This is a column.

If the head of the Alabama Democratic Party voted with an ID he made himself, and if the Alabama Secretary of State said that ID was not a valid voter ID, the Alabama GOP would call a press conference.

They’d fire off press releases to every news outlet in the state, decrying the brazen act of voter fraud.

They’d demand authorities investigate. Or just skip the investigation phase and go straight to the grand jury.

They wouldn’t stop fussing until somebody was in handcuffs.

RELATED: Alabama GOP chair voted with ID he made himself. 

But this column isn’t an attack on the Alabama GOP for not holding its chairman, John Wahl, accountable for something they’d never tolerate from a Democrat.

This is a column about the Alabama Democratic Party not holding Republicans accountable.

Nor doing much of anything else.

Zilch.

Diddly squat.

Just look at the party’s Twitter account, which hasn’t Tweeted since August.

Or its Facebook page, which hasn’t been updated since then, either.

Or its website, which still has the names of party leaders who the party executive committee replaced months ago.

The Alabama Republican Party might have no principles, but the Alabama Democratic Party has no pulse.

The Alabama GOP makes another unforced error, and the Dems do nothing to make up the ground they’ve lost over the last 40 years.

We’ve seen this sort of thing before.

Not so long ago, the leaders of all three branches of Alabama government were forced from office, not by Democrats, but by their own malfeasance.

Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard lost his seat after a Lee County jury found him guilty of breaking laws he helped pass.

Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore was ejected — again — from office after he defied federal court orders.

Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley left office after he pleaded guilty to breaking campaign finance laws to benefit a woman who was not his wife.

And the Alabama Democratic Party did nothing then, either.

It went for months at a time without so much as a tweet.

Sure, being a social media influencer is not the same as being a political party. It’s not a substitute for all the other things a party has to do — recruiting viable candidates, raising money, organizing volunteers, etc.

But it’s free. It’s literally the least a party can do.

And this party isn’t doing the bare minimum.

Not then. And not now.

For a time, there were signs of life among Alabama Democrats.

In 2019, the Democratic National Committee forced the Alabama party to adopt new rules that would include more youth and more diversity on its state executive committee. With those new voices, who were backed by then-Sen. Doug Jones, the party wrested control from party boss Joe Reed and replaced party chairwoman Nancy Worley with state Rep. Chris England.

The young insurgents staffed the office, freshened up its digital presence and began to cross swords with Republicans.

But after the Democrats got licked in 2020, the defeat took the wind out of them. The party didn’t recruit viable candidates for the current election cycle but instead settled for a herd of sacrificial lambs. Today, there are Democratic candidates running for statewide office who have hundreds of dollars on hand, or less.

In August, Party boss Joe Reed, who had propped up Worley, regrouped and beat the new kids by their own rules. This time, the Reed faction of the party elected Randy Kelley their new party chair.

I had wondered whether the Reed faction would have learned something from the two years in the cold, that Kelley would be a different sort of leader than Worley had been.

Worley might could do a better job, and she died two years ago.

Not only has Kelley failed to do any substantial messaging, through Twitter or any other social media, the party’s website still says Chris England and Patricia Todd are the chair and vice chair of the party.

Why should Alabamians think Democrats could run a state when they can’t manage a website?

Meanwhile, there are candidates running for state offices who have less cash on hand than you probably have in the cushions of your couch. That’s hardly an exaggeration. The party’s candidate for governor has less than $50 to spend, according to campaign finance reports.

And before anyone bemoans the insurmountable hill Democrats must climb, the Alabama Libertarian Party faces the same steep slope, and yet it has fielded more candidates, has shown better signs of coordination.

It even has an up-to-date website and an active social media presence.

In an interview with my colleague Paul Gattis, Kelley acknowledged there’s work to be done.

“And you have a situation where the Republican Party ignores us,” Kelley told Gattis. “But you’ve got another situation where Democratic candidates take us for granted.”

For granted? At this point, why would they want the party’s help?

Kelley says he has a plan. There’s no reason yet to believe him.

The chair of the Alabama Republican Party might be voting with a bogus ID.

But at least he has something.

The Alabama Democrats don’t have an identity at all.

Kyle Whitmire is the state political columnist for the Alabama Media Group, 2020 winner of the Walker Stone Award, winner of the 2021 SPJ award for opinion writing, and 2021 winner of the Molly Ivins prize for political commentary.

You can follow his work on his Facebook page, The War on Dumb. And on Twitter. And on Instagram.

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