26 United States The EconomistOctober 5th 2019
N
iki’s west, where Senator Doug Jones and his wife Louise ar-
ranged to meet your columnist, is the sort of place a glad-
handing southern politician would love to frequent. A canteen-
style institution in the middle of Birmingham, it serves catfish,
liver and onions and turnip greens to a vast, fast-flowing lunch
crowd. Yet Mr Jones, a 63-year-old newcomer to politics when he
produced a stunning upset in a special election two years ago, ap-
peared oblivious to the occasional glance he drew and only inter-
ested in the prospect of lunch. “You’re about to be assaulted by
food,” he said with relish, while queuing for a tray.
His modesty reflects his unusual profile; but also how unloved
elected Democrats are in Alabama. Donald Trump is more popular
here than in any other state. Notwithstanding Mr Jones’s strong re-
cord as a prosecutor and civil-rights campaigner, he was able to be-
come Alabama’s first Democratic senator in a quarter of a century
chiefly because his Republican opponent was a scandal-plagued
religious crank. And even then Roy Moore won 48% of the vote.
This ensured Mr Jones always faced a battle for re-election—and a
full six-year term—next year. And that prospect looks even more
remote following his party’s move to impeach Mr Trump. “I’m real-
ly disappointed in the Democratic Party and I’m very much proud
of the president,” a woman interrupted Mr Jones’s lunch to tell
him. He nodded glumly, as though he had been expecting worse.
To try to placate his moderate Republican supporters, whose
votes he will again need next year, the senator is trying, as he al-
ways does, to find common ground. He says he supports investi-
gating Mr Trump’s alleged abuses. But he also chides his fellow
Democrats for rushing to judgment. “I have seen too many cases
where what appears to be an incredibly damning piece of evidence
turns out to be not so damning when you look at the bigger pic-
ture.” At the same time he frets that impeachment proceedings
could crowd out the Senate’s legislative work—including the pas-
sage of Mr Trump’s redo ofnafta, which he supports.
This is classic Jones. In his maiden Senate speech, shortly after
a gunman massacred 17 people in a school in Florida, the senator
defended the South’s gun culture (“I’m a gun guy,” he says) even as
he called for background checks and other sensible restrictions.
And he has since thrown himself into lawmaking with gusto, put-tinghisnametoover200,mostly bipartisan, bills, on issues as di-
verse as road-building and money-laundering. That bespeaks
more than a freshman’s naive enthusiasm. Though Democrats are
mostly uncompetitive in congressional elections in the South, a
few have clung on to state-level office there on the strength of their
reputations for getting stuff done and voters’ greater pragmatism
as politics moves closer to home. Mr Jones, who had chaired a pre-
lunch panel on human trafficking in Birmingham with knowledge
and enthusiasm, is trying to persuade Alabamans to extend that
pragmatic view to the federal government. “Farmers in Alabama
are more dependent on federal than state government,” he says.
How much better, then, to have a diligent pragmatist representing
them in Washington, dc, than a conservative firebrand.
The potential flaws in this effort at supra-partisanship were ob-
vious even before Mr Trump’s impeachment loomed into view. On
the most divisive issues, including the president, America’s politi-
cal tribes seem beyond accommodation. And it is hard to improve
Alabamans’ view of Washington when most of their representa-
tives and media outlets are bent on rubbishing it. Especially when
the Senate’s Republican leadership is so happy to corroborate
them. Mitch McConnell has brought hardly any of Mr Jones’s so-
ber, life-enhancing bills to the floor. In such a dispiriting environ-
ment, it is no wonder many Democrats, following a path most con-
servatives have already taken, are now giving up on a moderation
altogether. But that conclusion is also politically flawed.
A leftward turn might not stop the Democrats winning the
White House. But it might make it impossible for them to regain
control of the Senate, given the disproportionate weighting it gives
to relatively small and conservative states. Besides Alabama, they
include Arizona, Colorado and North Carolina, which will hold
Senate races next year that the Democrats must win to have a hope
of unified government. Those on the left who try to deny this reali-
ty should note that Mr Jones—who knows more about winning in
conservative states than they do—was one of the first congress-
men to endorse Joe Biden for president. The moderate former vice-
president was also the only senior Democrat he permitted to cam-
paign with him. Constrained though moderation is in the Trump
era, ambitious Democrats cannot afford to abandon it.
To do so in despair would also be to ignore much quiet liberal
progress. Mr Jones won on the back of a rising coalition of non-
whites and college-educated liberals, as well as disenchanted con-
servatives. A proponent of gay and abortion rights, he is also mark-
edly more liberal than traditional Democratic moderates, such as
Joe Manchin of West Virginia. This suggests such positions need
not be as implacably divisive as is often assumed. Beneath the
Trump-related clamour, opinions are changing. Asked to list the
most polarising issues, Mr Jones says: “Trump-Trump-Trump,
abortion—then it really drops off. Guns and gay marriage are no-
where near as big an issue these days.”Gimme Moore
To those Democrats who ask him how to win in Trump country, Mr
Jones urges a combination of respectful candour about differ-
ences—because voters detest a phoney—and patience. “We’re
playing long ball for Alabama and the South because things are
changing.” Even if they don’t change fast enough for his re-elec-
tion hopes, he will have contributed to that process. And so, to give
the devil his due, will Mr Moore, who could yet provide another
twist in this tale. Not content with getting Mr Jones elected once,
he says he is running again. The Lord works in mysterious ways. 7Lexington The labours of Doug Jones
A prophet of Deep South moderation illustrates liberalism’s present pains and future promise