Why Even Republicans Should Be Afraid of Roy Moore
In liberal, Democratic circles, there’s often a certain fixation on Trump as a unique danger to democracy and our country. A huge line of Democratic thinking focuses on removing Trump from office — hence all the focus on Russia investigations, impeachment proceedings and other Trump-directed efforts. Vice President Mike Pence, the thinking goes, would be equally conservative, but at least marginally more sane.
Unfortunately, the problem with that thinking is it focuses everyone on Trump as the issue in the GOP, allowing us to ignore just how worried everyone — including Republicans — should be about the state of the Republican party. If anything shows us how broken the Republican party, and by extension our two party system, and by extension our entire goddamn country is, it’s not Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, or even Donald Trump.
No, the scariest thing about the Republican party is Roy Moore’s victory in the primary for Alabama Senator.
Now, the necessary caveats:
- Roy Moore isn’t actually a Senator yet — Democrat Doug Jones, (who you should donate to, for reasons that are about to be exceedingly obvious) is a solid candidate (he led the prosecution of the 1963 Birmingham church bombers), who some strategists actually feel good about maybe pulling off the upset!
Counterpoint: Doug Jones is probably doomed. Alabama hasn’t elected a Democratic Senator since 1992, and the latest polls have him down 8 points. You should donate to him anyways! But, barring a minor miracle, Roy Moore will be the next Senator from Alabama. - This is Alabama, which has always trended more conservative than the rest of the country.
Counterpoint: As you will see, Roy Moore’s political views used to be wayyy outside the Republican mainstream even in Alabama. Now he’s about to be a Senator. Oh joy.
Now, why am I making such a big deal about Roy Moore?
Roy Moore is a Lunatic
Do you guys remember the previous Senator from Alabama?
Jeff Sessions is a pretty conservative politician, especially on issues such as crime and immigration. However, Roy Moore makes Jeff Sessions look like Chuck Schumer. Moore’s previous run in the public eye came from his two terms as Alabama Supreme Court Justice, in 2001 and 2013. Somewhat hysterically, Roy Moore was removed from office BOTH TIMES. Let’s go through the ways he is insane!
A. Aspiring Theocrat
This is probably the most key thing to understand about Roy Moore — the depth of his religion and the way it affects his policy. Now, I want to be clear in my criticisms here, since I think the left is sometimes a little too eager to jump on religion, and this distinction is necessary to understand why Moore is even more nuts than a politician like Ron Johnson who uses religion to explain his anti-abortion positions.
I have no problem with religious politicians! If you have personal deeply-held beliefs that don’t affect your policies and constituents, good for you! On the other hand, if your religion affects choices you make that limit your constituents’ ability to access basic services and rights, well, then we will probably have some issues! But Roy Moore is so, so much scarier than anyone like Ron Johnson.
Moore believes that the laws of God are LITERALLY more important than the laws of the United States. And not in a personal, “In good conscience I cannot follow the law of the land so I am a conscientious objector,” type of fashion. Moore’s interpretation is more accurately “God has told me how the U.S. should be and I will make it that way whatever the laws say.” This has led Moore to say that 9/11 was caused by godlessness, as is the current raft of mass shootings. It also inspired him to install a wooden plaque of the Ten Commandments in his office when he was a circuit judge, which was upgraded to a 5,000 pound granite monument when he was elected to the Alabama Supreme Court.
This display launched Moore to national prominence as the “Ten Commandments Judge,” and also set off a ton of lawsuits from civil liberties attorneys who pointed out this is a flagrantly unconstitutional endorsement of a specific religion on government property. A U.S. District Judge ordered Moore to remove the monument, which he promptly ignored. Moore was removed from office on a unanimous vote by his colleagues. Horrifyingly, Moore’s defense of the Ten Commandments wasn’t that courtrooms should be able to display whatever they want, or that this was an example of federal overreach into state’s issues. Instead, Moore said that he displayed the Ten Commandments because the U.S. is a Christian nation and the Ten Commandments are the foundation of the country’s legal system. This has also led to Moore suggesting that the First Amendment only applies to Christians (he walked that comment back, sort of, but his interpretation is still really strange).
This is INSANE. Moore’s issue with Iran isn’t that it’s an unhinged, repressive theocracy — his issue is it’s a theocracy with the wrong religion. And of course, the brand of Christianity that Moore follows is the very worst type — he practices an anti-gay, misogynist, oppressive, white supremacist and xenophobic cocktail of religion, that has led to him being just the absolute worst.
B. Hates LGBTQIA People
You have never loved anything as much as Roy Moore hates gay people. When Moore complains about godlessness in America, he’s talking about how many gay people there are in America, and the fact that they’re able to do thing like get married, have kids and have normal jobs. This is literally what he said — Moore said homosexuality should be illegal in 2005, which he repeated in 2015. In that 2005 interview, Moore also compared homosexuality to bestiality. Moore tried to get a Constitutional Convention organized in 2014 to ban gay marriage. Moore agrees with Putin’s horrendously oppressive policies towards gay people. He wants to ban LGBTQIA people from serving in the military as well. This isn’t just limited to Moore making insane statements, it also affected his decisions on the bench — he ruled in favor of an abusive ex-husband during a custody dispute because the wife came out as a lesbian, and “if a person openly engages in [homosexuality] that fact alone would render him or her an unfit parent.”
The second time Moore was removed from office? Oh, that was because he ordered Alabama judges to refuse to issue gay marriage licenses and he ignored the Supreme Court when it told him to stop being such an asshole. When it comes to being a homophobic bigot, Moore is an all-star.
C. Hates Women
You have also never loved anything as much as Roy Moore hates women. When Roy Moore rants about godlessness in America, he’s incensed about the fact that women have the right to choose what happens with their bodies. Moore spoke at a far-right anti-abortion group where he said “America is under attack,” from, among others, abortion providers and Moore eagerly promoted the endorsement he received from a far right nutjob who argued that the murder of abortion providers is justifiable. He also wrote, and this is absolutely true, a poem inspired by America the Beautiful decrying abortion in this country. This is a real thing — it’s here. Moore’s anti-abortion views also carried over into his rulings —in his opinion on a woman charged with harming her unborn child through drug consumption he argued that a fetus is a person from the moment of conception, and he said the same in an amicus brief he filed in 2012. Naturally, Moore also wants to defund Planned Parenthood.
D. Hates Muslims
In between hating women and hating gay people, Moore also spends a considerable amount of his time hating Muslims. When Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to federal office in the United States, took his oath of office on the Qur’an, Moore lost his mind, stating it would be similar to someone taking the oath of office using “Mein Kampf.” Also, he is under the impression that there are communities in Indiana and Illinois that are under Sharia law, so that’s fantastic.
E. Racism, White Supremacy, Insane Policy, Miscellaneous
Other assorted nonsense: He literally pulled out a gun on stage during a rally as part of his promise to defend the Second Amendment. Recently he gave a speech where he summarized the current discussion around racial justice as “blacks and whites fighting, reds and yellows fighting.” Moore continued to spout off on the birther conspiracy theory in December, after Trump himself admitted it was all bullshit. Oh, and he gave a speech for the white supremacist group that inspired Dylan Roof, because WTF why not.
Outside of all the above race-baiting, misogynist, gay-baiting, culture war bullshit, Moore’s general policy positions are also nuts. He supports a flat tax, which would be a huge tax break for the wealthy, doesn’t want the U.S. to ever participate in U.N. treaties, and wants to rescind DACA and repeal Obamacare.
Frankly, I probably missed some horrendous stuff Roy Moore’s done, so LMK what I missed and I’ll add it to the list.
Roy Moore in Politics
So, as you can probably tell from the above list, even for a Republican, and even for a Republican in Alabama, Roy Moore is a far, far, far right extremist. And prior to 2017, that really limited his political capital.
Previously, Moore had always had a solid base of evangelical support that powered him to victories in his runs for Chief Justice in 2001 and 2013, but his insane views had previously limited his appeal within the Republican Party. After his first suspended term as Chief Justice, Moore ran for governor in 2006 and got thoroughly dunked on by Bob Riley in the Republican primary. In his 2006 run Moore only secured 33% of the vote, and that was way better than his result in 2010, where he couldn’t even crack 20%, finishing a distant fourth in the primary. In 2012 Moore announced he was forming an exploratory committee to explore a run for president. Nobody cared, and he wandered sadly back to the fringes.
Fast forward to today, and Roy Moore thrashed the mainstream Republican candidate Luther Strange (more on that in Part II) and he’s currently beating Democrat Doug Jones in the latest polls (donate to Doug Jones). And he’s not running for state office, or even the House of Representatives, where he would be one of many radicals in the House Freedom Caucus.
No, Roy Moore, insane goddamn maniac, is going to be a U.S. Senator, one of the 100 most powerful legislators in the entire country. So yeah, even Republicans should be very worried about the Republican party’s problem — and by extension our entire country’s problem — which goes way, way deeper than Donald Trump.
Part II: In Which We Detail how the Republican Party and Trump tried to stop Roy Moore, is coming soon. Stay tuned! Fuck.