I'm relieved that Alabama elected Doug Jones to the Senate. Though he didn't run a particularly inspiring campaign, his politics weren't bad, and significantly to the left of many milquetoast Democrats (in Alabama, no less!). Perhaps we should discount this electoral win given the truly abysmal candidate he ran against, but I also think we should take victories where we can get them.

The commentariat will dissect what this means for national politics in the coming days and weeks. It's tough to extrapolate too much here, so instead I wanted to share a little bit of humanity that I stumbled upon last night.

Nathan Mathis is a local peanut farmer in Alabama. He went to a Roy Moore rally to stand up against the candidates homophobic and hurtful rhetoric (and his hypocrisy).

Watch him make a heartfelt case against Moore in this video. His daughter, who was gay, took her own life in 1995. As a letter to a local paper details, the loss seems to have profoundly changed the man. You can read a little bit more about him here. People can change; sometimes it just takes a lot to move them.

Today, we can celebrate a little bit of relief and a little bit of humanity. Let's keep working from that place and keep building, pang'ono, pang'ono.