Senior Republican officials in Alabama—like senior officials in the
White House and, indeed, like President Trump himself—have refused to break with Roy
Moore, their party’s nominee in next month’s special Senate election,
who has been accused of pursuing, harassing, and abusing teen-age girls
when he was in his thirties. Jim Zeigler, the state auditor,
called the allegations “much ado about nothing.” Ed Henry, a state
representative, said that there should be legal consequences for the women who came forward
to describe their experiences with Moore. And last week the state
Republican Party issued a statement reaffirming its support for the
candidate. No notable Republican organization in the state had backed
away from the candidate until Friday, when the Birmingham chapter of the
Young Republicans of Alabama issued its own statement, revoking its
endorsement of Moore. On Saturday, the Young Republican Federation of
Alabama—of which the Birmingham chapter is a member—followed
suit.
On Monday, I spoke by phone with David Wisdom, a twenty-five-year-old
law student, and Michael Bullington, a twenty-three-year-old
supply-chain-procurement specialist, both of whom belong to the Greater
Birmingham Young Republicans of Alabama. Wisdom, who describes himself
as “very conservative,” voted for Donald Trump last November.
Bullington, who is staunchly anti-abortion, opted to write in Marco Rubio
instead. Both identify as devout Christians. Neither has ever voted for
a Democrat. They spoke to me about their group’s decision to withdraw
its support of Moore, which has not yet drawn a public or private
response from Party elders.
“We’re asked to choose the lesser of two evils,” Bullington said,
referring to Moore and his Democratic opponent, Doug Jones. “But many
young conservatives here are saying, ‘Why choose evil at all?’ If you have
uneasiness about a candidate, don’t vote for them. Write in somebody. I
mean, I’ve written in my dad before.”
“It’s a really frustrating moment to be a young Republican in Alabama,”
Wisdom added.
Wisdom and Bullington, who have known each other since they were
undergraduates together, at Auburn University, have channelled that
sentiment into a podcast they launched a few months ago called “Young
Alabama.” They describe it as “hot takes from young guys about
#ALPolitics.” They record the show in Wisdom’s apartment, in
Birmingham. Thus far, four of the podcast’s five episodes have waded
through the moral morass of the Alabama Senate race.
“We’ve got a lot of problems,” Wisdom said at the start of a recent
episode. “We're gonna attempt to fix them. But I don't know if that’s
possible.” A few minutes later, they discussed Zeigler, the state
auditor, who had offered a biblical justification for Moore's alleged
pursuit of teen-age girls. (“Take Joseph and Mary,” Zeigler said. “Mary
was a teen-ager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents
of Jesus.”)
Wisdom and Bullington aren’t wavering in their support for the
Republican Party. They both eagerly discuss their concerns about “an
overreaching federal government,” as Wisdom put it. “You look at farm
land here,” he said. “There’s a fish in a pond next to it and the E.P.A.
says it’s endangered and you can’t plant row crops beside it. Well,
that’s fifty or sixty grand lost by a farmer that year.” Both men are
ardent supporters of the Republican tax plan now being considered in
Congress—which is heavily slanted to benefit businesses and the
wealthy—and hope their party finds a viable way to scrap the Affordable
Care Act. They also oppose any loosening of restrictions on
abortion
And yet, on issues such as the cost of higher education,
criminal-justice reform, drug laws, and same-sex marriage, Wisdom and
Bullington consider themselves less doctrinaire. “Some young Republicans
in Alabama don’t agree with it,” Wisdom said, of marriage equality. “But
a lot of those same young Republicans think that what Judge Moore did in
issuing a statement to all the probate judges to not grant those
licenses was bad, because you’re disobeying the Supreme Court of the
United States.” Bullington agreed. “For me and the people I interact
with, same-sex marriage is not one of the top issues at play,” he said.
“We’re less stuck on traditionalism.”
“Young Republicans have more of a libertarian flair than our older
generations do,” Wisdom added.
Neither Wisdom nor Bullington liked Moore much before the allegations
began to surface about his interest in and pursuit of teen-age girls.
Bullington wasn’t planning to vote for him; Wisdom was open to it,
though he had much preferred Moore’s primary opponent, Luther Strange.
Earlier this month, when the Washington Post came out with its report
on Moore’s past, Wisdom and Bullington, unlike many older Republicans in
the state, did not dismiss it out of hand as “fake news” or the work of
“the liberal media.”
“I was shocked,” Bullington said. “I called David immediately. The way
the Post story was written, how they explained the way they
corroborated their story, the full disclosures—I was immediately, like,
‘These allegations have some credibility.’ ” He went on, “this pushback
against ‘liberal media,’ to me, that’s just a scapegoat tactic. The
source of the information does not take away the value or validity of
it.”
“When I look at these allegations,” Wisdom added, “I’m not looking at
who stands to profit from this information or who found this out or who
said it, or even if it came out the day before the election. Our
generation of conservatives, we’re seeking out what is true.”
Bullington continued, “It’s so easy with the Internet and social
media to quickly identify hypocrisy with public officials. I think young
conservatives here are doing that more and more.” He added, concerning
the claims that Moore engaged in sexual molestation and misconduct,
“When you have these continual stories being corroborated, coupled
with the fact that the Moore campaign hasn’t answered questions
thoroughly on this—that they’ve been cryptic and then walked away from
press conferences, or been combative—all of this gives us pause.”
Bullington said that he had felt similarly, last year, about Donald
Trump, who has had more than twenty on-the-record accusers of his
own.
“I found all of that deeply disturbing,” Bullington said. “That’s a big
reason I didn’t vote for him.” Wisdom voted for Trump anyway. “When the
‘Access Hollywood’ tape came out,” Wisdom said, “I was appalled, and
Michael and I had many conversations about how awful it was.” But,
Wisdom told me, the Moore allegations “hit closer to home for me, to be
honest. When you’re talking about your home state, people where you’re
from, abuses of power. It’s sickening.”
How will Wisdom vote when he steps into the booth next month, on
Election Day? “I really don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think the answer
is to vote for Doug Jones. I don’t think that anyone associated with our
group wants to endorse a Democrat for U.S. Senate. I really would like
to see another path to victory for the Republicans, but I don’t know if
there is one aside from Roy Moore. And I don’t think I can stomach a
vote for him at the moment.”
Bullington wrote in the state senator Trip Pittman in the Republican
primary between Moore and Strange. “I’m a huge fan of the write-in
vote,” he said. “I’ll probably do a write-in in December for state
Senate President Del Marsh.” He and Wisdom both acknowledged that many
young conservative Alabamians would likely vote for Jones, choose to
write in, or stay home rather than support Moore. And yet Wisdom
could not entirely rule out voting for Moore, despite finding the
allegations against him credible, because he believed that Moore still
might have the best chance “to help the Republican agenda succeed.”
There are young conservatives in Alabama who are still fully standing by
Moore. On Sunday, the Shoals Young Republicans, in the northwest corner of the state, unanimously passed their own
resolution in favor of supporting the Republican candidate. Josh Dodd, who helped
found the group, said in a statement, “While we understand that abuse
takes place, and it is a heinous offense, the fact that this”—the
reports of the allegations—“was timed the way it was, in the manner it was,
is very suspect.”