Quick Thoughts re: Virginia
More to come as data settles...
Glenn Youngkin won the Virginia election, the first Republican to do so since 2009. Some early thoughts, though there is, of course, much, much more to say:
Exit poll data will become clearer in the coming days and weeks, but it looks like Youngkin greatly improved upon Trump’s performance among parents, Independents, and white voters without a college degree (which I would not have expected, right?). The electorate, as expected for an off-year election, was whiter than the electorate in 2020, which benefited Youngkin.
Youngkin took McAuliffe’s leading issue, education, right out from under McAuliffe. At the start of the race, if you had told the McAuliffe campaign that education would be the #2 priority issue, they would have been gleeful. Youngkin won those who named education as their top priority by 20-points.
McAuliffe was promising historic investments in education. What did Youngkin do? Two things: First, he said that he, too, would make historic investments in education. Second, with significant help from McAuliffe himself, Youngkin made the debate not about who was willing to invest, but about whether you could trust McAuliffe to make the right investments with the right intentions.People rightfully point out the damage McAuliffe’s debate line regarding parents, and unwillingness to clearly walk it back, did to his campaign (“I’m not going to let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decision...I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”) But it was the top of his answer that was indicative of a more profound problem with his campaign, which is that after Youngkin made what sounded to many voters like a reasonable critique, McAuliffe responded with derision and disdain: “first of all, this shows how clueless Glenn Youngkin is…” I wonder how many voters were prompted by McAuliffe’s response to think of a time when they felt a teacher or principal in their life or the life of their child was patronizing, reveling in their authority a bit too much, unwilling to even entertain that there might be a problem. This was McAuliffe’s basic approach to debating Youngkin: not just disagreement, but derision. Maybe that had something to do with McAuliffe’s paltry performance in rural areas of the state. (While writing this, a friend reached out to ask if I saw parallels between the McAuliffe campaign and the 2016 Clinton campaign. Now that he mentions it…smug derision is certainly a through-line!)
McAuliffe’s campaign began to see that his debate remark was hurting him, but instead of walking it back, they decided that they would spend the closing days of their campaign framing Youngkin’s critique as a “racist dog-whistle.” Now, if you buy that an ad about a 2016 bill regarding sexually-explicit content provided by schools; an ad that never mentions race; an ad that comes on the heels of a well-publicized school board meeting where a parent complained about sexually-explicit books in the school library; an ad about a bill that originally passed unanimously and then was supported by 20 VA House Democrats in final passage; an ad about a bill in which Terry McAuliffe had nothing to say about race when he vetoed it…if you can buy that an ad like that is inherently, intrinsically and intentionally racist, then you probably think McAuliffe has been spot on these last few weeks. However, if you just simply watched the debate, saw the ad, and thought Youngkin was making a point that was worthy of engagement, then it might seem to you that the McAuliffe campaign’s turn to race was a disingenuous attempt to use race to get Terry out of a bind.
This thread from Julie Zauzmer Weil is helpful in understanding how voters, normal voters, process a campaign like we just saw in VA:Youngkin did directly appeal to Critical Race Theory though, which is not so much a dog whistle as it is a direct appeal to those with concerns about the current racial justice discussion, some of whom seem to not want to talk about race or racial justice at all. Youngkin seemed to want to state opposition to voters’ worst conceptions of what the current racial justice movement is and wants, while also expressing sympathy for more positively framed aspects of what the movement is calling for and wants. Stating opposition to Critical Race Theory is a way of communicating to voters that you know “some of this stuff is over the top, and I oppose the stuff that’s over the top,” without really saying what exactly is over the top. Am I less likely to vote for candidates who make banning Critical Race Theory part of their platform? Less likely, of course, because I just don’t think on the hierarchy of issues involving race that Critical Race Theory should rise to such a level of prominence. I’ve written before about the distorted political incentives that lead to an issue like CRT coming to the center of our politics.
But it is an act of self-deception for Democrats to believe it makes total sense to respond to the Critical Race Theory discourse by saying, essentially, “These idiots are complaining about something that doesn’t even exist, isn’t even real or happening, though it would probably be for the better if it was taught in schools, but it’s not so raising the issue is ignorant and racist.” This is a fairly accurate paraphrase of the basic line of argument that is popular from progressive officials, viral videos and tweets.
If it’s so ludicrous to suggest Critical Race Theory, or ideas that derive from that kind of approach, is taught in public schools, you ought to be able to articulate why that is the case. Is there anything people are identifying about the current racial discourse that you, too, think is unwise? McAuliffe was unwilling to acknowledge good faith concerns. Youngkin, on the other hand, would state his opposition (an emphasis which loomed larger in the imaginations of online Democrats than it was in real life) to “Critical Race Theory,” but then talk explicitly about the need to teach about America’s sins, about slavery and racism. And so while Democrats conflate any concerns about our racial discourse with White Supremacy, Youngkin actually was disaggregating concerns about “excesses” of the current moment from the validity of some of the concerns and critique that are central to the movement.
My colleague Dana points to a Fox oped Youngkin wrote two days ago, which is really worth reading for a sense of the message. He doesn't mention CRT. Instead, Youngkin focuses on pandemic learning loss, Covid school closures, and accreditation standards. foxnews.com/opinion/virgin…1. My brief analysis here of how the issues of race and the pandemic created a swirl of anger around education in Virginia. https://t.co/WAXkUZSZQQ
Dana Goldstein @DanaGoldstein
I don't see particularly clear evidence for the centrality of "CRT" to the Virginia outcome, but I do think on the merits that progressives' habit of denying that there have been any noteworthy changes to educational practice in recent years is a little bizarre.
If you don’t think there are any excesses, or if you believe the excesses are necessary and best left unacknowledged, then you’re not only upset that Youngkin would suggest there are…you might believe that it’s a fabrication that could only have one justification: racism and the upholding of white supremacy. But, it’s this mode of engagement which is Democrats’ problem.If your approach to politics is primarily shaped by Donald Trump, then you will miss quite a bit. I’ve harped on this point over the last year, because I think it’s an important one with implications that show up all over our politics. One way it shows up here is that voters, and Democrats themselves, it seems, had a hard time conceiving of why you would vote against a “normal Republican.” This difficulty is supported by Democratic messaging and progressives’ generally, and their insistence on tying Youngkin to Trump. The problem? Youngkin was very clearly not Trump. If voters see that, you’ve left them with very little else to work with.
Here’s the thing: it’s OK to vote against a Republican because they are a normal Republican with normal, bad, Republican ideas. Politics doesn’t have to be, shouldn’t be, an existential crisis every time voters head to the polls. Voters should be motivated to vote because they want to speak into the direction of the country, not because they believe the very fate of the nation (or their state) hangs in the balance. But Democrats seem to have lost the ability to just argue against bad Republican ideas. It’s a real crisis of confidence when it comes to the strength of their ideas.
In that way, this moment is the opposite of where Democrats found themselves in the early aughts and especially 2004-2005. The criticism of Democrats then, which had merit, was that they were all data, all policy charts and facts, but no values. Well, that problem has been fixed. Now much of Democratic politics is all about values—the fact they have the right and good values. Meanwhile, it’s often suggested the actual content and impacts of their policy solutions should not be debated because their intentions are so pure.
Democrats need to figure out what their case is for their policy agenda, and what their case is against Republican ideas. They need to be confident about that, apart from their confidence about their intentions. Heading into midterms, Democrats need to regain confidence in telling the country they should vote for Democrats and against Republicans, because they are Democrats and Republicans are Republicans. If Republicans need to be virulent, anti-democratic racists in order for Democrats’ to feel good about their case; they will likely find out in a year that the American people didn’t feel they had one in the first place.It really is OK to vote against Republicans because they are Republicans with bad, Republican ideas. Better yet, it’s OK to vote for Democrats because you think their ideas are better.
I was struck by this watching Youngkin’s victory speech last night. In it, he promised to support Qualified Immunity for law enforcement. He promised to force complete turnover of the parole board. He committed to massive tax cuts paired with unprecedented education spending, which led me to wonder “what is he going to cut?” These are the things he said. This is what he was explicit about. This was his policy platform. These are reasons to oppose Youngkin.
Ending Qualified Immunity is one of the chief priorities of Black Lives Matter. It was viewed as a conceivable policy change that could even garner bipartisan support in the now-defunct federal criminal justice legislation. McAuliffe, as the chosen defender of racial progress and tip-of-the-spear against white supremacy, surely knew this. McAuliffe wrote op-eds declaring “Black Lives Matter,” and shouted the names of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor from the rooftops. The people marching in the streets weren’t calling for people to read more Black authors, but for real, systemic reform. Surely, Qualified Immunity was low-hanging fruit for Terry McAuliffe, who marched alongside Martin Luther King in Selma, I’m sure (no need for a fact check on this, it just sounds right).
I was shocked though to discover that while McAuliffe did develop a 60-second ad defending Toni Morrison and her book Beloved (which I’m sure McAuliffe has read) from even a whiff of implicit opposition from Youngkin, he did not run an ad against Youngkin’s position on Qualified Immunity. Why didn’t he run an ad? Well, because after a primary campaign (against multiple Black candidates, I have to say) in which he indicated his support for ending Qualified Immunity, he flip-flopped on the issue and said he would not reform QI as Governor.
OK. QI is a policy that’s debatable. A debate on policy is helpful. But, my goodness, maybe lay off putting yourself forward as the standard-bearer for George Floyd’s legacy, and maybe turn down the dial on accusing your opponent of racist dog-whistles, when you’re opposing one of the key reforms that the most preeminent advocates for racial justice say is needed.
What’s becoming clear is that Democrats seem awfully comfortable charging Republicans as racists based on the standards set by Black Lives Matter, but find all sorts of justifications for nuance and grace when it comes to disagreements with Democrats. It kind of puts the integrity of the whole endeavor into question. I don’t think the answer is to call McAuliffe a racist for opposing QI reform in order to be consistent. I think it’s much more likely that we ought to be really careful about wielding racism, and charges of it, against our opponents in order to aggrandize ourselves and our ambitions.
How did the economy and pandemic influence it?