This is an opinion column.

Archibald: Tommy Tuberville’s blunder of Biblical proportions

A man was going down from Eli’s Jerusalem Grill in Birmingham to Jericho, in Perry County, a quiet place nestled between three cemeteries, four Baptist churches, one Methodist and an old AME Zion church.

The man was attacked, somewhere between the Bethel Baptist Church and the New Antioch Baptist Church. He was roughed up a bit, robbed of his worldly possessions. He was left there like his 2022 Prius hybrid, stripped and immobile on the side of the road.

Now a preacher at a faraway church happened to be driving along that road, on the way to Montgomery to deliver the opening prayer for the meeting of the Alabama Public Service Commission, which is a big opportunity for Alabama preachers, akin to an invitation to the Grand Ole Opry for country musicians. The good reverend saw the man on the side of the road, but did not ask WWJD. He saw the Prius, and thought “What would PSC boss Twinkle Cavanaugh do.” And he stepped on the gas.

It happened that a certain Alabama politician was also being driven along that road this day, on his way to Florida, his preferred state of mind and body. His driver spotted the man and his troubles, and the Prius, and a bumper sticker on the back that said “Coexist,” with the peace sign and symbols of various religions.

“Should we stop?” the driver asked.

“Ugh,” the senator said. “I hate it for him, but he’s just overwhelmed with these woke ideas. He doesn’t deserve help, to be honest with you, unless he shows he’s gonna make some changes.”

So the senator sped on.

I feel sure somebody stopped later to help the guy out, maybe even drove him an hour and a half to get to the nearest hospital.

A neighbor. Maybe she was a Republican. Maybe he was a Democrat. Maybe somebody who couldn’t vote because of a criminal record, or immigration status, or because they were so busy trying to survive that they didn’t think much about it. The people who know what it’s like to need some help often seem the most likely to give it.

That’s why Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s glee to deny aid to a California in flames hit so hard, and felt so strange and disturbing, as if we’ve reached a point of no return, as if we have gone off the rails of humanity and can’t get back on the track.

Tuberville told Newsmax this week that the government shouldn’t supply aid to California, a state that puts “imbeciles in office.” Not without conditions, anyway.

“They don’t deserve anything, to be honest with you, unless they show us they’re gonna make some changes,” he said.

I could talk about imbeciles. I could talk of Tuberville’s tenuous claim to facts or basic knowledge of government or his own religiosity. I could talk of how California pays a much bigger chunk of taxes to the government than Alabama, and how the federal government spends more per Alabamian than it does for Californians.

But that’s not even the troublesome stuff. The disturbing part is much, much deeper.

When people talk of our political divide and dysfunction, when they lament policies that value greed over need and fear over fairness, I think of the simplest of things. I have long coped because I know — I knew — that when people see you in trouble, they help.

Almost always.

If your car breaks down they tend to stop, no matter who you voted for. If they see you struggling, they extend a hand.

It is our way. It has to be. Because of faith or conscience or just to be neighborly. If they don’t, well, they tell you exactly who they are.

Tommy Tuberville just did that.

John Archibald is a two-time Pulitzer winner.