Archibald: Alabama Democrats dog paddle on blue wave

NewsCall it a ripple.Provided by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety CommissionBy John Archibald | jarchibald@al.comAlabama Democrats didn’t know what to feel this morning.Left behind, mostly.More excited than they should be about national results. More depressed than they should be about Alabama results, especially the governor’s race in which Tommy Tuberville beat Doug Jones in a close but not all that close race.Ain’t no moral victories in politics, you might say, but sometimes there are victories of morals.You might go back to 1970 for reference, when progressive Alabama Governor Albert Brewer lost to George Wallace, who ran a blatantly racist campaign, punctuated by dirty tricks and lies about Brewer’s family.“If it takes that to be Governor, then I’ll pass it up,” Brewer said after the loss. Jones can say the same.One of Brewers aides spoke to Time Magazine after the defeat 56 years ago. “The state has not matured as much as I thought it had,” George Bailey said. And that’s really what a lot of Alabama Democrats are feeling today. Left behind.They had dared hope for something different, a crack in the armor of that Republican supermajority. They felt a sense of urgency after the destruction of the Voting Rights Act, a big part in the rebuke of Trumpism. Credit Jones for giving them some reason to hope in a state with a dysfunctional Democratic Party, districts gerrymandered to the hilt, an organized Republican party that dwells on our differences and a silent business community that will back profit over progress every single time.But hope might just be the most painful thing in the world. “How am I supposed to feel?” one presumed Democrat asked me this morning.Who am I to say?But for those wailing and gnashing teeth this morning, here are the takeaways.Point: Being governor in Alabama ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. The Legislature arguably wields more power than the governor under the state constitution, and there’s not a whole lot he can do without support from the other two branches of government.Counterpoint: It’s a supermajority so those other branches are in the bag, regardless of whether he has learned the names of all three branches.Point: One of the biggest perks to the job of governor is having a bully pulpit, and whatever he says from the Alabama Capitol can’t be much worse than his speech about furries on planes from the U.S. Senate.Counterpoint: Wanna bet? Point: U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures, a Democrat, held on to his seat, even though he had to run in a district newly drawn by Republicans for the purpose of unseating him. It’s a big win that keeps two Alabama Democrats in Congress.Counterpoint: It’s a sad commentary when holding on to what you already had is considered a big win.Point: Democrats flipped a few state legislative seats in north Alabama, elected a trans woman from Madison to the state house. They elected a gay Democrat sheriff of Madison County, the whole of which took on a blue hue.Counterpoint: Republicans won every single statewide race, with Tuberville’s 4 point loss being the closest. How are Democrats supposed to feel this morning? Cautiously optimistic, maybe. Across the country, the hard right took a beating. Alabama has always been slow to catch up.But the results are warnings, too. Challenges. In the midst of a blue wave Alabama Democrats can still barely dog paddle, much less part a daunting red sea.If they cannot build a functioning, cooperative and organized party by 2028 they drown in it.John Archibald is an opinion writer, author and podcaster who has written about politics, injustice, and life in Alabama for almost 40 years. He is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and in 2024 was...