Pundits defending Roy Moore: do you really want to go down with this ship?
As allegations of child abuse against the Alabama Senate candidate divide the right wing, it’s unclear whether those tolerating the accusations will pay a price
The allegations of child abuse against Roy Moore have split the world of rightwing media like nothing else since … Trump. Some writers – credit where it’s due – have condemned him and called for him to step aside as the Republican candidate in Alabama’s special election for the US Senate. Others have decided that this is as good a hill as any to die on. And there’s also a group in the middle, uneasily hedging its bets, trying to decide which way to break.
The divide has roughly been between the new, pro-Trump populists on one hand, and the old conservative movement and the pro-Trump establishment on the other. Outlets like Breitbart and Infowars have backed Moore to the extent that they can. More fastidious or conscientious outlets are aghast at the political capital being spent on an alleged child molester. The establishment has decency on its side (there’s a first time for everything). The populists have the base, whose members have been smashing their coffee machines in defense of the judge. As of Tuesday night, those in the middle were starting to abandon Moore in the face of fresh allegations.
Will there be a penalty for those who soft-soaped accusations of sexual assault? In the Trump era, don’t bet on it.
‘This garbage is the very definition of fake news’: Roy Moore fires back against WashPo hit job
Publication: Infowars
Author: Chris Menahan floats around Infowars publishing articles, and also runs his own pro-Trump/conspiracy site, Information Liberation.
Why you should read it: All week Alex Jones and his minions have been trying to minimize, distract from, and practice their trademark whataboutism on the Moore allegations. They won’t be held to account by their audience should Moore bow to pressure and leave the race. They are holding on, no matter how many things they are wrong about, from the “antifa apocalypse” to pizzagate.
Extract: “This is clearly an attempt to associate Moore with Hollywood pervs like Harvey Weinstein. There’s no reason to believe any of these stories, and there’s no reason to care that he allegedly kissed an ‘18-year-old cheerleader’ who said she was ‘flattered by his attention’, as one of the stories claims.
“Why can’t Republicans come up with dirty tricks like this?”
Hannity gives Moore 24 hours to explain the inconsistencies
Publication: Fox News
Author: Sean Hannity is a radio broadcaster and Fox News personality of such magnetism that he can inspire his audience to destroy kitchen appliances.
Why you should listen: After a week of defending Moore and giving him airtime, and after advertiser boycotts that induced his own fans to trash their Keurigs, on Tuesday night Hannity hung Moore out to dry. Along with him, other Fox anchors, and the network as a whole, seemed to be abandoning Moore to apparently certain ignominy. Moore deserves this and more, but we should pause over Fox’s enduring cynicism, and wonder what might have happened if more accusers had not come forward.
Extract: The five-minute extract in the link shows what Hannity looks like when he is deserting a sinking ship.
Roy Moore proves outrage may not be dead
Publication: National Review
Author: Jonathan S Tobin is the opinion editor of the Jewish News Service and a regular contributor to National Review.
Why you should read it: Tobin addresses Breitbart and other outlets at length, and wonders whether they have thought this through. No doubt he’s appalled at the allegations, and in general National Review has done well in amplifying voices who are critical of Moore throughout this debacle. But the case Tobin makes to pro-Trump media is pragmatic: do you really want to go down with this ship?
Extract: “The question no one in Breitbart’s camp seems to be considering is: What will be the long-term consequences of a political faction and a media outlet putting all its chips on the willingness of Alabama voters and the American public to tolerate someone accused of a serious crime?”
Long before assault allegations, Roy Moore betrayed conservatism
Publication: The Federalist
Author: John Daniel Davidson is a senior correspondent at the Federalist, and also makes the rounds as a writer on the more fastidious end of rightwing media.
Why you should read it: Davidson makes a simple case against Moore: on several occasions, he has elevated himself above the rule of law in order to ingratiate himself with the uber-conservative Republican base. This is a place, he thinks, where conservatives ought to have drawn a line long before now. We can look forward to the day that he realizes that the right is frequently selective in its adherence to its bedrock principles.
Extract: “But Moore’s moral grandstanding about the Ten Commandments monument and the Obergefell ruling weren’t just wrong as matters of law or history, they were fundamentally anti-American: Moore elevated himself, on more than one occasion, above the law. This is the sort of thing conservatives rightly accused former President Barack Obama of doing with his ‘pen and phone’ approach to governing by executive fiat.”
The GOP prepares to die as Alabama GOP sticks with Roy Moore
Publication: PJ Media
Author: Ron Radosh is one of the many conservative opinionistas who started out as a communist. During his journey to the right, he wrote (among other things) a book concluding that the Rosenbergs really were spies, and a tell-all memoir entitled Commies. He is now a fixture in rightwing media.
Why you should read it: Radosh argues that by tying itself to Moore, and more generally to his backers like Steve Bannon, the GOP is exhibiting suicidal behavior. True enough, and it gestures at the broader problem of reconciling the demands of its base – who vote in primaries – with those of people who vote in general elections. Even the rise of Trump is a symptom, rather than a cause, of the radicalization of grassroots conservatives, and their inhabitation of an epistemic bubble so effective that it leads them to defend abusers.
Extract: “Indeed. If the GOP listens to Steve Bannon rather than to the senior Republicans in the Senate who are now coming out against Moore, including Ted Cruz, more candidates in eastern and swing states will face the fate of Ed Gillespie, and award the Democrats a boost they otherwise might not be able to obtain.
“Let’s call it the age of political destruction.”
