Alabama joins the great Democratic wave

A great Democratic wave is building and growing from coast to coast, north to south. Alabama has now joined states that voted in November 2017 to reject one-party Republican rule in Washington and demand it be replaced by a revitalized democracy in which government serves the people and all people are treated equally.

Doug Jones won a stunning victory in Alabama by confounding the experts and defeating the party of Donald Trump, Stephen Bannon and Roy Moore. His margin of victory was narrow, but the power of his victory to change the Senate and lift politics in America is potentially historic.

The Jones victory was a humiliation for Trump, a debacle for Bannon and a disaster for Republicans.

{mosads}It is ironic that on the day that the president wrote a an offensive and sexist tweet insulting Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), voters in deep-red Alabama rejected his candidate for the Senate who has been accused of being a sexual predator by nine courageous women who came forward to tell their stories.

It is not good for the Republican Party when a Republican president who has been accused by multiple women of sexual abuse rises in support of a Republican candidate for the Senate who has been accused by multiple women of sexual abuse.

It was a disaster for Republicans when voters rose up against the GOP in the national elections of November 2017, followed thereafter by voters rising against the GOP nominee for the Senate in Alabama as the Democratic wave continues to grow.

It was a disaster for Republicans when a one-party GOP government in Washington tried to impose on voters a health-care bill that was intensely disliked by voters and widely condemned by experts.

It will be a disaster for Republicans if they try to force-feed a tax bill, supported by Republicans only, that would actually raise taxes on many middle-class Americans and has already become widely disapproved by voters.

Newton’s Law states every action provokes an equal and opposition reaction. As 2017 ends and 2018 is set to begin, the politics of Donald Trump, Steve Bannon and Roy Moore have provoked an equal and even more powerful reaction that now puts a Democratic-controlled Senate and a Democratic-controlled House very much within reach.

Americans do not want their president insulting other Americans almost every day with rude, juvenile, sexist or abusive tweets. Americans do not want their Congress passing lousy legislation that was poorly considered and secretly conceived by Republicans, which would have a disastrous impact on many citizens.

Americans do not want Republicans consulting with lobbyists behind closed doors, trying to pass tax bills and health-care bills using banana-republic legislative procedures.

The counter-reaction to these and other actions is that the Republican president, Republican Congress and Republican leaders fall into widespread public disrepute. The counter-reaction is that voters who detest these actions rise in large numbers with righteous indignation to vote against them with great enthusiasm on Election Day.  

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would be proud of the African-American citizens of Alabama, who voted for Doug Jones and against Roy Moore in the Senate election. Countless women across the nation and around the world rejoice that the women of Alabama voted in large numbers against the Republican candidate who came to embody every man who would abuse them.

The vote in Alabama was a banner day for democracy, a glorious day for Democrats, a magnificent day for progressives, a victorious day for civil rights, a proud day for Alabamians and a dire warning to Republicans that change is coming and a tidal wave is building and growing against them.

Brent Budowsky was an aide to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas) and former Rep. Bill Alexander (D-Ark.), who was chief deputy majority whip of the U.S. House of Representatives. He holds an LLM in international financial law from the London School of Economics.