I want to be kind to Mother Earth, but because I want to prevent Mother Earth from killing me and my family. I’m a feminist because I don’t want to live in a world where power dictates the conversation and fear keeps people in the shadows. I work hard to understand my privilege because failing to do so perpetuates an unsustainable system that will eventually destroy everything I have.
No matter how you slice up the data, Roy Moore lost because credible people accused him of being a child molester – and he couldn’t lie his way out of it. Not every issue will be as easy as this one. But we need to shed the cloak of sophistication and speak the truth in all its simple glory if we want to build on the momentum of this moment.
(David Bell is a writer, attorney, former president of the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council and writes for CityWatch.)
