2021 Elections

[GreyhoundFan]

This is a brutal, but excellent, ad. I think it will be used going forward for anyone running against trumpsters:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

A good one from Max Boot: "Sorry, Glenn Youngkin. Trump is the biggest issue in Virginia — and in every other state."

Quote

Imagine that you lived in Italy in 1922, Germany in 1933, Spain in 1936, Argentina in 1973, Russia in 2000, Venezuela in 2002, Turkey in 2014 — or any other country on the verge of losing its democracy to strongman rule. What would be the most important issue on your mind? Would it be what’s taught in high schools? Or the fate of democracy itself?

America may soon be in just as precarious a position. We don’t have the luxury of “moving on” from the events of Jan. 6 to focus on ordinary issues as urged by so many Republicans, including Virginia gubernatorial nominee Glenn Youngkin. Democracy is on the ballot in Virginia — and in every other state between now and 2024.

Donald Trump was the first president in U.S. history who refused to accept the outcome of an election and mobilized an army of followers to invade Congress and try to stop the vote certification. Today, he remains unrepentant. The Wall Street Journal just published a letter from him repeating lie after lie about the vote in Pennsylvania.

Yet far from repudiating Trump as a threat to democracy, the Republican Party is repudiating its few members who dared stand up to him. Rep. Adam Kinzinger’s (R-Ill.) announcement that he won’t seek reelection makes clear there is no room for patriots in today’s GOP. Only Trump toadies are welcome.

Trump is so popular among Republicans that he would win the 2024 nomination in a cakewalk and could conceivably win the electoral vote, too, particularly if Republicans succeed in throwing out the votes of states that do not support him, as they tried to do in January.

If Trump does return to the White House, our democracy might be on its deathbed. Early in his first term, Trump was so ignorant of government that he often deferred to the “adults in the room,” e.g., Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly. But the longer Trump stayed in office, the more willing he became to rid himself of anyone who stood in his way. A second Trump term would undoubtedly begin with the installation of cultists at every key agency, including the Defense Department, intelligence community, Justice Department and FBI.

That is a terrifying prospect. Every candidate in the country, from dog catcher to senator, must therefore answer this fundamental question: Do you support or oppose Trump’s efforts to destroy our democracy?

This is a litmus test that Glenn Youngkin, who is running with Trump’s support, has failed. When seeking the GOP nomination, he refused to say whether Joe Biden won legitimately. Only after winning the nomination did he admit that the 2020 election was “certifiably fair,” but he keeps genuflecting to Trumpian concerns about “election integrity” — code words for the big lie. He even donated $1 million of his own money to a political action committee that supports Republican candidates who echo Trump’s bogus claims of fraud.

You can split the difference on taxes or spending. You can’t split the difference on democracy as Youngkin is trying to do.

What would happen in 2024 if Trump again screamed fraud and demanded that Republicans appoint pro-Trump electors in states he lost? If Republicans gain control of Virginia’s governorship and House of Delegates this year, and of the state Senate in 2023, they could deliver the state for Trump no matter how it votes. Even if the legislature remains in Democratic hands, a Republican governor could create a constitutional crisis by refusing to sign the “certificate of ascertainment” certifying the results. (Youngkin refused to say in an interview if he would have certified the 2020 election; his campaign later claimed he would have.)

What would happen if Trump again mobilized his fanatical followers to storm the U.S. Capitol? On Jan. 6, Gov. Ralph Northam (D) sent Virginia state troopers and the Virginia National Guard to help save the citadel of democracy. There is no reason to expect that Youngkin would risk Trump’s wrath by acting to stop a future coup attempt.

Youngkin doesn’t like to talk about Trump. He wants Virginia voters to focus on other issues. Sorry, that won’t cut it. Trump is the biggest issue in the country because he remains the de facto leader of the Republican Party and could again be the leader of the whole country. Candidates such as Youngkin who won’t take a clear stance against Trump’s war on democracy are making clear they are on the wrong side of an existential debate.

And if voters are focused on issues other than the fate of our democracy, they aren’t paying attention. It is the height of arrogance to imagine that just because our democracy has survived for more than 230 years, it will last forever. If we take our democracy for granted by electing candidates who are willing to collaborate with authoritarians, we could easily lose our freedom as so many countries have in the past.

 

[Cartmann99]

 

[fraurosena]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I have to admit, I'm terrified that Trumpkin is going to win and take Virginia back to an awful place. I voted two weeks ago.

[GreyhoundFan]

Two more reasons to fear for Virginia if this guy is elected.

 

[Dandruff]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Two more reasons to fear for Virginia if this guy is elected.

 

I'm also worried about some of the supporters coming out of the woodwork if, Rufus forbid, he gets in.

[Destiny]

3 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Two more reasons to fear for Virginia if this guy is elected.

 

He's not going to win right? RIGHT? Lie if you must. This is a nailbiter.

[Audrey2]

32 minutes ago, Destiny said:

He's not going to win right? RIGHT? Lie if you must. This is a nailbiter.

I'm sorry, 2016 took away all of my positive thoughts about election outcomes. Now I just figure it's going to be the biggest nincompoop who wins so I can be pleasantly surprised if it isn't.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Glenn Youngkin’s repulsive final push reveals a dark truth for Democrats"

Quote

With Virginia voters set to elect a governor, Republican Glenn Youngkin’s final messages are positively overflowing with sunny calls for unity. One closing ad features footage of African American families smiling and strolling as Youngkin piously claims his campaign has been about “parents who want a better education for their kids.”

It’s a repulsively cynical finale, after a campaign built heavily around stoking white grievance with attacks on phantom critical race theory in schools and torquing up the base by feeding Donald Trump’s lies about our election system.

But this duplicity has benefited from a hidden assist. For months, Youngkin and his allies have pumped that raw right-wing sewage directly into the minds of the GOP base, behind the backs of moderate swing voters, via a right-wing media network that has no rival on the Democratic side.

Democrats will have to reckon with this. Whether Democrat Terry McAuliffe wins or loses — it be very close either way — this race highlights this lopsided communications imbalance with unique clarity.

The outcome will turn on several key factors. These include whether the deep-red western counties turn out; whether Youngkin can mitigate the suburban shift to Democrats; and how energized African Americans and suburbanites who are fully committed Democrats prove.

As Ron Brownstein notes, Virginia’s demographics make a supercharged base essential to making this work. So Youngkin has struck a balance between feeding Trumpist appeals to that base while sanding down their rough edges and combining this with a cheerful suburban dad vibe to poach back moderate suburbanites.

The right-wing media is likely playing a major role in making this viable. Consider critical race theory, or CRT.

Let’s acknowledge that Youngkin isn’t using CRT as just a base motivator. He campaigns on it in swingy areas, and this will be partly a referendum on whether the issue can lure back the suburbs.

But to focus only on that misses the full story. Youngkin and his allies have transmitted some of their most visceral and hallucinogenic versions of the anti-CRT demagoguery straight to the base via right-wing media.

Right-wing gutter politics

Among these are Youngkin’s ugly falsehood that CRT has comprehensively infested Virginia’s school system, and his despicable lie that McAuliffe got the Justice Department to silence Virginia parents.

Indeed, Matt Gertz of Media Matters estimates that Fox News ran up to 100 segments on CRT in Virginia last spring, even though it isn’t taught in Virginia schools.

The Justice Department lie is particularly instructive: It’s a propagandistic recasting of the department’s efforts to protect education officials from violent threats. Cheerful suburban dad Youngkin is siding with the mob.

This is the right-wing politics of the moment. As Brian Beutler puts it:

The background din of everyday life in America today is feral Trumpers screaming at, threatening, or assaulting people who enforce the democratically legitimate rules of our society: servers and flight-attendants enforcing masking or vaccination requirements; school-boards setting curricula for their districts; government officials counting votes and certifying elections.

This is a politics built around maximizing social and civic antagonism. Attacking CRT says that subversive leftists and liberals are in cahoots with educational bureaucrats to indoctrinate and emotionally torment your children.

This is an old story: Since the 1970s, right wing groups have seen allegedly anti-patriotic, anti-Christian, and overly sexualized material taught to schoolkids as a useful way to “harness grassroots protest.”

Youngkin’s ad dramatizing a mother upset about her kid’s assignment traffics in these culture-warring base tropes. Yet it airbrushes out the fact that the assignment was a Toni Morrison novel and the objectionable scenes were horrors of slavery, since such absurdities might alienate educated whites.

Similarly, when Youngkin talks education to moderate voters, we get soft slogans like “parents matter” — helped, admittedly, by a bad McAuliffe gaffe — or claims that banning CRT is a prerequisite for unity.

The soft side of Youngkin’s focus on education may indeed poach back suburbanites. If so, Democrats must reckon with this. But the other half of the problem — the communications imbalance — also matters.

A vast imbalance

To fight back, McAuliffe and his allies have slammed Youngkin for fomenting chaos and conflict in schools, all to appeal to a rabid right wing.

This is a welcome change, as Democrats sometimes balk at building their politics around social antagonisms, instead of accepting that sometimes, politics must be about unpleasant social conflict.

When they accept this, it can work. Amid 2020 urban unrest, candidate Joe Biden ran ads attacking Donald Trump and white supremacy as the true threat to civic order, refocusing on the violent lawlessness that the Trumpified GOP and parts of their coalition unleashed on our society.

Yet here’s the question in Virginia: Even though McAuliffe and his allies are doing this, is the message getting to their base as effectively as GOP culture warring gets to the GOP one?

It’s doubtful. In contrast to countless Fox segments on CRT, Democrats rely on more conventional news outlets to reach their voters.

“One of the strategic advantages that Republicans have is they’re able to feed their base propaganda and misinformation directly through their news outlets,” David Turner, senior strategist at the Democratic Governors Association, told me.

“The Democratic Party needs to figure out ways to more actively court its base voters on a regular basis,” Turner continued.

None of this is an excuse. If Democrats lose, there will be many causes that will all require introspection. But one focus should be this communications imbalance. The dark truth is it’s gotten worse, and as Virginia shows, it’s helping put Democratic gains in real peril.

 

[Destiny]

1 hour ago, Audrey2 said:

I'm sorry, 2016 took away all of my positive thoughts about election outcomes. Now I just figure it's going to be the biggest nincompoop who wins so I can be pleasantly surprised if it isn't.

I wholeheartedly agree. I'm looking for hope because I'm fairly convinced there is none.

[fraurosena]

C’mon, guys! I know you’re all traumatized by what happened in 2016, but you’re forgetting what happened in 2020. The Dems won. They won the White House, the Senate, and kept the House of Representatives.

Remember, if you are afraid of Republicans winning, then so are many other American voters, and they will come out and vote in droves.

What happened in 2020 has had one really big positive effect that should not be underestimated: it obliterated voter apathy amongst Democrats and Independents. It shocked the hell out of everyone, and people will go out and vote.

[Destiny]

Sadly, Biden’s popularity has slipped lately and that isn’t helping. Plus Trumpkin has done a lot of preying on white people fears (critical race theory, the ebil ghey and trans people recruiting their kids and similar bullshit). It’s not looking great so far. 55 to 44% for Trumpkin with 49ish percent in. (CNN cut to break just now so those might be off a percent or two because I’m doing it from memory)

[PoppyPeace]

27 minutes ago, Destiny said:

Sadly, Biden’s popularity has slipped lately and that isn’t helping. Plus Trumpkin has done a lot of preying on white people fears (critical race theory, the ebil ghey and trans people recruiting their kids and similar bullshit). It’s not looking great so far. 55 to 44% for Trumpkin with 49ish percent in. (CNN cut to break just now so those might be off a percent or two because I’m doing it from memory)

Last time I checked NYT Fairfax County was still counting ballots and said there may be delays. I think only 35ish percent had been reported and is leaning blue. I am not holding my breath, but maybe it will turn tonight. 

[Destiny]

Last time I checked NYT Fairfax County was still counting ballots and said there may be delays. I think only 35ish percent had been reported and is leaning blue. I am not holding my breath, but maybe it will turn tonight. 

Calls for Trumpkin are starting to happen. I’m trying to stay hopeful but it’s not looking great.

So far, NJ is looking okay though, so there’s that.

[PoppyPeace]

Just now, Destiny said:

Calls for Trumpkin are starting to happen. I’m trying to stay hopeful but it’s not looking great.

So far, NJ is looking okay though, so there’s that.

I figured NJ would vote to keep Murphy around. We shall see about VA. Fairfax county is a big county and I doubt it will vote red. If it does, I will be shocked. 

[JoyfulSel]

I'n going to be nauseous here in NJ until Murphy is declared the winner.

[PoppyPeace]

4 minutes ago, JoyfulSel said:

I'n going to be nauseous here in NJ until Murphy is declared the winner.

Wow. I just looked and 😳

[JoyfulSel]

6 minutes ago, PoppyPeace said:

Wow. I just looked and 😳

Yeah I am NOT about how close this is as the moment. Hopefully things start separating soon enough otherwise I'll be breathing through a brown bag like the elections last year...

[ADoyle90815]

One good thing:Democrat Shontel Brown is winning Ohio's 11th congressional seat.

[Destiny]

Sigh. Just sigh. I'll be in my corner, weeping. This is NOT good news for the midterms.

[formergothardite]

This is depressing. Democrats should be able to wipe these people out easily, yet they struggle. We are doomed. 

[Destiny]

11 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

This is depressing. Democrats should be able to wipe these people out easily, yet they struggle. We are doomed. 

Yup. How do you fight willful ignorance and going against self interest?

[Loveday]

I went to bed last night not knowing for sure if Trumpkin had won the election, although I had a bad feeling he had. Kept thinking somehow McAuliffe would pull it out at the last minute, you know? Alas, no. I now have zero hope for the state of Virginia. 😞 And very little hope for the nation as a whole when it comes time for the mid-terms. What has happened to our country? 

[Cartmann99]

My heart goes out to the sane people of Virginia this morning. I'm so sorry you ended up with a horrible man like Youngkin.