Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan. No one wants the “credit” for the fact that Alabama just elected a partisan of partial birth abortion. Doug Jones is about as far left on most issues as Bernie Sanders. Imagine Ted Cruz winning a senate seat from Vermont. The equivalent happened in Alabama with Roy Moore’s defeat on Tuesday. Jones will serve as senator for two years, then be defeated, as Scott Brown was when he filled Ted Kennedy’s seat in Massachusetts.

There are some real lessons we can take away from this election. There is also a long list of fake ones, which some pundits are trying to peddle. Let’s start with the genuine articles. The following are true.

Save the Endangered Senators

President Trump should stop pulling good senators like Jeff Sessions out of that chamber, and leaving them to rot in his cabinet. So leave Tom Cotton alone, okay, Mr. President? We need him on immigration, where he has sponsored a crucial law that would fix our broken system and secure our borders.

The GOP Leadership Should Stop Meddling in Primaries

The only reason the final GOP runoff was between “meh” moderate Luther Strange and firebrand Roy Moore was that Mitch McConnell poured tens of millions of dollars into the primary. For what?  For attack ads on electable conservative Mo Brooks — apparently because of his solid position on immigration. In an example of stupid Machiavellianism worthy of Karl Rove at his worst, McConnell apparently calculated that Moore was a poison pill. And that turned out to be true. Just in the general election, not the primary. So now McConnell’s caucus is one member smaller.

Unless one of the potential nominees is literally some kind of crackpot extremist — say, a white racist or a Planned Parenthood backer — the GOP leaders should just leave it to the voters.

Populism Is Not Enough

Think of politics as cooking. Populism is a sauce, not a starch. It can flavor a campaign as needed. You should use it when appropriate. For instance, when you’re running against a candidate who’s dishonest about his views or out of touch with voters. It’s helpful in dispelling the mindless momentum that stale candidates gain from collecting large donations from wealthy donors. Think of Eric Cantor in Virginia. But it’s not even an all purpose tactic, much less a coherent worldview. No one wants to eat a bowl of peppers, or to elect another Huey Long. Such politicians’ shelf lives are short, even when they don’t collapse in a hail of bullets.

Should we be outraged that Moore agreed with Scalia? That he picked Christianity over sexual anarchy?

Do Your Own Opposition Research

If I were one of Luther Strange’s donors, I’d want some serious answers as to why his campaign didn’t turn up any evidence of the sexual abuse charges that mysteriously appeared right after the runoff. Now it’s possible, just possible, that all of Moore’s accusers were lying in a coordinated fashion. And that they chose for partisan reasons to withhold their stories until the general election. But I don’t think so. Maybe the tales were exaggerated, but they had enough circumstantial credibility for The Washington Post to risk publishing them. If those reporters could find these sources, so could Strange’s campaign. That is what primaries are for, isn’t it? To spare us choices between “accused teen molester” and “abortion zealot.” Right?

There are also some false, self-serving conclusions that pundits are drawing from this election. Here are the worst ones:

Stop Nominating Populists

It’s one thing to say that in the light of credible (though unproven) allegations that Moore groped a teenage girl, the GOP and the pro-life movement are better off without him in the Senate. We can suffer through two years of Jones, rather than bear the millstone of sex abuse charges involving a teen. That’s what I think, but I respect those who differ.

How crazy is it to wonder about sharia? That legal system is far more central to Islam than the Inquisition ever was to Catholics. And unlike the Inquisition in 1860, it’s still claiming victims.

It’s quite another thing to demonize Moore’s political positions and dismiss those who backed him before the charges appeared. Two of his stands in particular have proven lightning rods. So let’s look at each in detail.

Moore Proposed a Religious Test Excluding Muslims

At one point, Roy Moore did say that he questioned how a Muslim member of Congress could honestly take the oath of office and serve the United States. And some conservatives are shocked, appalled, and outraged by this position. But how wrong is it? In the 19^th century, Americans were so concerned by the Catholic Church’s previous embrace of religious coercion that the country changed its citizenship oath. Newcomers had to foreswear political loyalty to “foreign princes” (like the pope). As a Catholic, I think this U.S. decision was perfectly reasonable.

How crazy is it to wonder about sharia? That legal system is far more central to Islam than the Inquisition ever was to Catholics. And unlike the Inquisition in 1860, it’s still claiming victims. Every year, Saudi Arabia (the Sunni Muslim “Vatican”) executes homosexuals, adulterers, and apostates from Islam. Sharia is a law code that every orthodox Muslim is expected to believe:

• Is divinely revealed.
• Rightly applies to the whole world, till the end of time.
• Enshrines Muslims as overlords of the human race.
• Relegates Jews and Christians to quasi-slave status.
• Sentences Hindus and other polytheists to death.

For a Muslim to be a faithful American who supports our Constitution, he must be something of a “reformer” or “dissenter.” Now it’s possible that Muslims who run for Congress fit that description.

So Moore went a little too far in suggesting that no Muslims should serve in Congress. But he’s not nearly as far from the truth as those “mainstream” conservatives who pretend that Islam is just Unitarianism plus hummus. Should we be more outraged at him than we are at them?

Moore Favored Legal Penalties for Homosexual Activity

Again, here’s a case where Moore erred by a few degrees to the right. No one seriously wants to see anti-sodomy laws reinstated and enforced. But neither should any conservative rejoice in the fact that these long-neglected laws were ruled unconstitutional. It was not Roy Moore but Justice Antonin Scalia who warned where such a decision would lead inexorably: to same-sex marriage imposed by our highest courts. And then to the legal persecution of orthodox Christians, as we’re seeing today.

In theory, our legal system could permit and protect the open practice both of homosexuality and of biblical Christianity. But in practice, it seems that we’re going to have to pick. Certainly the LGBTQ movement wants to force such a choice upon us. How many GOP leaders are willing to face that fact?

Should we be outraged that Moore agreed with Scalia? That he picked Christianity over sexual anarchy?

No, Moore lost this race for one reason only: Because he responded in a shifty and inconsistent way to appalling charges that millions of voters came to believe might well be true. That was a tragedy, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with his views, which were mostly closer to the truth than most GOP politicians have the stomach to admit.