If guilty, Roy Moore has betrayed women – and Trump’s supporters
How did paedophilia become part of America’s ongoing politico-cultural war? Is this how bitter and degraded the debate has become? If you thought that the election of Donald Trump was a measure of how far trust in America’s established political system had broken down, you ain’t seen nothing yet. A new race – this time the Alabama Senate by-election – reveals that Trump’s victory has not soothed the anger of many voters. Far from it.
When a recording was released last year of Trump bragging about sexual assault, some hopeful Democrats thought it might derail his campaign. On the contrary, many of his core voters thought it a perfect example of establishment conspiracy and “politically correct” agenda against which they wanted to rebel so strongly.
Trump dismissed the recording as “locker-room banter”. But Roy Moore, Republican candidate in Alabama, is now accused of far worse than that – paedophilia. Moore is alleged to have initiated sexual contact with a 14-yearold girl when he was 32. Women have since come forward with serial stories of a creepy older lawyer who was always trying to get dates with high-school girls; one alleged that he sexually assaulted her when she was 16.
This is ordinarily the part of the story where the disgraced politician quietly bows out of the race in America’s favourite public humiliation ritual, the press conference. But Moore has not left the race. The 70-year-old is not spending more time with his family, finding God, asking for forgiveness, seeking therapy or entering a rehabilitation facility. When asked about these allegations, his memory fails him.
Campaign representatives have explained away the existence of these women (and his former neighbours and co-workers, who corroborate their stories) with the simple logic that they are liberals who hate Roy Moore, who would, presumably, be willing to fabricate any story to keep him out of office. This argument has found some traction. Polls show that, astonishingly, a large minority (29 per cent of probable voters) are more likely to support him because of the allegations.
This is a head-turning figure. Many Americans think paedophiles should face the death penalty. How could anyone prefer to support a candidate accused of such heinous crimes? The answer, of course, is that they don’t believe the allegations. They believe, as Moore has said, that there is a vast political conspiracy against him. Their rage against the political machine is so strong that it trumps their usual outrage at the nature of the allegations against him.
But unless and until he clears his name, Roy Moore’s candidacy does represent a double betrayal. First, to those women upon whom he allegedly preyed. But secondly, counterintuitively, to the very supporters – and Trump’s wider base in the country – who are now championing him.
Abused women and Trump voters have much in common. Both know the intimate, quiet pain of powerlessness. They know the ache of being ignored in favour of more “polite” conversation. From these
at telegraph.co.uk/ opinion shared experiences, they should be allies. By speaking up now, making a fuss, they are a bulwark against the hitherto dependable silence of the vulnerable, upon which the powerful so often depend.
Reflexively defending Moore against such appalling allegations, however, makes the whole Trump revolution seem like the squawkings of deranged gropers (led by a deranged groper-in-chief), rather than the justifiable complaints of those left behind by globalisation. As a result, those who have only just found a voice could find themselves silenced again – dismissed for existing far outside the bounds of acceptable discourse.
In my first summer on the Hill, shortly after my 19th birthday, a staffer I knew took a shine to me. He let me write floor speeches and took me to briefings. He also told me flatly, one Friday evening, that I should go home with him; when I demurred, he pressed on: “Come on, Molly. That’s what interns do.” Nearly every woman I know who works in professional politics, in both Westminster and Washington, has a similar story (so do lots of men). In a city premised on power, where relatively young staffers are often allowed to rule their offices as mini-fiefdoms when the congressperson is away, these incidents are commonplace. They shouldn’t be. There are many rotten apples cloaked in the respectability of Washington’s shiny marble corridors.
The Capitol is due for a reckoning over this sort of behaviour, and when it comes, I suspect that many will echo the sentiments of one of Moore’s neighbours in Alabama: “These stories have been going around this town for 30 years. No one could believe they hadn’t come out yet.”
Ipromise that what follows is not sour grapes. But a month after I turn 30, the Chancellor is suddenly said to be preparing enough Budget giveaways for the young to make even the most cosseted pensioner gasp.
A millennial railcard will give all under-thirties discounted travel. National Insurance cuts have been floated, targeted at, yes again, the under-thirties. A stamp duty holiday for first-time buyers is less discriminatory, though still irritating for those who have only recently bought a house. All tax cuts are worth supporting, but let’s be clear: this one would leave the market more dysfunctional by skewing it against existing homeowners.
Philip Hammond presumably believes that a few such baubles will reverse the dramatic disappearance of the Tory youth vote. I doubt it. None of this will do much to fix the two main issues faced by the young: shockingly poor income growth and extreme housing costs. In any case, the sight of a Chancellor shamelessly rewarding this week’s favoured demographic is less likely to resolve conflict between the generations as intensify it, and the Conservatives are in trouble with thirtysomethings, too.
Perhaps the greatest problem with Hammond’s strategy, however, is that it is unkind. Not in the sense the Left might define it – not enough money for the vulnerable or the destitute. But because it encourages my generation to believe in a fantasy: that the welfare
Trump voters who have only just found a voice could find themselves silenced again – dismissed for existing far outside the bounds of acceptable discourse
The fiscal picture looks much rosier if we stop postponing the radical decisions required to make the state fit for purpose
at telegraph.co.uk/ opinion