Into the Sewer

Won't you come with me to Alabammy

Back to the arms of my dear ol' mammy

Her cooking stinks and her hands are clammy

But what the hell, it's home!

 

Tom Lehrer

 

Ah, Dubya!

Sixteen years ago I honestly believed we had hit rock bottom. In 2001, with the inauguration of the Village Idiot of Crawford, Texas, I thought that we had reached our nadir. Who among us could possibly have predicted Roy Moore and Donald Trump? If you had told me then that, by the time 2017 rolled around, I would be looking back at the era of George W. Bush with a sense of teary-eyed nostalgia, I would have suggested that you be tested for narcotics poisoning. As completely cynical as I was then - and as I remain to this day - I never would have dreamed that things could get this utterly weird.

 

The registered Republican voters in the state of Alabama are within less-than-a-month of electing as their senator a man who, back in the swinging seventies, was known by the people of his hometown of Gadsden to have a thing for underage girls. Back in the day Roy was a successful attorney. A retired police officer named Faye Gray remembers that she had to attend high school sporting events for no other reason than to monitor Roy to make sure he kept away from the cheerleaders. A couple of these girls (now middle-age women with nothing to gain by speaking out) have said that they were sexually assaulted by this creep. At the time, Roy Moore was in his thirties. He was even banned by the owner of his hometown mall from setting foot on the premises due to his "proclivities". Nice.

 

The president of the United States, a man with over twenty accusation of sexual harassment under his belt (no pun intended) is openly supporting Roy Moore. The governor of Alabama said the other day that she would rather support a pedophile than a Democrat. A lot of the voters of that state appear to be in agreement. If you need a more illustrative example of how completely dysfunctional that region of the country really is, you need not travel too far from Alabammy.

To be fair, not everyone in the GOP is as accepting of Moore's candidacy as our esteemed Common-Pervert-in-chief. John McCain, to his credit, is positively aghast at this turn of events; Paul Ryan is not-at-all happy about the prospect of a Senator Moore; even hideous old Mitch McConnell has stated for the record that he believes the accusations of these women! Imagine, Mitch McConnell doing the decent thing! Don't be at all surprised if a pig flies by your window this afternoon. But you really have to wonder about "the party of Abraham Lincoln" these days. For over a decade I've been predicting the ultimate demise of the Republican Party. I am now forced to qualify that prediction. It is obvious that it will survive in dear old Dixie for quite some time to come. The bar has been set as low as it can be, and the people of that state (or the white people at least) are doing this strange Limbo dance with surprising ease. Black people in the South have always seemed to have a bit more common sense than their Caucasian counterparts, have you ever noticed that? 

Some of us are wondering out loud, "How could something as vile and  as disgusting as this be happening in the United States"? You shouldn't wonder at all. Donald Trump is us. He is who we have become as a nation. The handwriting is on the wall. It is as clear as can be and you have to be blind and illiterate not to be able to read it. The American people deserve Donald Trump. The people of Alabama deserve Roy Moore. They deserve no better. They deserve no less.

Ah, sweet schadenfreude!

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

SUGGESTED READNG:

In The Shadow of November 22

I wrote this one four years ago on the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy. Over a half century later, the guy just won't go away. That's probably just as well, I guess

https://tomdegan.blogspot.com/2013/11/i-remember-being-dropped-off-at-bus.html


Cheers!