The question for Roy Moore was “When was the last time America was great?” He replied:

I think it was great at the time when families were united — even though we had slavery — they cared for one another…. Our families were strong, our country had a direction.

A neo-nazi pining for the good old days of the Third Reich might have said something similar:

I think it was great at the time when families were united – even though we had the Holocaust – they cared for one another…. Our families were strong, our country had a direction.

But hey, who cared that the would-be senator preferred the antebellum South to the present? Or was a plausibly accused child molester and an ex-chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court who was thrown off the bench in 2003 and again in 2016?

The bottom line was that Moore’s election would help Republicans maintain their slim majority in the Senate. They thought he was a shoo-in. An honest Republican would have put it this way: “Moore may be a bigot and pedophile, but he’s our bigot and pedophile. At least he’s not a Democrat.”

But Moore lost to the Democrat, Doug Jones. It’s too bad a guy so vile came so close to becoming a U.S. senator, but it’s amazing a Democrat won a Senate race in a state like Alabama, which Donald Trump won in a landslide last year.

Old-guard Senate Republicans don’t like over-the-top vile. They like guys who are vile but discreet. If they start thinking vile is out of style this election cycle, they will rethink their allegiances and turn on Trump faster than you can say Roy Moore.