Tommy Tuberville wasn’t the best available football coach in Alabama when Republicans tapped him for a US Senate run in 2020. He wasn’t, in fact, even the best available former Auburn coach. What he was was a silver fox with name recognition who had pledged allegiance to Donald Trump and to toe the party line. A useful idiot, in other words.
After trouncing former US attorney general Jeff Sessions in the Republican primary and winning election to the Senate by double digits, Tuberville has proven as much a far-right team player as advertised; not surprisingly, he believed the Big Lie and was one of the dozen Republican senators who were prepared to vote against certifying Joe Biden as US president. And yet the 68-year-old really didn’t distinguish himself in his new career as a Trump surrogate until this month.
