They’ve gotten to the point where they almost won’t even make calls off of exits (which used to be the norm), unless the exit polls are like +20, and they sometimes won’t even call from actuals until the margin is bigger than the remaining votes.
This election wasn’t about infrastructure. This was about McAuliffe, over and over again, choosing to align himself with the destruction of Virginia schools and taking every opportunity to dig the hole deeper. Every poll showed education as the #1 issue and Terry trailing by unbelievable numbers among swing voters. He lost sixty points of support from “independent voters who list education as their #1 issue” in the time since he made the “parents shouldn’t have any say in education” comment. Sixty!
That legal weed in Virginia must be the bomb.
You’re lying by omission here. You failed to mention the weakening of preemption laws which makes the state a confusing patchwork of local laws and ordinances. A lawful gun owner could find themselves violating a law just by crossing the street into another municipality. You failed to mention the blatantly unconstitutional red flag laws that clearly violate due process rights. You failed to mention the public buildings act included such “sensitive” areas as rest stops. Now a traveler who is legally carrying has to disarm before they can lawfully take a piss. You failed to mention how the democratic legislature attempted to ban commonly owned rifles that function like any other rifle but they are scary looking.
So all the protests opposed to such laws were done by criminals?
Sure. Just ask President Gore. Or former President Clinton whose party managed to keep both sides of congress throughout his Presidency.
BTW, your guy lost.
Nice! Starting your response with an ad hominem attack, outside the Pit nonetheless, means I can disregard the rest of your useless prattle. I’ve seen you post a lot of wrong and ill-informed things in a lot of threads lately. I’d suggest you take time to develop more education and perspective on things, but that isn’t my job to help you with that, have fun.
Finding reasons why various people who disagree with you don’t count until suddenly you’re wondering where this huge majority voting against you came from when you’ve made it clear that 100% of people who count agree with you is exactly what caused tonight’s election result. This behavior should just be renamed “pulling a Terry” in honor of the wing of the VA Democratic party that perfected it.
Actually most polls showed the economy as the #1 issue, education was usually #2.
I will throw you a bone—education has not previously polled as even a top 5 issue in any recent Virginia elections; the fact it was frequently 2 or 3 is a major change.
And what did I post that was incorrect about the draconian gun laws the Democrats passed in Virginia? All I did was fill in what you neglected to mention.
I mean I didn’t read the rest of your post, deliberately, so I wouldn’t be in a position to comment on it,
Good way to get around being called out on your ridiculous assertions in your previous post. Hats off to you.
So the Republicans did sweep all statewide offices. I suspect that one of the first thing Youngkin does is to ban mask mandates in the schools. As a doctor, I am looking forward to the rise in Covid cases. I had two anti vaccine patients on Monday. I can’t wait for people to start dying and our hospitals to fill up.
Of course this bodes poorly for 2022 and 2024. I think that both houses of Congress are likely to go Republican and we are all but guaranteed another four years of Trump which I don’t see how the country survives.
In the meantime, there is little to no hope for infrastructure. The Democrats may give in and pass the hard infrastructure bill which is of course needed but it will be seen as a massive loss. Criticizing Manchin does no good because there is no way another Democrat wins in WV so it is either him or a Republican controlled Senate.
I‘ll be honest, I don’t recognize my country any more. It’s never been like this.We have had Republicans in power before but they have never done such damage. Trump refusing to concede and interfering with the peaceful transfer of power is one of the worst things to happen. While Democrats see it as a crazy man who can’t admit that he lost, many Republicans think that the fact that he won’t concede means that there must have been something wrong with the election, because of course every prior loser has conceded so something must have been different this time.
Virginia is totally screwed and I think our country will also be totally screwed as soon.The only good thing is that we still have the State Senate for two more years and even if we lose the House, Youngkin can only do so much by executive order. He can veto new bills but he can’t get any new bills that are too dangerous passed. It is likely that little to nothing gets done by the Virginia Assembly in the next two years.
Never interrupt your opponent when he is making a mistake. - Napoleon Bonaparte (paraphrased)
Not that they pay attention when you do attempt to point out the issue, fortunately. I’ve made pretty much the same observation here and had someone tell me I’m just complaining because of hurt feelings. I’ve seen some leftist members saying the same thing far more eloquently than I and just being ignored.
I predict that 2022 is going to be a very disappointing year for Democrats. For all of the reasons listed above and more.
A lot can change in a short time. Virginia swinging from +10 Biden to clear Republican sweep can go the other way. In 2010 all anyone cared about was the Tea Party (and of course the motives for the Republican landslide in Congress that year got completely misunderstood by the people in the national media bubble and in forums for upper middle class boomer Dems who insist no one else is a real person who exists, like this one). By 2012 Obama was winning re-election fairly comfortably.
If the Dems get their heads out of their asses and run away from the race war, anti-meritocracy stuff and back to sensible people like Joe Biden, who told the extremely online advisors to fuck off and ran a campaign that actually appealed to persuadable voters instead of going to war with them, then they will be fine. Remains to be seen whether the people who keep cashing six-figure checks to advise Dems on how to lose elections in solid blue states manage to get pried out of their sinecures or not.
There’s a lot of issues with the United States and the way it is governed. I don’t think things are quite as rosy for Republicans in the long term, but the thing is Republicans don’t have to win elections to ruin the country. And as much as I do hate what my former party is doing, the real problem is deeper—we have a huge swathe of our electorate that are maladjusted and generally antithetical to a free society. The two party structure overlaid on top of that IMO isn’t the root cause, the root cause is we are a country with a decaying culture.
It will be interesting to see how the CRT issue shapes up in future elections. Most of the Democratic pundit/activist class have convinced themselves it is a racist conspiracy theory with no grounding in reality but I suspect that elected Democrats in competitive races who have to live in the real world and win actual elections will try to distance themselves just like they have with “defund the police”.
The point isn’t really about what is or isn’t CRT. Frankly it is a vague concept lacking in empirical rigor. The point is a whole slew of unpopular and dubious ideas about race that have been peddled by the left over the last several years: 1619 is the real founding/white fragility/white supremacy/reparations. It is not a huge stretch to call these ideas CRT, they certainly bear a family resemblance but the label is not the point. Whatever you call them, these ideas are unpopular with a significant segment of voters and the GOP has shown that it can mobilize successfully against them and win close elections. If the Dems aren’t worried about this, they are being extremely stupid.
As I had mentioned I was actually a Republican on a Virginia school board at one point. I don’t really think it should be controversial to say that Critical Race Theory, “white fragility” and such should not be taught in K-12 schools. Democrats really shouldn’t be afraid to just say that “no, we don’t want that taught in schools.” It shouldn’t be taught in K-12 schools.
I’d liken it to something like the 1960s “Black Power” movement, there’s been a lot of racial movements in U.S. history and schools need to be very careful about “endorsing” any of them, particularly at the K-12 level. Schools are not supposed to be indoctrination centers.
But I do think you have to be careful. The primary responsibility of a school board is firstly to protect the public fisc, and that takes up a lot of the job. The hiring / firing / oversight of the Superintendent is the next most important part of the job. School boards need to be very careful when they get prescriptivist in setting curriculum. A lot of deference needs to be given to the Superintendent, with the Board only really weighing in on curriculum at a very high level, policy-oriented way.
So for example, I do not think a K-12 class should be indoctrinating kids into the black power movement. However, let’s say there’s a 12th grade AP 20th Century American History course…well, I don’t want to tell the teacher of that course “you can’t teach black power.” I think learning about the Black Panthers and things relating to them is something kids in such a class should learn.
I’m very hesitant then to buy into “content ban” passed at the board level, unless they are very, very carefully constructed. Teachers need to be able to teach history, which isn’t the same as indoctrinating students on the views of history. Texas in my opinion with its recent actions has created difficulties in teachers being able to provide a basic and comprehensive American history education to its students, by creating a culture in which teachers have to be afraid of what they say in the class room. I also think we have to remember–teachers work hands on with students, students are going to ask questions and create discussions that are not part of the regular curriculum. If a student keeps hearing about CRT on the news and asks a teacher about it, I don’t want that teacher to be in a position to have to say “well I can’t answer that question because the school board says I’m not allowed to answer it.”
Most teachers are actually quite good at navigating these waters, and we should give them the room to do so. FWIW, what I’d “like” to see happen if a teacher is asked that question is they give a high level explanation of what CRT is, explain that it is a social theory that is discussed more in academia in college, and that the student should do their own research on their own time if they are interested in learning about its particulars.
While this stuff wasn’t an issue when I was on the school board, in my mind I keep thinking of a bunch of angry parents who demand schools ban the “Teaching of Communism.” Okay, well I agree schools shouldn’t indoctrinate kids into Marxism-Lenininsm. But if you’re telling us our teachers can’t teach about what Communism is, the Communist revolutions of the early 20th century, the Soviet Union etc…how can we educate them? That’s why we have to be careful about being prescriptivist.
One of the underreported issues nationally was that the Democratic-controlled state education apparatus has been agitating against any kind of accelerated or “honors” type classes - such as, for example, the AP U.S. History course that does in fact discuss the history of slavery and the civil rights movement in great detail. Parents didn’t like the war on excellence any more than they did the other aspects of the Qarni/McAuliffe education agenda such as CRT and covering up rape on school grounds.
No use crying over spilled milk.
What can we reasonably expect from Gov. Youngkin’s tenure?
He’s being described by PBS pundits as a small business guy; a conservative undeservedly painted as a Trumpublican.
Is it reasonable to expect a Hogan (Gov. MD) analogue?
How should we northern Virginia progressives overreact to this unfortunate yet completely predictable turn of events?
Since Carter, the Virginia governor candidate from the opposite party of the president has won all but one race and that had a stronger than average third party candidate. I’m skeptical that there are any long term projections to be made from this.
How amazing that keeping Trump at arm’s length and allowing the Democrat to score own goals could be a winning G.O.P. strategy.
It’s also a risky one for Republicans looking ahead to '22, as Trump will be unwilling to stay in the role of figurehead on the sidelines. As he ages, he’s not going to acquire wisdom and stability, but will be ever more prone to embarassing outbursts, if not multiple episodes of exposing himself in public.
While Dem supporters go through the Kubler-Ross stages of political grief, starting with denial (“there’ve got to be more votes for McAuliffe that haven’t been counted yet”) and proceeding through despair/acceptance (“America is doomed!”), there should be recognition that the battle to keep party extremists from sabotaging victories still favors Democrats over Republicans, and that even a poor outcome in '22 will leave a Democratic President in power, and more time for Republicans to dive down rabbit holes of self-destructive stupidity.
I don’t think anyone on the conservative side disagrees with this. When someone says that they do not want CRT “taught” in schools, I have always interpreted that as shorthand for not wanting indoctrination or having it “taught” as a truth. To learn about what it is (and that is the crux of it as nobody can really say what it is–it is at the same time everything and nothing) and what the debate is regarding CRT, I don’t think anyone is saying that the word or the idea should be stricken from school speech.
It is sort of like religion. The teachers can teach the Crusades and why the Christians were trying to conquer the Holy City and why they believe in Jesus Christ and so forth, but it cannot be a Sunday School lesson. I think that dividing line is well understood.