Skip petty victory dance

Jeering tone after Moore loss feeds Trumpism

With Roy Moore’s defeat in the special Alabama senate election, shall we (a) breathe a sigh of relief (b) do a taunting victory dance or (c) emit a howl of primal rage? I’m going for (a), but reserving the option to do (c) if others do (b).

Speaking as a conservative appalled by Donald Trump, I am relieved that my cause is not saddled with a man who is divisive and stands plausibly accused of sexual misconduct. I’m not against “divisive” candidates who stand firmly on principle and develop consistent policy from it. But I’m against people who take a nasty tone with or without ideological clarity as Roy Moore did on, for instance, homosexuals. Even if you believe God intends sex only within lifelong heterosexual marriage, you’re meant to love the sinner. And recall, as too few do on either side, that lust is one but just one of the seven deadly sins.

As for harassment claims, everyone is entitled to the legal presumption of innocence. But because there isn’t time for a trial during an election, Republicans ought to have asked him to step aside given their plausibility, or at least seemed dismayed at the plausibility. Instead they took a nasty, jeering tone for which they paid. But the appropriate response is not to celebrate Doug Jones’ upset victory in a deep red state in a nasty, jeering tone.

A major cause of Trumpism is popular revulsion at identity politics. Yet Moore’s opponents, like The New York Times, kept insisting that Jones appealed to women, blacks and youth while Moore depended on aging, angry, white males. As it turns out, Jones did very well among affluent suburbanites. And surely his victory is a tribute to the decency of many Alabama Republican voters who voted Democrat or stayed home.

They should be thanked, not humiliated, for rising above the horrendous tone that has lately characterized American politics. Unless you want that tone to return with a vengeance.

I would urge restraint on liberals on pragmatic as well as moral grounds. It is a perennial temptation for strong partisans to assume that voters are on the verge of permanently rejecting your deplorable opponents and agreeing with you about everything. It can easily distort your view of electoral trends and make you obnoxiously arrogant even when you are losing, let alone when you are winning.

It’s especially risky to assume that the electorate shares your visceral hostility toward your partisan adversaries. (Trudeau-haters take note. He’s a nice man, however confused and conceited.) And here Democrats may fall into an ideological trap, assuming that Moore was not divisive and a harasser as two separate obnoxious qualities but as part of a package, a typical (white straight Republican Christian) male chauvinist pig. Beware of taking this attitude to the hustings.

If there’s one positive lesson from the scandal triggered by accusations against Harvey Weinstein, it’s that harassment is not confined to one party or philosophy. The number of liberal political or culture figures who’ve already been engulfed surely suggests that those who regarded repression as the only sin have judged badly.

I should caution liberals in passing about the danger of what Claire Berlinski labelled a “warlock hunt” in a thoughtful essay in The American Interest. Fear and loathing between the sexes is even worse than between political parties. So some way must be found to take accusations seriously and punish perpetrators, criminally, socially and professionally, without triggering gender McCarthyism that can ruin any man who ever made a pass at a woman (or a man), if only for fear of excesses triggering a backlash.

On the more narrowly political question, the Democratic Party and its ideological backers need to do some soulsearching about how they helped create an environment in which Trump could win the presidency, and the GOP could win both houses of Congress with him as their grotesque standard-bearer. If people were irrationally angry, someone helped annoy them.

Treating Jones’ victory as proof that only a dwindling band of brutal pigs opposes the full-blown progressive agenda is a recipe for more anger, division and possibly electoral victories by people they despise. And even if they regain majority party status (a distant goal despite their plausible chance of recapturing the Senate in 2018), humiliating their outnumbered adversaries is a recipe for more division that is bad for their nation and their souls.

Some liberals might say, well, that’s precisely what Trump and his supporters have done since November 2016. Indeed. But you’re better than that, aren’t you? And in your hearts you hope most Republicans are too, right?

So let’s choose a sigh of relief over taunts and howls. Who knows? It might even become a habit.

JUSTIN SULLIVAN / GETTY IMAGES Supporters of Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Doug Jones celebrate as Jones is declared the winner during his election night gathering in Birmingham, Ala., on Tuesday. Jones defeated Republican challenger Roy Moore to claim the seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.