When the race to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Jeff Sessions was called for Democrat Doug Jones last Tuesday, I was astonished by my own elation. We’ve lived in Trump’s swamp for less than a year, but it feels like half a lifetime, and Jones’ victory over child predator Roy Moore was like a beacon on a moonless night. There is, that election seems to say, a way out of the morass into which we’ve stumbled, this swamp peopled—worse yet, too often governed—by sexual predators, liars, swindlers, and worshippers of the great god Mammon.
Chances are the Republicans will pass their cynically conceived, gift-to-the-wealthy tax “reform” (Merry Christmas, billionaires), but if indeed the arc bends toward justice, their sway will be short lived. The power of the ballot box. Need I say more?