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Opinion | Let the embarrassment begin

“It’s all just a game for Tuberville. He’s not serious about representing Alabama in the U.S. Senate.”

When I was in high school, our coaches — head football, basketball, and baseball coaches, all assistant coaches — had to teach classes, too. My civics class was taught by one of these coaches. He was just a high school assistant football coach, but the dude knew the three branches of government. He taught us that, and a lot more.

The nation is embarrassed for Alabama, again. For electing mediocre coach, now-Senator-elect Tommy Tuberville, the Republican, over Democratic incumbent Sen. Doug Jones. We should be embarrassed as well. Alabama, when you elect idiots, you’re going to get idiots.

Look at Donald Trump, the president-unelect. Then look at his children, who surround him to grift whatever they can grift. See. The idiots don’t fall far from the idiot tree.

Friday when I opened my Twitter, this was waiting for me:

In an interview with Alabama Daily News, here was one exchange:

  • TCS (Todd Stacy): You mentioned the majorities and they are going to be razor thin. I mean, right now it looks like one or two seats in the Senate for Republicans, maybe 14 or 15 seats for Democrats in the House. And that’s as close as it’s been in a long, long time. Do you think the Democrats are going to have to work with Republicans and Republicans are going to have to work with Democrats? You see that being possibly a more productive situation? 
  • CTT (Coach Tommy Tuberville): Yeah and that’s how our government was set up. You know, our government wasn’t set up for one group to have all three of branches of government. It wasn’t set up that way, our three branches, the House, the Senate and executive.

Tuberville clearly doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about. When our constitutional government was set up by the founders, the president and vice president didn’t even run as a ticket. They were elected separately. Most founders argued against political parties. Senators were appointed, not elected.

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But here’s what the real embarrassment is: Tuberville thinks the three branches of the U.S. government are the House, the Senate, and the executive. Seriously. That’s what Tuberville said. Stacy didn’t ambush Coach Tubby. No, Tuberville volunteered his immense knowledge of the federal government all on his own.

Of course, the three branches of the U.S. government, as set up in the U.S. Constitution Tuberville obviously hasn’t read, are the Legislative (House and Senate), the Executive (president and vice president), and the Judicial (the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal courts).

One would presume Tuberville would know at least this much, because the body he was just elected to confirms the nominees for that third branch, the judiciary.

It’s all just a game for Tuberville. He’s not serious about representing Alabama in the U.S. Senate. Hell, he lives mostly in Florida. Tuberville is just interested in the appearance of power, and the really nice salary and benefits. He will rarely have an independent thought in his head, and when he does, it’ll probably be wrong, like not even knowing the three branches of the U.S. government.

This truly is embarrassing. For all of us in Alabama. But you get what you vote for, Alabama. That’s why we’re near the bottom in just about every quality-of-life survey taken.

And without Trump in the executive branch, sycophant Tubby will be lost. Tuberville ran on Trump, and Trump won’t be there. Now that’s a hoot.

There’s a decent chance Tuberville will be in the minority in the Senate, too, depending on what happens in the two Senate runoffs in Georgia on Jan. 5.

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Tuberville says he may spend one or two weeks in Georgia campaigning and fund-raising for the Republican Senate candidates. One might imagine those candidates would say: “No, thanks. Keep your Alabama stupid out of here.” But, then, those two Georgia Republican candidates aren’t all that smart, either.

But the assistant high school football coach who taught me civics was pretty much on the ball, where telling us about the operations of the U.S. government were concerned. He was a really good teacher. Maybe you have to choose one or the other: good coach or good teacher?

That coach was a good teacher, but our high school football team sucked. Like Tommy Tuberville will.

Joey Kennedy, a Pulitzer Prize winner, writes a column each week for the Alabama Political Reporter. You can email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter.

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