Christabel Duah
The Democratic Coalition is scrambling to make amends after a gag hat meant to slam Senate candidate Roy Moore went over well with exactly no one.
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The grassroots organization — formed in Spring 2016 to resist the Trump administration — is currently pushing to elect Moore’s opponent, Doug Jones, for Alabama’s open Senate seat, and amid the rape and sexual assault accusations against Moore, the Coalition “jokingly” referenced the young ages of Moore’s alleged victims.
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The group shared a photo on social media featuring a red hat with white text similar to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan hats. It read, “She didn’t look fourteen.” Roy Moore’s first accuser alleged that she was 14 when the then district attorney sexually assaulted her.
Given that making light of pedophilia is never funny regardless of political affiliation, it’s no surprise that people on all sides ripped into the organization, leading them to take down the post and issue an apology — but not before someone snapped a picture, of course.
The Democratic Coalition tweeted in response to the backlash:
We sincerely apologize for our hat tweet earlier.
On social media it is too often the loudest & most colorful content that gets attention. In our pursuit of that we lost perspective on the severity & gravity of the allegations against Roy Moore.
For that we are truly sorry.
We sincerely apologize for our hat tweet earlier.
On social media it is too often the loudest & most colorful content that gets attention. In our pursuit of that we lost perspective on the severity & gravity of the allegations against Roy Moore.
For that we are truly sorry.
— Democratic Coalition (@TheDemCoalition) November 20, 2017
In early November, The Washington Post shared a story of a woman who alleged that Moore had inappropriate sexual encounters with her while she was 14 and he was 32 years old. Leigh Corfman said she was only a teenager when Moore offered to watch her outside of a courthouse while her mother went inside for a child custody hearing in 1979.
Since then, nearly a dozen accusers have stepped up with allegations against the judge.
As the special United States Senate election draws closer, many have urged voters to reject Roy Moore. Several newspapers, including some in Alabama, have published editorials against him. Additionally, a majority of the GOP has called for him to drop out of the race.
Several members of the GOP have pulled support for Moore and called for him to step down from the candidacy.
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Moore, however, refuses to back out. He tweeted on Nov. 16, saying, “I’ve taken a stand in the past, I’ll take a stand in the future and I’ll quit standing when they lay me in that box and put me in the ground. #alsen.”
https://twitter.com/MooreSenate/status/931270085439840257
While members of the Trump administration have stopped short of asking Moore to drop out — and the president himself has remained uncharacteristically mum, offering neither criticism nor endorsement — Ivanka Trump was uncommonly blunt in her own comments about the scandal. In an interview with Associated Press, she said, “There’s a special place in hell for people who prey on children. I’ve yet to see a valid explanation, and I have no reason to doubt the victims’ accounts.” She, too, did not expressly call for Moore to drop out of the race.
