By Glynn Wilson –

WASHINGTON, D.C. — So the stage is set. One more time, the people of Alabama have a chance to fight the final battle of the American Revolution and the Civil War, and this time stamp out racist, religious politics for all time.

The national media is still writing about the special Senate election as a “war” for the soul of the Republican party between mainstream pro-business Republicans and the radical religious, racist right. But that’s not what this election is about.

Lightening-rod religious nut Judge Roy Moore managed to turn out his loyal Christian voters on Tuesday and won the runoff with Senator Luther Strange by a margin of 55 to 45 percent of the vote. But according to the Secretary of State’s results on the web, only about 14 percent of the state’s 3.1 million registered voters bothered to show up and cast ballots.

The results correspond to what we recently reported based on polls and an interview with Auburn history professor Wayne Flynt, who said if the voter turnout was below 15 percent, Moore would win.

But that’s not necessary a bad thing as it turns out. If more Republicans had taken the advice of President Donald Trump and showed up to vote for “Big Bunny” Luther Strange, the chamber of commerce Republicans might have been able to hold onto the Senate seat held by now Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and Democrat Howell Heflin before him.

Now the people have the chance to put a mainstream Democrat, former U.S. Attorney Doug Jones, into that seat to play a key role in investigating Trump on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“The people of Alabama deserve a senator who will put aside partisan rancor and address the real needs facing the people of this state,” Jones said in a statement after the results were in Tuesday night. “I understand the importance of bipartisanship. A Democratic president appointed me U.S. Attorney and I was confirmed by a Republican-controlled Senate.”

Since the beginning of the race, Jones has focused on the key issues he says really matter to the people of Alabama – health care, jobs, and the economy.

“Unfortunately, there has been little discussion about those issues in the bitter race of the last few weeks,” Jones said. “These are not Democratic issues. These are not Republican issues.”

After years of embarrassing headlines about top public officials in the state, with Republican Governor Robert Bentley removed from office for abusing his position, House Speaker Mike Hubbard convicted of corruption and Judge Moore kicked off the state Supreme Court once again, Jones said this race “is about the people of Alabama” and “about choosing a candidate with character and integrity they can be proud of.”

“I will never embarrass the people of Alabama,” Jones said. “I am running so the people of Alabama can be proud of their next senator.”

This job is much bigger than the occupant, he said.

“As U.S. Attorney, I not only completed my term but remained a special prosecutor to ensure justice was served and Klansmen went to prison for murdering four innocent little girls,” he said about his role in jailing two Klansman for the infamous Birmingham church bombing of 1963. “I will take the same seriousness to the United States Senate and ensure millions of Alabamians have a representative who places the people above personal ambition.”

Even President Trump, on a visit to the state on Friday to campaign for Luther Strange, acknowledged that Moore would be likely to lose the general election.

“Roy has a very good chance of not winning in the general election,” Trump said during the rally in Huntsville. “Roy is going to have a hard time, but I will be backing him if he wins.”

After being portrayed by the press as a key player in the race, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, now back at the helm of the alt-right news outfit Brietbart News, showed up at a rally for Moore.

“For Mitch McConnell and Ward Baker and Karl Rove and Steven Law, all the instruments that tried to destroy Judge Moore and his family, your day of reckoning is coming,” Bannon bragged. But the people of Alabama have a chance to prove him wrong, if enough Democrats, progressives, independents, women, African Americans and others will simply show up to vote in December and put this movement out of business.

“They think you’re a pack of morons, they think you’re nothing but rubes, they have no interest at all in what you have to say, in what you have to think or what you want to do,” Bannon told the crowd of crazy deplorables, who make up a minority of voters in every state.

In his victory speech, Moore himself said, “We have to return the knowledge of God and the Constitution of the United States to the United States Congress. We have become a nation that has distanced ourselves from the very foundation.”

But J.L. Chestnut Jr. once called Judge Roy Moore “Alabama’s equivalent of the intolerant Taliban in Afghanistan.”

Retired Auburn History Professor Wayne Flynt, an expert who is respected and listened to by all sides in the state, explained to me in a never before seen interview, that this election is not about the soul of the Republican party. It is about the preservation of American democracy, which depends on a wall of separation of church and state. Moore is trying his best to tear down and destroy that wall. He is not for American democracy or making America great again. He is for bringing a religious monarchy to the shores of the Unites States.

That is a battle worth fighting, again. You can fight that battle by showing up to vote December 12, and by sharing this story and video.