For the sake of our two-party system, I would like to believe that Republican Glenn Youngkin, if he won the Virginia gubernatorial election on Tuesday, could show the way to a post-Trump GOP restoration, away from the crazy and cultural war. After all, Youngkin is a moderate businessman who has long been a traditional Republican.
But I can’t because that’s not how he fights former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliff.
Youngkin is not Donald Trump, but he also does not deny the worst of Trump. He uses weasels, but still erodes faith in our elections, exploits racial divisions, and accepts false cultural wars. Trump says what he thinks, and his cultists like it; Youngkin says what they want to hear, only without the bile and cotton spirit that has cost the party the support of many moderate, university-educated Republicans and independent voters in the suburbs, and once painted the red country purple-blue.
Maybe it works for Youngkin. A Washington Post-Schar School Survey Friday showed the race is dead and Youngka seems to have the momentum. Nov Fox News Poll showed with eight points of advantage.
Although Youngkin has not denied President Biden’s victory, he is convinced resold Trump’s “Big Lie. ” Until May, after winning the Republican gubernatorial nomination over six mostly more Trump rivals, Youngkin did not admit that Biden was legitimately elected or that Trump lied about the election. Youngkin has declared from the outset that his main priority will be “electoral integrity,” despite no evidence of the problem.
He is called for a revision of Virginia’s voting machineswhen this has long been done and the results in 2020 confirmed. He participated in a “electoral integrity” rally with conspirators at the Conservative University of Liberty. More than once, he has given voters the imagination that Trump will soon be in office again. “It’s not clear,” he said to onebecause “we all know the courts are moving slowly.” Wrong, as he certainly knows: Many courts have already rejected Trump’s allegations of fraud.
For Youngkin, his racially colored calls regarding schools seem to have been most effective. Polls show they have resonated only with the voters he needs: both Trump’s Conservatives and more moderate parents in suburban Northern Virginia, outside of Washington, and Richmond in the south. But his calls are demagoguery and even worse.
He promises to ban critical theory of race, an academic study of systemic racism not even taught in grades K-12 in Virginia. He chose his favorite new conspiracy theory on the right, falsely claims that McAuliffe contacted “his friend Joe Biden” to get Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland will protest against the “CRT” and the power of vaccination and masks at Virginia “sic FBI” school council meetings.
McAuliffe denied anything like that, and Politifact slapped Youngkin “Pants on fire!” lie. Garland’s recent innocuous order for the FBI to work with local officials to prevent threats at such meetings came at the request of State School Boards Assn. , after repeated quarrels and even death threats to local officials.
Recently, Youngkin has even flirted with a book ban, reviving an old controversy in the country over the novel about slavery, which received the Pulitzer Prize of Nobel laureate Tony Morrison, “Beloved”. In 2013, a mother complained that Morrison’s book caused nightmares for her son, a high school graduate who studied English Advanced Placement. McAuliffe, who was a popular governor between 2014 and 2018, then vetoed a bill requiring K-12 teachers to notify parents of “sexually explicit content” assignments.
Today, this mother plays in the movie Youngkin advertising ad; the son is now a lawyer on the committee of the National Republican Congress. Youngkin also filmed commercials showing McAuliffe’s mistake in response to the attacks – “I don’t think parents should tell schools what to teach” to encourage resentment among conservative parents.
Youngkin can’t believe much of what he’s saying. A A graduate of Harvard Business School and a former private equity chief executive, is reminiscent of other Republicans from the Ivy League who address voters with their Trump speech, such as Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas.
As the former Republican state legislature said of Youngkin New York Times: “Whether he believes in these Trump things or if he resells with them, I don’t know. But if he really doesn’t believe in these things and just resells them, it’s worse than believing.
Really. Cynicism is disgusting. And this is the opposite of what the Republican Party – and the nation – need.