America breathed a sigh of wearied relief tonight: less a moment of political exultation, and more one borne of the sense that an (allegedly) pedophilic bullet had sailed right over our heads, as multiple outlets reported that Democrat Doug Jones had defeated his opponent, God-and-brown-people-fearing Republican judge Roy Moore, for an Alabama senate seat. The thing about racist bullets, though, is that they don’t just vanish; they keep going.
It was an undoubtably weird scene in the Moore camp, full of language about the power of God and awkward hymn singing from some clearly nervous teenagers, as everyone waited for their man to arrive and formally end his campaign. (The bizarre vibe wasn’t helped by the fact that Breitbart, the only outlet directly covering what was supposed to be a concession speech, insisted on filling all the non-action moments of its broadcast with what sounded like elevator music piped directly from hell.)
When Moore finally emerged from whatever back room he was busy praying in, though, it wasn’t to quit the race: it was to double down on the idea that the election was still in God’s hands, even though God had pretty clearly put the thing down in Doug Jones’ lap earlier tonight. Even Donald Trump—or whichever intern is handed his smartphone on the rare occasions that call for some kind of magnanimity, rather than media-hating vitriol—was ready to throw in the towel:
Moore says he’s waiting on the recount, though, apparently because there is no part of this whole process—even our schadenfreude—that he isn’t determined to sully or suck the fun right out of.
At least it generated this tending topic on Twitter tonight:
It’s the little things that get us through the day.