Voting Your Conscience

We are just a couple of days away from the special election being held in Alabama to see who will fill Jeff Sessions' vacated seat, a seat that got that way because we have a new Attorney General. Initially, the Republican vote was split between Luther Strange, the former Attorney General not of the United States but of the state of Alabama. Confused? Well, you don't have to be much longer because Luther Strange lost the Republican primary to former Chief Justice of Alabama's Supreme Court, Roy Moore.
You might be familiar with Mister Moore. He's the one currently undergoing a lot of scrutiny for alleged crimes against women. More (or Moore) to the point, these were teenaged girls who were accosted, molested, groped some years ago. When it became apparent that Judge Moore might become a United States senator, it seemed like the right and imperative thing to do. Five different women have come forward to say that they were assaulted by Judge Moore. A month ago, United States Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he believes the women. At that time, the "President" kept quiet about his allegiances, since his support of Luther Strange hadn't panned out the way he had planned. As the date of the election closed in, Senator Mitch walked back his rhetoric about Moore saying, "I'll let the people of Alabama make the call." That assertion was doubled down by the "President" who found it necessary to endorse Moore because, in his words, "We need Republican Roy Moore to win." Because when all is said and done, pedophilia can be overlooked when it comes to getting that swing vote.
Meanwhile, across the aisle, Senator Al Franken from Minnesota took his apology and penance to the floor of the Senate and did what his party asked of him: he resigned. On the way out he made some excuses and tried to mitigate the reality of the situation, but his sexual misconduct got him pushed out of the Senate, the United States Senate by the Democratic Party.
It is no wonder that Time magazine chose as their Person of the Year the Silence Breakers. The world is changing around us, and even if things have to get worse before they get better, we can't go back to a time when the truth got buried for the sake of someone's career. Or a vote.
By the way, there are still at least sixteen women who allege the "President" assaulted them. It's a new world. I guess we'll have to wait and see just how new it really is.