Roy Moore on Tuesday defeated Sen. Luther Strange in a special Alabama primary to decide the Republican nominee for the November election, a slap in the face for President Trump and GOP leaders who backed Strange.
Moore is the controversial former jurist most famous for refusing to abide by court rulings attempting to force the removal of a Ten Commandments display from his courthouse, and instructing probate judges not to comply with court orders to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Moore resigned from the bench in 2016 and announced he would run for the Senate.
Strange is considered an ally of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) — not because he was an establishment lackey, per se, but because he worked with McConnell in the Senate in the first place. President Trump himself said that Strange wasn’t friendly with McConnell, stating, “he doesn’t even know Mitch McConnell.” Nonetheless, grassroots conservatives rallied around Moore. Interestingly, while Trump campaigned ardently for Strange — he was campaigning for Strange when he dropped his latest bombshell on the NFL — Trump’s former White House chief strategist, Steve Bannon, campaigned just as ardently against Strange and for Moore. Trump, true to form, admitted on Friday that he might have made a mistake getting involved in the primary at all, stating, “I might have made a mistake. I’ll be honest, I might have made a mistake.”
The special election was a fascinating look into the battle over “Trumpism” as a movement and a philosophy. One of the conceits of Trump’s most ardent supporters is that Trump is the leader of a movement rather than a cork bobbing on the waves of popular discontent with Washington, D.C. Alabama’s special election seems to debunk that notion — Trump couldn’t even defeat his heretofore anonymous former campaign chief strategist in that election. Trump doesn’t have coattails. Bannon presented himself as the avatar of Trump’s heart…against Trump himself. And Trump lost.
The reality is that the election had nothing to do with Trump or Trumpism, which is an attempt to put a face to an incoherent mishmash of ideas. The election had to do with a continuing backlash against the establishment Republican Party that began with the Tea Party in 2010, built with support for politicians like Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), and culminated in Trump’s victory in the primaries and general election. In other words, this election shows that Trump is not more important than the movement that preceded him and drove him into office, and that Trumpism isn’t anything at all — Moore would have won in 2012 if this election had taken place then, long before Trump considered running.
Practically speaking, Mitch McConnell is the man hardest hit. He’s already got a fractious caucus; now a senator who voted for his top priorities will be replaced by a bombastic figure known for going rogue. That means that McConnell’s tightrope is even tougher to walk — and it means that Trump is even more likely to buck his own Senate and walk across the aisle to his good friends Nancy and Chuck. In the long run, however, it means that the anti-establishment movement will be looking to replace outgoing Republicans. The face of the Republican Party will soon start to resemble the heart that’s been driving votes for the last seven years.
(First reported by The Daily Wire) http://www.dailywire.com/news/21582/breaking-moore-expected-defeat-strange-alabama-ben-shapiro (September 27, 2017)
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