The most important lesson from Judge Roy Moore's U.S. Senate loss to Doug Jones in Alabama is that the reliable red state is dead.

In the days following Moore's loss, the predictable excuses from the right were resurrected:

"Voter fraud!"

"The media!"

"Mitch McConnell!"

Jones is a NeverTrump ally

Unlike a good bourbon, these rationalizations haven't aged well. Perhaps they played some part, and yes, Moore was a terrible candidate. At least Republicans didn't attribute Jones's victory to Vlad Putin or libelous dossiers chock-full of details akin more to pornography than to politics.

However, you can make excuses, or you can win elections – you just can't do both. Alabama was the reddest of red states, and a Democrat got elected. Loath as I am to admit it, the win was big for the Democrats; even if he's a two-year rental, Jones could be a hindrance to the America First brand of politics ushered in by President Trump's stunning victory last year. Exacerbating the situation is the constant opposition to the president from a handful of fellow Republicans in the Senate, where the GOP majority is razor-thin. (I call these resistance RINOs Et Tu, Brute Republicans.)

Blue and pur-blue states, including Texas

There are no more reliably red states. I believed this before Alabama; if the red state wasn't dead before Alabama, it was on life support. There are only blue and pur-blue states. The mostly coastal blue states are unequivocally majority-Democrat.

What, then, turns a pur-blue state red? The answer is so simple that it's often overlooked: turnout, turnout, turnout. Showing up and turning out is all that ultimately matters in politics. Sure, a formidable campaign operation, comprising effective and targeted messaging, staffers, and volunteers who canvass door to door, belly button to belly button, is non-negotiable. All that counts in the end, however, is the final count. Moral victories are cute and make for feel-good film, but candidates are elected based on the result, not their effort.

Alabama's tally confirms that the red state is dead. Two million registered voters stayed home, and Jones won by almost 21,000 votes. For argument's sake, let's say all of Jones's margin of victory was voter fraud (good luck proving that). Twenty-one thousand of 2 million is 1.5 percent. This tiny percentage makes the excuses for losing look particularly lame.

President Trump received 1.3 million votes last year, and Moore received 650,000 at a time when the GOP has its largest state and federal majority in party history – a majority not even Presidents Lincoln and Reagan had. Yuck.

The Democrats want low turnout and want voter ID laws. They publicly oppose ID laws because it keeps the embers of the "GOP as white supremacists and wannabe slaveholders" Democratic Party and DMIC (Democrat Media Industrial Complex) narrative white-hot. This isn't conspiracy theory, but rather a covert gerrymander that's favorable to Democrats virtually everywhere across the country – the urban, heavily populated cities versus the suburbs and rural areas.

Throw a dart at a map of the U.S., and wherever it lands, staying home on Election Day helps elect Democrats 90% of the time.

In a previously published piece, I proved that Democrat policies are guaranteed to fail and identified hopelessly Democrat municipal empires that almost always tilt a state blue. I say "almost always" because something extraordinary occurred in the 2016 presidential election: President Trump was the only national GOP candidate who attacked these futile Democrat policies, and even though he didn't win cities such as Philadelphia, Cleveland, Detroit, and St. Louis, he won their respective states.

I know what you're thinking: what about Texas, that allegedly reliable red state? Those who believe that fallacy affirm the premise of this article. If only Texas's four largest cities (Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, and Austin) voted, the Lone Star State would be as blue as California and New York. As recently as 1995 [not 2006 –ed.], Texas had a Democrat governor, and its big cities are only getting bluer.

Here's a red pill for you: Mitt Romney and President Trump both won Texas, in 2012 and 2016, respectively, but Romney received a higher percentage of votes cast than did President Trump.

To use some Texas slang, y'all know that the Democrats' endgame (which, unfortunately, would have been fulfilled had Clinton won last year) is Texas, right? Texas going blue guarantees Democrat presidents and Supreme Courts forever. Had Clinton been elected in 2016, it would have ushered in a Democrat hegemony over the entire nation, thanks to the five Supreme Court justices who would have fast-tracked for illegal aliens the right to vote.

Texas is a pur-blue state. If it goes blue, checkmate. The game is over.

Still think elections and not voting don't matter and don't have consequences? There is no such thing as neutrality; everyone is on a side, whether he likes it or not.

Democrats taste blood

Though the GOP, to its credit, has had some big wins this year, with Justice Neil Gorsuch's confirmation, net neutrality repeal, and historic tax reform, the party's default stance is always to play defense. When on defense, the GOP, working families, and small business owners all lose. The best defense is a great and prolific offense. To paraphrase the venerable General Patton, no one ever successfully defended anything; there's only attack, attack, and attack some more.

Even though the Democrats have lost over 1,000 state and federal seats since 2008, they never rest and always come out to vote. President Trump's America First politics are raw, bloody red-meat motivation for Democrats. Humans make decisions based on fear and greed; the president and his supporters are the ultimate fear-motivator.

The Democratic Party is morphing into a full-scale, capital-L leftist European Union-style socialist party, which is precisely what its voters want. Republicans and right-leaning independents must counter with greed. Low margins of victory cannot be the goal; that's playing not to lose. Playing to win means playing scared and running up the score. If a football team's offense can't consistently convert fourth and centimeters, then it doesn't have much of an offense, does it?

When the GOP stood unified last week to announce tax reform, it finally looked like a governing, majority party on the attack rather than a kowtowing, acquiescent party. The Democrats lost, and we won. We don't need to work with them; they need to work with us. Let's remind Democrats of what President Obama said in 2009: elections have consequences.

The good news is that the death of the red state doesn't mean we can't keep the map predominantly red. The mantra must be urgency with a sense of urgency, especially in 2018 and 2020. Otherwise, the GOP runs the risk of being the Atlanta Falcons of American politics.

Rich Logis is the CEO of Logis Productions, Inc. and author of the upcoming book 10 Warning Signs Your Child is Becoming a Democrat. Follow him on Twitter at @RichLogis.