Doug Jones won because of who he ran against.
Roy Moore and Donald Trump.
Doug Jones won because suburban Republicans stayed home, and they stayed home because they couldn't stomach either Moore or Trump.
That's the bottom line. Democrat turnout was at traditional levels. It was higher than it was for Hillary Clinton -- a despised candidate, even for Democrats -- but it was in the groove for historic norms. The numbers show that it wasn't a strong Democratic base that elected Jones, it was a disaffected Republican base.
Many tens of thousands of Republicans skipped the election, and some 22,000 Republicans wrote in alternative candidates. Those non-participating Republicans accounted for many times Doug Jones' margin of victory.
That should be a wake-up call.
But it won't be.
The president will keep on tweeting and blaming the fake news and the spiral will implode next November 6.
I say that as a Republican and Trump voter. I take no delight in this state of affairs, but I see no deliverance from it either. The president will continue to destroy himself and his coalition, and the feckless Republican leadership in Congress will continue to be useless.
If there is a path forward, it certainly isn't an obvious one.
Here is what happened in Alabama last night.
A freak-job candidate doing a George Wallace impersonation tried for all he was worth to convince people that God wanted him to win, and that as proof he was going to lecture us yet again on the Ten Commandments and the threats posed by guys wearing dresses. As a conservative, I have never for a moment believed that Roy Moore was anything other than an exploiter of conservative beliefs and values. His career has been built on dog whistles and posing. While God and guns are important to conservatives, I've always felt that Roy Moore embraced them opportunistically for his own political benefit.
And it worked for him.
Until last night, when the cream of suburban Republican voters looked the other way.
That may also have been a reaction to Donald Trump and Steve Bannon.
Though Alabama was all in on making America great again, the never-ending antics of the president have made it hard for Republicans there to truly embrace and support him. He'll do something good -- like take a stand on taxes or Jerusalem -- and then debase it all with some juvenile tweet or needless insult. Yes, the press is out to hang him. But, also yes, almost all his problems and embarrassments are of his own unnecessary creation.
And when he raised the Trump flag and called on Republicans to rally, they did not.
When he said that a Roy Moore victory was essential to the advancement of the Trump agenda, a lot of Republicans changed the channel.
It was the robocall to no avail.
And his partner Steve Bannon ended up only hurting. Instead of the maverick voice of the alt-right, he was just some poorly dressed fat guy in need of a shave. The press paid attention to him, but the voters didn't.
And so one of the most reliably Republican states in the nation tipped Democrat.
Somebody will probably get a Pulitzer Prize out of it, and Chuck Schumer might soon get a fancier office, and the tightrope walk of Republican control of the Senate will doom any significant conservative or Trump priorities over the coming year.
As a Republican, last night was a huge loss. But it was a well-deserved loss. Our congressional leaders are spineless, our president is insane, our party is adrift. And that means our country is screwed.
Not because our ideas are bad, but because the people who control our party and our country are of the weakest and basest sort. They are not men of dignity or duty, and though they have seized the levers of power, they lack the spine, integrity and ability to operate them to good effect.
The only thing Republicans can be thankful for out of last night is the fact that the other 49 states didn't get the chance to send the same message Alabama sent.