How many ways can Donald John Trump Sr. defy political convention? They seem to come from an endless array of opportunities.
The president ventured to Alabama today. He did something highly unusual. He has endorsed a Republican Party primary candidate who’s running against another Republican. Oh, let me mention that Trump, too, is a Republican. He’s taking sides in an intraparty primary fight for the U.S. Senate.
Right there is a weird example.
U.S. Sen. Luther Strange was appointed to the Senate seat when Jeff Sessions became attorney general. He’s running for election in a GOP runoff against Roy Moore, the former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice who was removed twice from the bench because of misconduct.
But guess what: Moore is favored to win over Strange, who won the endorsement of the president of the United States. The runoff is set for next Tuesday.
Moore is a seriously strange piece of … um, work. He was scolded by Alabama judicial conduct officials for refusing to remove a Ten Commandments monument from public property. Then he told county clerks it was all right to refuse to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, despite a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2015 that legalized gay marriage in all 50 states.
Moore also is a “birther,” who continues to promote the defamatory allegation that Barack Obama was born abroad and was not constitutionally qualified to serve as president.
But … this guy is likely to be elected to the U.S. Senate from Alabama!
Will it hurt Trump? Will the president suffer serious political wounds? Oh … probably not. You see, the guy is bullet-proof in the eyes of his political base. He says things that infuriate many others. Not the base! They continue to admire the guy. Trump, um, tells it like it is.
I am shaking my head. Not so much these days in disgust. Instead, it is in utter amazement.