Too many people sadly bought into the BS of candidate Glenn Youngkin that he was not a puppet of disgraced, criminally-corrupt former president Donald Trump that they temporarily stopped what had become a statewide move of Virginia away from the autocratic political monstrosities of the hard-right Republican party.
Youngkin appeared to distance himself from Trump’s “Big Lie” that brought the Jan. 6 Capitol Riot in 2021 with his “Little Lie” that he was a more sane member of the rights-robbing GOP, but as soon as he grabbed the governor’s race he embraced condemnation of Critical Race Theory, banning of books and other attempts to return to the dark ages.
Then we saw his lack of empathy Friday when he turned the vicious attack by a Trump-follower on the 82-year-old husband of Speaker Nancy Pelosi into a crass political punchline about sending home to San Francisco in the midterm elections.
“I’m sorry about saying nice things about Glenn Youngkin,” writes columnist Karen Tumulty. “In July, I wrote a column when reports began to surface that Virginia’s Republican governor, a fresh and sunny political newcomer with proven bipartisan appeal, was already thinking about running for president.”
Tumulty now realizes that she had been “had” by another of the con artists who genuflect before their anointed “appointee of God,” Donald John Trump.
At the time, I expressed hope that Youngkin — or someone like him — would seek the GOP nomination in 2024. His stunning 2021 victory in blue-ish Virginia showed that there might still be room in the Republican Party for a different model of politician, one who could run as a unifying alternative to Donald Trump’s venomous brand.
Optimist that I am, I still hope that a tribune of sanity will emerge in the Republican Party. But the everydad in the fleece vest probably isn’t that guy. When a situation this week called for expressing a modicum of human decency, Youngkin — who frequently talks about his religious values — showed he could rival the former president at diving for the gutter.
“Speaker Pelosi’s husband, they had a break-in last night in their house, and he was assaulted. There’s no room for violence anywhere,” Youngkin said.
Alas, he didn’t stop there.
“But we’re going to send her back to be with him in California,” the governor said. As the crowd cheered, Youngkin doubled down: “That’s what we’re going to go do. That’s what we’re going to go do.”
Set aside the fact that his joke, if that’s what you can call it, showed a lack of understanding of basic civics and geography. Pelosi is in Washington because she has been elected for the past 35 years by the voters of California. This has nothing to do with anybody in Virginia.
You’re right, Karen. Virginia has never wanted to have anything to do with Trump or his politics. The Commonwealth voted against him for president in 2016 and for his re-election in 2020. Like you, Virginians who should have known better bought into Youngkin’s con.
As the hedgefund director who drove senior citizens out of their homes to add to his personal millions in profit, voters ignored the lessons of the past: So-called “business leaders” with no political experience should never be elected to the highest offices in a state, Commonwealth or America.
I warned Virginia about Youngkin’s dishonesty and questionable actions as a hedgefund boss before the election. Here in Muse, I wrote:
In a diverse nation, no one group should consider itself superior to another. Doing so is an act of treason in a Democracy and should be like the confederate statues that are being removed and scrapped across the Old Dominion. It’s time to stop worshiping those who are trying to destroy our way of life.
Youngkin, of course, appeals to the fringes, the rabid whites who see any moderation with Blacks as a threat to their claimed, but nonexistent, “white majority.” They continue to ignore the reality of a diverse America, defined by diverse people who seek inclusion, not exclusion.
For a national political news site that I own, I wrote: “As a voter, are you a Trump Republican or an American? You can’t be both If you continue to support a seditionist traitor like the corrupt and immoral Trump, you are simply another enemy of America — just like him.”
Add Glenn Youngkin to that list. He doesn’t give a damn about Virginia or America. Thankfully, the Old Dominion does not allow a governor to run for another term. Let’s hope the Old Dominion can survive even that first term of another Trump puppet.