But its absurd and offensive to indicate there are actually people who aren't planning on voting for Moore now are swayable to,vote FOR him BECAUSE of this.
Actually, that's not what we're saying. At least, that's not what I'm saying, and I have been one of the people saying this. We leave out the detailed reasoning just because trolling is a lot more effective and entertaining when there is enough ambiguity that it could be interpreted in the worst possible way.
Of course, it is ridiculous to think that Alabamians would actively endorse Moore's alleged predatory behavior and be swayed to vote for him because of his actions. However, what people like me, PNM and IceSpear have been saying is that it cannot be overstated how invested the average Republican voter is in "their guy" and how they will simply refuse to believe any allegations against Moore. In some cases, their vision and judgment may be so clouded by tribalism that they will even try to rationalize Moore's illegal alleged actions by comparing with Democrat scandals or saying it happened too long ago to matter. They are not necessarily amoral people, but tribalism can lead to amoral behavior from otherwise basically moral people. They cannot simply dismiss Moore as a bad candidate without admitting deep faults of their own that go beyond merely backing the wrong horse.
Regarding it increasing his chances of winning, it's not unreasonable to theorize that some relatively apolitical voters (it is a special election, after all) may not have been particularly excited by Moore before, but now that they see the "fake news media" and establishment furiously attacking him from both sides, they will actually turn out to vote for him.
Great post, but the last paragraph is self-contradictory. More apolitical voters, by default, wouldn't be as invested in the anti-media narrative so prominent in Trumpist circles. Granted, it is Alabama so independents will more often than not lean conservative, but the assumption that less politically active voters will swing on the side of Moore due to higher exposure is undermined by the fact that these less active voters won't respond to the anti-media and anti-establishment narrative as strongly as the Trump/alt-right base would.
In fact, based on Moore's past narrow election win to the state Supreme Court and polls showing he's doing incredibly poorly with non-evangelicals (just about the worst a Republican in Alabama can do with non-evangelicals, really), it
would actually be a safer bet to make that this hurts him. Less identitarian driven conservatives were already not big fans of him, and they certainly won't be the ones defending him now that these allegations have spilled out into the open. I could see a lot of Strange/Brooks primary voters using this as an excuse to stay home or possibly have some even cross the aisle and vote for Jones.
