Virginia governor race test of power of Trumpism
At least this time, members of the nation’s political class are right in their pronouncements about the importance of the governor’s race in Virginia to our country’s future.
That’s because Republican Glenn Youngkin is engaged in a trial run of a strategy that might be called the Trump Hypocrisy Two-Step.
If Youngkin succeeds, it will tell the GOP’s politicians all over the nation that they can simultaneously embrace Donald Trump for the purpose of rallying the former president’s base and playact moderation just well enough to win over the suburban swing voters they need to prevail.
A Youngkin defeat, by contrast, will demonstrate that Trump is lethal with middle-of-the-road voters.
Virginia’s voters need to send a message: Betting the future on the extremism Trump peddles and the lies he tells is a dangerous, ultimately doomed wager.
The same signal must be sent about Youngkin’s hope that railing against teaching “critical race theory” in public schools is the ticket to victory.
I use those quotation marks to note that this increasingly popular Republican talking point is deeply manipulative.
As Youngkin’s Democratic opponent, former governor Terry McAuliffe, told me, critical race theory has “never been taught” in Virginia public schools, and “it’s not supposed to be taught.”
Moreover, harping on critical race theory is an effort to rip apart parents on a serious issue that should be discussed respectfully.
A good curriculum would honor the country’s triumphs and its commitment to freedom while being honest about a past that denied that very same freedom to Black Americans for centuries. A great nation does not lie to itself about its sins and failures.
McAuliffe is right that Youngkin’s use of critical race theory is both a racial “dog whistle” and antithetical to a reasoned discussion. Youngkin, McAuliffe argues, is “stirring up parents, creating frictions where frictions should not exist.”
Surely Virginia’s citizens don’t want their state to become a showcase for the damage done when a Trumpist and right-wing minority is allowed to dominate the agenda at local school board meetings.
There’s one other kind of divisiveness voters should think about: the nature of Youngkin’s attacks on incumbent Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam for lockdowns of churches during the pandemic. Youngkin’s explanation for Northam’s decision? “I knew he did not start out every morning like I do, which is in prayer.”
As it happens, Northam adviser Mark Bergman told me, Northam is a member of an African Methodist Episcopal Church and is “very much a man of faith.” Exploiting religion in this self-satisfied way is straight out of the Trump handbook, as is the deeply personal attack.
As long as Republicans refuse to break with Trump, his name will be on every ballot. You can be sure that if Youngkin wins, Trump will be the first to remind us of this.