The Rude Pundit: Random Lessons from the Virginia Reaming

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2021/11/random-lessons-from-virginia-reaming.html

Let's get a couple of things out of the way up top here. If you voted for Democrat Joe Biden for president in 2020 and then voted for Republican Glenn Youngkin for governor in 2021, you're a fucking idiot who has no core beliefs other than what your social media is shoveling into your stupid face. And you're almost definitely white and you don't mind racism; you just don't like when someone is so open about it, like Donald Trump. Someone should have stepped in and said, "The fuck is wrong with you, Stacy? You don't cast opposing votes a year apart. You just fucking undid part of your first vote. You just fucked us on abortion rights and pandemic response. What the fuck, Stacy?"

Also, don't talk to me about how Terry McAuliffe was a bad candidate. He was a bland, regular middle-of-the-road Democrat, and still tens of thousands of people who had voted Democrat chose the candidate of the party of Trump, of insurrection, of racists, of anti-voting regulations. The connection to Trump should have been enough. Being Republican should have been enough. It wasn't, which leads us back to the fucking brain damage of the white Virginia voter.

All that said, there are a few lessons Democrats can take from last night's reaming in Virginia and near-reaming in New Jersey.

1. Watching Democrats, who came into office in 2021 filled with bravado about the wide range of shit they were going to get done, bumblefuck around about the reconciliation bill because no one can fucking control Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema had an effect. Joe Biden's approval rating starting to go underwater around the time of two events: the withdrawal from Afghanistan and Manchin's reconciliation fuckery. After voting for the framework for the domestic spending bill on August 11, the Chin of Man quickly started hemming and hawing, joined in it by Sinema, who also had just voted for the framework. Prior to that, Biden and the Democrats were riding high on economic issues. Manchin's newly-found inflation concern gave credence to Republicans' spouting the same ludicrous, overwrought bullshit, and that narrative took over, along with the fecklessness of Democrats who, all of a sudden, couldn't pass anything.

That's not on the progressives, even if many commentators and Democrats want to blame them. That's on the moderates. The progressive shit that's in the reconciliation bill has huge support. You fucking tell suburban moms that there's gonna be universal pre-k and paid family leave, and they're gonna fucking vote for you. Yeah, it was a state race in Virginia, but this shit matters. The identity of the party matters. Being a goddamn winner matters. That gets the base out. Some of that can overcome the stupid. Some of it might even overcome the racism.

*snip*

[bluecollar2]

2. No

It's as simple as we are incompetent in our messaging.

We should have learned from 1994 when we got played by Gingrich.

[viva la]

4. No. "Unlikeable" means little in reality. I like Democratic candidates.

I'd vote for them if I didn't like them, because 1) I like their policies in the main, and 2) the opponents are Trumpers.

As for "unlikeable," seriously, Trump and his band of abusers (cf Sean Parnell, Eric Greitens, and so on) are HATEFUL.

Half the voters in this country are irrational. Some vote for the permission to be racist and sexist. Many admire Trump and think he's a great leader.
There is no candidate the Dems would ever nominate who could possibly appeal to those people.

[Carlitos Brigante]

3. Yeah. I have zero problems with blaming the electorate. They

fucked this up royally. These so called Independents are nothing more than wishy-washy low information dupes. Who can be persuaded by the dumbest of arguments. Lots of these suburban dickbags brought us the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the "Great Recession", the cocked up Covid response, etc., etc., etc. Fuck 'em. Can't wait to see who they'll go crying to when they can't even breathe the air in their ever so precious communities.

[ymetca]

5. Seems so much easier

to run on fear something will be taken away, than promising something more. We're SO used to the crumbs.

Instead of all these complicated bills, just keep extending those monthly checks to everyone and tout that -- we're giving y'all a BIG REBATE. Look for that check! "Reconciliate" the crap out of it. Oh, here's another REBATE for ya! And coming soon --here's another one! Call 'em all "lowering taxes on the middle class". Watch the GOP squirm.

Honestly, just buy my vote. We'll fix our own "infrastructure" out here. All we need is the cash!

[Grasswire2]

6. kick nt

[P-Nutt]

7. When You Kneecap

The guy that the majority of Democrats wanted, you get stuck with policies that the majority did not want. This should be a wakeup call to start moving forward with a far more Progressive agenda. You want to wake up Democrats? Give them Democratic ideals to pursue.

[Solly Mack]

8. You know when someone wants to take the GOP back to what it used to be? Or when someone says

that before Trump the GOP at least had some honor? Some integrity? Some something or other?

Well, Youngkin and his coded racism is what the GOP "used" to be before Trump.

Youngkin ran the same style of Southern Strategy-Lee Atwater dog-whistle-white-fear stoking campaign that republicans have been known for for decades.

And another point...


Back in 2012, after the election there were interviews with "cross-over" Obama voters and one white guy said point-blank , "I voted for the N-word". Used the word without hesitation and with no absolutely shame. Because there was "no way" he was going to vote for "the Mormon".

So anyone that thinks racists/misogynists/homophobes won't vote for the Democratic candidate one time and the Republican candidate the next has no fucking clue what they are talking about because they have never really considered the hierarchy of bigotry - probably because they are in a position where they don't have to because it doesn't touch them. Not in any real way. Not in their daily lives.

And make no mistake, bigotry has a hierarchy - the whole "Who am I better than today?" self-soothing mantra of bigotry extrapolates out to "Who is better?" - the N-word or the Mormon. For that particular bigot, the black man was seen as less of a threat than the Mormon. And the hierarchy of bigotry works exactly that way.

The white man didn't suddenly stop being a racist when he voted for Obama - Romney's religion just scared him more.


So, yeah, bigots (racists, etc.) could vote for Biden in one election but Youngkin in another election. Because Youngkin spoke to their bigotry in couched terms that allowed them to feel good about themselves and how they think - their biases and prejudices - their implicit racism.

Trump's overt hate turned them off but Youngkin's more palatable approach - the couched and cloaked phrases and words of hate - appealed to them. They can tell themselves it wasn't their feelings of racism, it was education. It was parental rights. Even though the root fear of CRT and Toni Morrison's "Beloved" is steeped in racism.


Not all racists are the in-the-trenches overt racists carrying tiki torches. Most are those that live in the realm of implicit racism. Which is why one runs into so much denial from those who do hold to racist thinking but don't think they are racist. (Oh, no. I'm not racist. I'm just worried about my children feeling bad and schools teaching them things I don't want them to learn.)


K&R

[IronLionZion]

12. Those folks also voted for a black woman immigrant for LT Governor

and a Latino for Attorney General.

Like it or not, Youngkin made inroads with Latinos, Asians, immigrants, suburban moms, and got more votes in blue counties than he should have. Virginia has gotten more diverse over the years and somehow this douchebag threaded the needle enough to win diverse votes that should have been ours.

McAuliffe's main platform issue was probably paid family leave, but it didn't get nearly enough attention as Youngkin's attacks on grocery prices and parental input in schools.

[Solly Mack]

13. None of that surprises me.

The inroads, as you called them.

[monkeyman1]

9. the republican taliban count on DEM.party haveing internal pissing contest's !

" Jjust keep it up & see what happen's ? " NO MORE CRYING IN YOUR OATMEAL ! quit trying to be politically polite ! look at what your dealing with ? jeeze !

[Jon King]

10. Uggh, he does not get it even a little bit.

Manchin, Sinema, Trump, the bills, 1-6, Afghanistan had little to do with the VA disaster.

This was decided in the suburbs on immediate issues, not promises of universal pre-k and paid family leave than many will not utilize anyway. Pre-K is 1 freakin year in the life, its not a big deal for suburban parents. We live next to 2 schools and talk to parents every day, Biden voters many of them. They HATED the Covid shut downs. It is impossible to convey how much it crushed their suburban utopias. Soccer games, dance recitals gone. Kids depressed. Many moms gave up jobs to home school. Grand parents had to step in, more Biden voters caught up in the pandemic effects.

They got incensed at the world and blamed Dems. Yeah, I get it, Trump caused it, anti maskers caused it, yada yada yada. Suburbanites don't care. They saw mixed messages after mixed message out of the CDC. No matter what Dems were perceived to almost want the pandemic to continue, even AFTER vaccination.

The teachers refused to teach even after vaccination, this angered parents more. And yeah again, I get it, teachers had that right to not go into danger. But who did parents associate teachers with? Unions, Dems.

Then throw in the comments about parents in VA and curriculum rights. Throw in the Repugs pounding away that trans kids would be playing their daughters in their precious soccer matches. Throw in the Repug messaging that their kids would be taught that being white was a bad thing.

That is what cost Dems VA....that and rabid excitement for revenge among the Repugs who showed up like crazy and voted.

[Sogo]

11. FFS.

It wasn't a disaster, and it wasn't a reaming!!

If McAuliffe has won by the same margin as Youngkin did, the headline would have been that he "squeaked" by with a victory.

[czarjak]

14. Turnout. Can't do it without it!

[Joinfortmill]

15. Love this guy.