...so wake up. The mid-terms are a year away. Virginia provides all of the information the Democratic party leadership needs to know to get a handle on how to make sure that election night in 2022 looks a whole heck of a lot different than tonight looks. We need to be talking about this and we need to be united. Take a look at my thoughts, if you have a few minutes, and leave a comment.
Tonight's elections were the first big ones with national implications since 2020, and the first where Trump hasn't either been on the ballot directly, or in the back of voters minds when they went to the polls. Let's face it, the threat of Trump was a huge motivating factor for Democrats and Independents. Yeah, he's still lurking out there, not really leaving much doubt about his intentions to run again. But tonight was different. Democrats weren't motivated enough by their own candidates to turn out in the kind of numbers that they did when their chief motivation was casting a ballot against him. And that's a factor that has to be considered.
Don't Misread The Election Results
Democrats cannot afford to waste time trying to figure out who is to blame for this. The mid terms are exactly a year away and the stakes are way too high to waste any time pointing fingers and expanding the discord and disunity that already exists. Move forward, get past it, and take this opportunity to avoid making the same mistakes again.
A supermajority of Americans, 71% in the reliable polling data, are in favor of raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans. And over 60% are in favor of Biden's original $3.5 trillion spending plan, including the Build Back Better initiatives. This fall-off in support has come as a result of the failure to push it through. The social agenda helped Youngkin motivate a few more Republican voters around the margin, but analysis of that election, via exit polls and looking at the turnout, shows that it was Democratic enthusiasm that waned, and they didn't show up in quite large enough numbers in their strongholds and even in the smaller, rural counties where it would have made the difference.
If those bills had passed a month ago, in their original form, McAuliff and the other two Democrats would have been celebrating a call in their favor around 10:30 p.m. Eastern time last night. Don't take my word for it, and don't go to CNN and read their election webpage this morning. They're preparing to inaugurate Trump on the next January 20th. Democrats need to listen to their base, unite the base, fire up the base, and start eating away around the edges of the GOP base
Critical Race Theory was a Decisive Issue
A theory, a vague, academic construct with multiple perspectives in interpretation and which has a built-in racist trigger, known as "Critical Race Theory/Intersectionality," CRT for short, will prove to be the tipping point in Virginia's election last night. Republicans haven't offered anything of substance either economically or politically, since I was in high school in the 1970's. Their margins are based almost entirely on social issues, with abortion rights at the top, LGBTQ rights and ethnic and racial minority rights with a touch of white supremacy and white Christian nationalism thrown in for good measure.
Those are things that get their base fired up, the rhetoric flying and feet headed to the polls to cast their ballots for candidates who know how to talk the talk and at the same time avoid any accountability for failure to deliver. They can't deliver. If they do, then the issue goes away and they can't use it in their "sky is falling, country is going to hell in a handbasket" rhetoric any more.
I know how this works. I was raised in an Evangelical church and the pressure to conform on social issues is tremendous. I know church leaders who have been as faithful to conservative Christian theology and as orthodox as any first century apostle who have been pressured out of their ministry position or fired outright for not accepting the secular political line. It's happened to me.
People fear the unknown, and all of this stuff plays right into those fears. They believe that people of color, especially African-Americans, aren't just advocating for their own equal rights, but that they are trying to "take over," grabbing wealth and power for themselves, and so movements like Black Lives Matter are seen as threats to their way of life. Many of them believe there is a worldwide Muslim conspiracy to take over the United States, grab off its wealth, and impose Sharia law. When you hear rhetoric in the extremist right wing media about Black Lives Matter, it is linked to Marxist economic theory. The common theme is that "they", whoever "they" are, see the prosperity of America and are trying to grab a share of it for themselves. There's not any comprehension of the fact that they don't really have much of a share of it, either, and the leaders they are electing are grabbing off what little they do have while appearing to be defending their racial and cultural identity.
Nothing motivates people like a good persecution complex.
Let this fact sink in for just a moment. Critical Race Theory/Intersectionality is not being taught in Virginia's public school system. But a Republican candidate for governor succeeded in making it the key centerpiece issue of his campaign and when the analysis is complete, it will turn out to be the tipping point in the election.
That's what Democrats are running against. People showed up in Dallas, Texas yesterday at the "grassy knoll" outside Dealey Plaza, where JFK was assassinated, because they believed a dead man was going to appear and endorse Donald Trump for President, or King, or whatever. That's some serious, dangerous, incredibly stupid and ignorant delusion. Figure that one out, then find me and we'll talk.
Engage in the "Culture War"
"Judy M" posted this on the website Democratic Underground:
"[I've] been saying this for years. We're [Democrats] too... erudite. We have to fire people up instead of assuming the righteousness of our side is self-evident and will prevail."
I've been saying this for years, too, Judy. Let's put this all into its context. We had four years of Donald Trump as President. The voters of the world's premier superpower elected a narcissistic, insane, grossly immoral sociopath to its highest political office. When the voters soundly repudiated him, he went berserk, dropped any pretense of a patriotic sense of duty that would have led to a peaceful transition of power and tried to launch a civil war and a coup to attempt to stay in office. It's been a year since the election, ten months since he left the White House and even though Youngkin tried to put some distance between Trump's insanity and demagoguery and himself, his use of a pure Trumpian tactic, creating fear by lying about reality, got him elected as governor of a state that Joe Biden won by ten points one year ago.
Terry McAuliffe did what Democrats do, given his perspective and experience. He put himself and his ideas out there, campaigned all over the state, fired up the phone banks and the door knockers, and conducted a conventional campaign. He stepped around the conspiracy theories and all the Trump insanity and ignorance and tried to make all of that stick to his opponent. Why not? Biden won Virginia overwhelmingly, because Virginia Democrats set aside all the Trump insanity and ignorance last November and told him to hit the road in no uncertain terms. So what's the difference this time around?
Trump wasn't on the ballot.
Democrats have to do more than just step around the insanity. They have to undermine that whole political base. The righteousness of our side isn't always self-evident, a fact clearly visible in the kind of support Trump gets from the religious right. January 6th is presenting an opportunity for that to happen. The popularity of Biden's legislative proposals is another opportunity. Undermine the opposition on that, expose it for what it is, make the case, turn up the enthusiasm, emphasize the popularity of it and the reluctance from a few Democrats caught up in their moment will melt pretty quickly. The people want this. Give it to them and throw in some fanfare.
The Righteousness of Our Side is Self-Evident, But It Needs to Be Proclaimed
On June 17, 2015, a white racist by the name of Dylan Roof walked into the Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina and murdered nine Christians in the middle of a prayer meeting. Six of the victims were middle aged or senior adults, parents, grandparents, committed servants of Christ in his church at a weeknight prayer service. It was unusual for someone who looked so different from them, who was much younger, and a stranger, of a different race, to enter a church on a weeknight and not during the Sunday morning service but they did what you would have expected of true Christians. They welcomed him, invited him to sit down and join them in their prayer meeting. He spent an hour with them in Bible study, participating in the discussion.
Then he pulled out a Glock 41 .45 handgun and proceeded to fire upon a group of people, made up of a church pastor and mostly older women, initially aiming it at the oldest in the group, an 83 year old woman. Claiming he was shooting them because "I have to do it. You are raping our women and you're taking over our country. You have to go," and shouting "Y'all want something to pray about? I'll give you something to pray about," he reloaded his gun five times and murdered nine people including 83 year old Susie Jackson, and the pastor of the church, Clementa Pinckney.
The family members of the victims who were members of the church did what Christians are expected to do. They forgave him.
And the point? I can't write or read about this event without getting angry. That's the enemy. And that's the point. It undermines arguments on the other side. There are Democrats who can figure this out and find ways to use it without minimizing or discounting the victims.
I know where the weak points are, I know the arguments and I know how to undermine them. Surely someone in the Democratic party leadership does too.
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