The extended Thanksgiving weekend went well for us, with plenty of exhilarating gratitude for God’s blessings, but today is another Monday and the secular world seems as sorry as ever. Over the weekend President Donald Trump “tweeted” his apparent endorsement of that very credibly accused child molester of a Republican candidate who’s running for a Senate seat in Alabama, while the Democrats are awkwardly dealing with some unseemly accusations of sexual misconduct of their own against some beloved figures, and all the rest of our politics are just as messy.
We’ll further thank God that at least we’re not in the same tight spot Trump is regarding that Alabama senate race. Republican candidate Roy Moore was twice elected to the Alabama Supreme Court and twice removed from that bench for defying federal authority on a stand of Christian principle, but now stands quite credibly accused of once being the 30-something local prosecutor who creepily preyed on teenaged girls in at the local malls and high school. Trump himself has been caught on audiotape bragging about he he can grab women by their wherever and talking about invading teenaged beauty pageants’ dressings rooms, and has since been credibly accused by numerous woman about doing exactly that, so he’s caught between the metaphorical Scylla of admitting that so many women’s allegations should be taken serious or the metaphorical Charybdis of arguing that it’s no big deal even if true.
Trump split the difference by ignoring the charges against Moore and instead noting that his Democratic opponent Doug Jones is a Democrat, which many an Alabama Republican will agree, perhaps plausibly enough, is way worse than being an credibly accused child molester. This also avoids the messy inference that the numerous and very credible women accusing men of sexual misconduct be believed, so it seems a shrewd move on Trump’s part. The Republicans’ senate majority leader and House Speaker and the party’s congressional committees have also demurred from supporting Moore, as have such grass-roots sorts of old-fashioned Kansas Republicans such as ourselves, but by now that that only bolsters Trump’s and Moore’s case that the establishment is out to get them.
Meanwhile the Democrats have to deal with the now undeniable facts that many of their members stand credibly accused of being quite creepy, including a Senator beloved for his antagonistic rhetoric and a longstanding Representative who once took a beating down in Alabama for his righteous civil rights stands, along with with all those Hollywood allies who so generously donated to the cause, so it remains to be seen if they’ll benefit from any of this. So far the Democrats seem willing to defenestrate any politicians who get in the way of their condemnation of sexual misbehavior, even if that means the once-beloved President Bill Clinton or his long-suffering wife, but by now it might be too late.
By now we’re not on either side, and stand instead with the old-fashioned notion that there’s a right way and a wrong way to treat women. By now we’re hoping that by the end of the Christmas season things will be somewhat better.
— Bud Norman
The Central Standard Times 