Virginia Republicans, in short, studiously did not avoid a bread-and-butter cultural issue, one that sits at the thorny intersection of family, public education and race. The Youngkin campaign leaped headfirst into the CRT battle, confident that public opinion was on its side, and stood unapologetically with elementary-school parents distraught over woke public-school teachers arrogating to themselves the power to tell toddlers to hate themselves and their country. Youngkin and other victorious Republicans owe a huge debt of gratitude to Chris Rufo, the documentary-filmmaker-turned-CRT-archfoe who’s emerged as one of the most effective conservative activists in America, shining a spotlight on the galling racial indoctrination that has metastasized throughout America’s classrooms and boardrooms. The injection of CRT - and parents’ control over their children’s education more generally - as the preeminent political issue in Virginia sealed the deal. The unmistakable context: the controversies surrounding transgender policy and the proliferation of critical race theory in school curricula across the country, for which suburban Virginia had already emerged as a battleground. In one of the more consequential gaffes in recent political history, McAuliffe said in a late September debate with Youngkin: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe rubbed voters the wrong way by claiming parents shouldn’t be involved in classrooms. 1 issue was education shifted a remarkable 42 points from McAuliffe to Youngkin. And over the month from late September to late October, Virginia voters whose No. Yet as Virginia proved, Republicans’ clearest path forward is not to shy away from cultural issues but to fight the culture war - and win.Ī Washington Post poll last week found that Virginia voters’ top issue was not the economy but education. That self-serving narrative was always terrible electoral advice, but it did redound to the interest of the GOP’s more secular, socially liberal, well-coiffed Acela corridor elite. That conventional wisdom, best encapsulated by the Republican National Committee’s infamous “autopsy” following Mitt Romney’s defeat to Barack Obama, held that to win, the party should stick to the dog-eared free-market playbook and avoid the contentious “cultural” issues of immigration, identity politics and the like. The sweep of the Old Dominion’s governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general positions, the first statewide GOP victories in the once-solidly red commonwealth since 2009, is a repudiation of the pabulum dished out for decades by the party’s well-paid but myopic K Street consultant class. Tuesday night’s GOP electoral romp in Virginia, headlined by Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin’s victory over former governor and longtime Clinton crony Terry McAuliffe, ought to be a watershed moment for the future of American conservative politics. Police chief fires officer over fatal shooting of Timothy McCree Johnson, releases video of deadly encounterįootage shows Irvo Otieno pinned down by deputies before death in mental hospital Virginia woman convicted of killing 2 young daughters in twisted revenge plot on ex-husbandĬollege ring reunited with its owner 25 years after it vanished
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