African-Americans were once again called upon to save the nation by organizing and acting, and they came through big time in Alabama Tuesday night.  They made up 30% of the voters and stunned analysts by voting at a higher rate for Doug Jones than for Barack Obama, averaging 96% overall with 98% of Black women voting for Jones. All of this helped make Donald Trump a 2-time loser in the Alabama Senate race, first backing loser Luther Strange in the primary and now siding with loser Roy Moore in the general election. And caused by Black people too. That has to hurt.

One reason for the overwhelming Black vote was the effectiveness of the ground game and the emotional impact of the Moore candidacy and Doug Jones’ successful prosecution of the KKK bombers of the 16^th Street Baptist Church. As CNN commentator Bakari Sellers noted, Roy Moore was recognized as a throwback to the time of George Wallace and Bull Connor and that prompted grassroots actions by the Black Church, sororities, fraternities, Black colleges, the NAACP and a coalition with progressive groups working door-to-door, all to “turn Alabama Blue if only for a moment”, said Sellers.

The effect of individuals in a democracy was acknowledged in Alabama by winner Doug Jones who thanked “all of those volunteers that knocked on 300,000 doors. It’s the volunteers who made 1.2 million phone calls around this state,” along with the NAACP’s 40,000 calls and a texting campaign to nearly 160,000, that set the example of activism that made the victory possible.

Once again, Donald Trump has given us example of the kind of man he is. He insults the pregnant widow of U.S. Army Sgt. La David Johnson, killed in Nigeria, at a ceremony to honor Native American Code Talkers of WWII, he insults them with a demeaning reference to “Pocahontas”, and does it beneath a portrait of President Andrew “Indian Killer” Jackson. He shoved the Prime Minister of Montenegro aside to move to the front of a NATO summit photo op, the Washington Post has tallied 1,628 of his lies, and now with the latest assault on New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand saying “she would do anything” for campaign contributions, he’s prompted the usually mainstream USA Today Editorial Board to say: “A President who would all but call Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand a whore is not fit to clean the toilets in the Barack Obama Presidential Library or to shine the shoes of George W. Bush.” And yet he received 63% of the vote of white women. That is very curious and I’m sure the subject of much study by the Democratic National Committee and researchers in psychology and anthropology.