Winston Churchill supposedly once said that Americans, having exhausted all alternatives, will do the right thing. If Churchill were writing today, he might offer a parallel formulation: The Republican Party, having exhausted all other alternatives, will do the politically expedient thing—an axiom demonstrated vividly over the last couple days in the GOP’s decision to support U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore in Alabama after all. …

So what has changed? The polling has. When the GOP abandoned Moore, he was leading, but the moral stakes were clear. Then the polling followed, with an NRSC poll showing Democrat Doug Jones with an astounding (and outlying) 12-point lead. But since Thanksgiving, as attention has drifted away from the race, Moore has floated back to a small lead over Jones. And Republican leaders have apparently begun to feel a little remorse over their moral stand, wondering if it’s better to have a Republican in the Senate than a Democrat. After all, if Moore can get away with just pretending nothing ever happened, and Trump can get away with claiming that he isn’t on a tape he clearly is on, why should other Republicans not follow suit?

— David Graham
The Atlantic