The more evidence has piled up against Moore, the more the White House has drifted towards supporting him. You can interpret that in two ways. From the standpoint of expedience, Team Trump had to be cautious after the scandal first broke because there was too much uncertainty about what might happen. Moore might quit; the state party might oust him; Alabama Republicans might revolt; more, and worse, accusations might surface. The safe play was to say Moore must go if the allegations are true. Twelve days later, there’s much less uncertainty. Moore won’t quit and the state GOP won’t remove him as nominee. Alabama Republicans are hanging with him for the most part but he’s lost enough of them to give Jones a credible chance of taking the seat. It’s now a binary choice, just as it was last November. And given a binary choice, the tribe always sides with its own, no matter what its representative is accused of. Moore calculated that as long as he stands firm, no matter how bad the scandal gets, the belief that anything is better than a Democrat will keep most of the party with him. He was right.
Another way to put it "It's time to take a stand against the baying mob". |