Youngkin ran on a number of issues. McAuliffe ran on one, the assertion that Youngkin was just a nicer version of Donald Trump.
One of the issues that Youngkin ran on was his determination to get Virginia public schools to stop teaching racially divisive content, particularly that all whites are ineradicably tainted by racism and are racial oppressors. This is what McAuliffe and the media have seized upon to justify their allegations that Youngkin was elected by a bunch of white supremacists.
Apparently, if one objects to having one's children taught that they're inherently evil by virtue of being white one is ipso facto a white supremacist.
The claim is odd, if not plain dumb, for several reasons, but it's become the standard response from progressives who are bereft of ideas and unable to mount an intelligent analysis of an election. Indeed, whenever the left encounters opposition to their ideas they start promiscuously tossing about the "R-word" as if they had an uncontrollable tic.
Here are a few examples from yesterday of this standard reaction:
Former ESPN sports reporter Jemele Hill tweeted, that "This country simply loves white supremacy.”
Joy Reid on MSNBC declared that white parents concerns about education are a kind of code for white parents who don’t like the idea of their children being taught about race. "You have to be willing," she opined, "to vocalize that these Republicans are dangerous.”
MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace, in the words of Sanford Horn at The Federalist, "piled on with a lie that has been running rampant in progressive circles, that 'critical race theory, which isn’t real, turned the suburbs 15 points.' ”
"Of course, critical race theory is real," Horn continues, "and Virginia schools have boasted about teaching it. But not for long, should Youngkin fulfill his promise of banning the racist ideology designed to conquer and divide school children into indelibly permanent classes of victim and victimizer."
Perhaps the main reason for my assertion that accusing the Virginia electorate of racism is odd if not plain dumb is this: There were three major offices at play in the Virginia election - governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general. They were all won by Republicans. Youngkin, who is white, won the governorship. The lieutenant governor's race was won by a former Marine, a woman named Winsome Spears.
Here's Spears' picture from Tuesday evening's victory celebration:
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| Spears with her husband, who is also a Marine, and two adult daughters. |
The attorney general's race was won by Jason Miyares who is Hispanic. Ms Spears, who received over 1.66 million votes from all those Virginian white supremacists, will become Virginia's first African American lieutenant governor, and Miyares will be the state's first Hispanic attorney general.
Here's another reason the condemnation of those who elected Youngkin and Sears is odd. The outgoing governor, Democrat Ralph Northam and his attorney general Mark Herring both appeared in blackface when they were young men.
When the news came to light in 2019 the left actually excused them, but now they're telling us that a vote for a white businessman, a black woman and a Hispanic politican is somehow indicative of a strain of evil racial bigotry running through the body politic.
Like I said, the accusation that Virginia citizens who voted Republican were largely racists is either odd or dumb, but actually it's hard not to think it's both.