Many considered this election to be a bellwether for the 2022 mid-terms.
30 thoughts on “The GOP has won the governorship in Virginia”
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Many considered this election to be a bellwether for the 2022 mid-terms.
Comments are closed.
1.I never said anything of the sort about needing a degree in economics. What I said, and have said before, is that your right wing views on economics are wrong in terms of the effects they would have. You continue to promote policies that will help the rich you either are or so obviously admire or want to be, while still claiming that these policies will help most Americans or America in general. You are a failed pretend economist because you are wrong.
2.In regards to the Federalist Society, they are a fraudulent organization because they have been almost birthed with a lie. I’m aware of their start, but I’m also aware what happened not long after. They falsely claim that they are little more than a debating society that also promotes some abstract legal philosophies about how to interpret legal documents, not solely but mostly regarding the Constitution. In fact, they have specific policy aims that they use these bullshit abstract legal philosophies to promote that would, in fact, lead to a neo-feudalist society, of a small number of very wealthy people, a larger but still relatively small number of highly skilled professionals, and everybody else, under the subservience of these handful of wealthy people, the genuine elites.
The Federalist Society actually refers to themselves as an organization of conservatives and libertarians, but, in fact, libertarian Austrian economics would lead to a neo-feudalist society with laws favoring the genuinely wealthy elite and the gutting of environmental regulations through the overturning of the administrative state and other such neo-feudalist policies. Friedrich Hayek did some decent economic research in some areas, but he was wrong that only communism is ‘the road to serfdom’ and it’s not a surprise that this supposed libertarian ended up working for brutal authoritarian right wing dictators.
In addition to that, they provide legal training, lobby politicians (and judges and justices) all to further promote these aims under the fraudulent premise that they are nothing but a charitable status ‘debating organization.’
In fact, if you google ‘Federalist Society political positions’ this is what their ‘about us’ says: A. No. The Society is about ideas. We do not lobby for legislation, take policy positions, or sponsor or endorse nominees and candidates for public service. All of those, except for the last, are lies.
No, I am not a lawyer, but I know bullshit when I see it, and it isn’t hard to figure out that these abstract legal philosophies of ‘textualism’ and ‘originalism’ are, beyond the obvious that judges and justices should know the meaning and, as much as can be determined, the intent of the people who wrote the documents they are trying to determine to apply to specific cases. It is a lie that judges and justices, be they conservative or liberal don’t try to do this. I don’t know of a single judge or justice, other than it seems, Richard Posner who doesn’t attempt to do this. The problem is, of course, both these abstract bullshit legal ‘philosophies’ and the texts, especially of the Constitution, are so elastic, that you can easily justify most more or less rational legal opinions.
What this does however, is it allowed conservatives in the early 1980s to argue that the Constitution hadn’t been interpreted correctly by liberal judges and justices, because they were ‘activist judges’ but that these conservatives knew the only correct way to interpret the Constitution. I will agree that there is at least one case of what I think it is fair to refer to as ‘legislating from the bench’ when the courts mandated busing as the correct policy to integrate. This is the only case I know of where the courts actually specified a remedy rather than gave guidance to the legislature. However, that was about a decade before the Federalist Society came along.
I think the reason the Federalist Society engages in this fraud, is because it allows them to have charitable status and to lobby while lying they aren’t lobbying, as well as because they get the pliant mainstream media to play their game. Rather than most Supreme Court reporters on television and print spending their time answering the only real question that matters: what are the likeliest consequences of the ruling? they seem to spend most of their time analyzing how the ruling fits into one or another of these meaningless abstract legal philosophies. Of course, this is also an easier job for these reporters than providing an analysis that is actually relevant.
I hope that answers your question. If you don’t agree or feel I’ve somehow wronged The Federalist Society, I don’t care because the facts are on my side.
The candidate of the party not in the white house has won every Va Gov race since 1969 with one exception in 2013 (13-1). Youngkin winning just continues that trend.
NJ also broke a trend. Nixon was also President the last time a Democrat won re-election for Governor in NJ
I don’t think that is factually correct. Dick Nixon was in the White House in 1973 and the Democrats could not have won the Virginia gubernatorial election because they did not even run a candidate! Republican Mills Godwin won the Virginia governorship. Of course, that was kind of an oddball situation because Godwin had been a Democrat when he was first elected in 1965, but he was a Republican when he ran in 1973.
But if you change your original post to read “since 1977” (11-1), I think it would be accurate.
Taking time out from the Odell Beckhams crisis to throw in a quick one: For all practical purposes the count in the Senate is 48D-51R-1?. Until Schumer realistically deals with that, ain’t nothing going nowhere. And they’re cooked next year, particularly with the changes from the census.
The US is great if you’re rich…crap if you’re poor…and the poor still keep taking it up the ass.
It’s a bellwether of VA and McAuliffe. btw, a day is a lifetime in politics and American voters have the memory of a peanut.
Apologies to peanuts!
Yielding back the balance of my time …
Youngkin was corporate raider who always screwed the employees.
Does this mean Youngkin is the castrated ram? Or McAuliffe? This lack of detail in reporting really grinds my gears. Where’s Floyd Turbo when you need him?
This was a firm rejection of Obama, Biden and Harris far left policies. Also, the Lincoln project hurt their candidate by getting caught planting fake racists at Youngkin events.
This is a rejection of inaction on far left policies coupled with fewer Rs crossing over compared to when Rump was going to kill us all with incompetence. Lincoln project didn’t have a candidate, they were just cosplaying as very fine people.
I lived in Lexington, VA in the 90’s while going to law school and have maintained a (very) casual interest in VA politics. I have been disappointed in how blue the state has turned red since I lived there. Glenn Youngkin seems like a pretty decent guy. Everything else being equal, I’d have preferred he denounced Trump. Of course, if he had done that he never could have won. McAuliffe tried his best to tie Youngkin to Trump, but Youngkin didn’t campaign like Trump. He campaigned on kitchen table issues like education and the economy. More importantly he wasn’t nasty like Trump.
Virginia doesn’t allow governors to serve consecutive terms. So as soon as a new governor is elected they are something of a lame duck. In New York, most people have no idea who the lieutenant governor is unless and until the governor is indicted or resigns in disgrace. (It’s only happened twice in the last 15 years.) But the VA lieutenant governor has an excellent shot at being the next governor elect. I didn’t know anything about the candidates for lieutenant governor until watching the returns last night. Winsome Sears seems very impressive to me. It’s ridiculously early to prognosticate, but she would seem like she would be a really strong candidate in 2025. If she is elected governor of VA there is no telling how far she could go.
It is almost enough for me to be hopeful about the future of the GOP. Almost. Ironically, yesterday, for the first time in my life, I voted for a Democrat over a Republican. I’ve voted against Republicans before (e.g. against Trump twice) but voted for 3rd party candidates. I’ve voted for Democrats, but only when there was no Republican on the ballot. But I have never been overly fond of Curtis Sliwa and am hopeful that Eric Adams will be a much better mayor than Bill Di Blasio, Actually, I was tempted to vote for him in the Democratic primary even though I am a registered Republican. There aren’t many Republicans in my neighborhood and I was handed a Democratic ballot when I went to the polls. But I was law abiding and asked for a GOP ballot instead.
I’d love it if Jack Ciattarelli hung on and won in NJ, but I don’t see that happening. As of this morning, Ciattarelli had a 1,200 vote lead with 12% of the vote outstanding. Late returns and absentee ballots tend to favor Democrats and I don’t think his lead is large enough. Unfortunately, a Republican leading on election night and losing when late returns are counted just lends credence to Trumpian conspiracies about voter fraud.
Youngkin is a decent guy? Only if you hear at 23-54 KHz.
If I could hear Youngkins alleged racist dog whistles, wouldn’t that make him seem like the exact opposite of a decent guy? Are you calling Youngkin a racist or me a racist? I am just curious.
Critical race theory as defined in the scholarship of people like Derek Bell is not being taught as such in elementary or high schools. But many ideas from that scholarship have made there way into curriculum and lessons in those schools. Critics of those curriculum and lessons have taken to referring to that by the shorthand critical race theory. Arguing that what is being taught doesn’t fit the academic definition of CRT may win debating points on the left, but it doesn’t address any of the criticism on the merits. Honestly, that whole fight in Virginia is a microcosm of the larger problem with our political discourse in this country. Political opponents shout buzzwords at each other on cable news shows without actually discussing anything on the merits.
There are many things I dislike about the Republican party today. The majority of those things involve the worship of the worst president in American history. But one of those things is that I increasingly hear Republican politicians arguing for policies I completely agree with, but I can’t help but feel they really don’t understand why those policies would be best. It’s like they know that Republicans support policy X, so they should support policy X, and these are the talking points to use while supporting it. Maybe I am doing them a disservice and it’s just the format that leads to shallow discussions and not shallow understanding. But either way it’s depressing.
“criticism on the merits”? What merits? What’s the case for teaching a bowdlerized version of history? If it’s just to train them to be able to take in a body of knowledge then regurgitate it onto a test sheet, we might as well teach them about Narnia. Kids deserve the whole story; they can handle it.
The Virginia Board of Education has supposedly recommended teaching material put out by the 1619 Project. The 1619 project has been widely criticized by eminent historians as being historically inaccurate. Last year Virginia Governor Ralph Northam declared Virginia’s schools guilty of systemic racism and declared his intention to “build antiracist school communities.” As I understand it in his book How to Be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi argued that having no racial animus is not being antiracist. Believing that that the government should not engage in any racial preferences is actually racist because doing that will perpetuate racist institutions. Some lesson plans have called for white students to identify their privilege. These ideas have drawn legitimate criticism. That isn’t to say the critics are necessarily right. But believing your child shouldn’t feel guilty because of the supposedly unfair privilege they have just because they are white does not make you a racist. Admittedly, I haven’t read Ibram X. Kendi’s book. But I have read criticism of it by Columbia professor John McWhorter, who is neither white nor a Republican. Arguments like his are what I would call criticism on the merits.
But I agree children should be taught real history and should be taught to think critically as well.
It seems to me that much of the “equality vs equity” argumentation is just simple Marxism reworded with a racial overlay: equity is basically “to each according to his needs” rather than “to each equally.”
I come up strongly on the side of equality rather than equity, but it’s not a simple either-or choice. We mustn’t ignore Anatole France’s wise observation that “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” In other words, while we strive for equality, we must sometimes tip the scales a bit for the less privileged in order to get those scales balanced in the longer term. The question is – how much do we tip those scales, and how long are we willing to wait for them to balance.
(I would favor the oblique solution of maintaining theoretical equality, by making equality itself unfair. To give a specific example, one can turn Anatole France’s ironic aphorism around: “The law, in its majestic equality, could provide free community college to the ultra-rich as well as to the poor.” That’s theoretically equal, but, well, “wink wink.” Maybe Andrew Yang was on to something by giving everyone, including the ultra rich, a thousand bucks a month. That maintains absolute equality in theory, while really moving toward equity in reality.)
“…academic definition of CRT may win debating points” is exactly what I meant about critical thinking. Ie, that’s poor critical thinking. More broadly, debating is by its nature BS. I detest those radio broadcasts on hot topics where victory goes to “most votes changed”. I swear, olympic judges are better prepared to decide on the merits than the affluence that selects those debate audiences.
Yes, I’m all for history honesty & anti regurgitation. If kids can’t handle it, then that’s the problem we need to solve.
1.2 million voters sat on their ass.
All this election proved was that odd-year elections shouldn’t happen because turn outs are low.
Actually, there was record turnout for a VA gubernatorial election. Sure, voter turnout is higher in presidential election years, but yesterdays turnout roughly matched the 2018 midterms and dwarfed 2014.
An awful turnout doesn’t become better just because things used to be worse.
I’m of the opinion that elections should only be held once every 4 years. You’re not really engaging in democracy if less than half the voters show up and its a colossal waste of time and money.
I think it is better that we have some elections every year, as opposed to all elections happening at the same time. every four Well I suppose we are constitutionally required to have federal mid year elections. Even off year elections have their place as it allows people to focus on more local elections, like for mayor.
I am going to say something very controversial now. I think it is vital to our democracy for every eligible citizen to have both the right and opportunity to vote. But I don’t really care what percentage of eligible voters vote. If someone doesn’t care enough about an election to vote, I don’t necessarily see what is gained by them voting. Now depending on which party you support and which way that disinterested voter might come down if they were convinced to vote, voter turnout might be extremely important to you. But a generic disinterested voter? If they want to vote, they have every right to do so. But if they choose not to or just don’t care? They have a right not to vote as well.
I’ll echo MM, but spin it. There’s friction between franchise (empowerment) & electorate quality. Aware citizens v. clueless & manipulated. I used to think all of us would be college educated if we could be. ISTM, there’s something noble in that aspiration. But it’s silly. Yes, we could make it easier or even possible for some. But the more we desire franchise for all, the more important it is to admit that college isn’t the end-all. The more we’ll need to make wisdom a prevalent quality in the majority. Who will be non-college, by & large.
More importantly, elitist Dems who think they’re smart,
focus on overall turnout at their own peril. They assume they’ll win just by doing what’s right: GOTV. But Abrams succeeded in GA not just with GOTV. Rather, it was a combination of luck & turnout focused on black, Dem votes. Meanwhile, the GOP wins by any means. Changing who votes & what their voters believe.
I compare going for overall turnout to over/under bets. It might even be argued that the GOP vote tampering tactics are mostly intended to keep Dems distracted & trapped on their foolish overall turnout track.
I’ve known pizza delivery guys that were way smarter than some college professors I’ve known. Having been a high school teacher, I can tell you not everyone is meant to go to college. I think many of our school systems do many of their students a disservice by not offering more trade school options. But even if schools offered training in a trade, they would still need help kids reach a basic literacy standard.
Our society has a duty to do a better job of educating children. Personally, I think the best way to do that is to offer parents more choices in how and where their kids are educated. My sister, who is an elementary school teacher in the Bronx, strongly disagrees with me. It boils down to this. I think parents should have the right to find the best school for their children. But my sister fears that if all the students with parents that really care about their education are removed from local public schools, it will be harder to educate the students that remain. Current education theory (or at least current as of 15 years ago) emphasizes group work with heterogeneous grouping. That’s a fancy way of saying a 4 person group should be made up of one strong student, 2 average students, and one struggling student. The idea is that the stronger students (who usually have the most involved parents) help the weaker students learn. Keeping those stronger students in local schools is probably what’s best for the weaker students. But is it what’s best for those stronger students? Does keeping strong students even make enough of a difference to the weaker students that it is worth holding the stronger students back? Even if it does make a real difference, would it then be right to keep strong students trapped in failing public schools just because their parents lack the resources to move to a better school district or to pay for private school?
I think school choice is an issue that Republicans could and should use to appeal to more minority voters. The Democratic party is deep in the thrall of the teachers unions. Even Democratic pols that support school choice can’t be trusted to stay that way. Sen. Cory “I am Spartacus” Booker was a very strong supporter of school choice when he ran for mayor of Newark, NJ. But when he decided to run for the Senate his position completely flipped. I think the GOP should campaign on the platform of letting federal education spending follow the student to whichever school, public or private, they decide to attend. If GOP candidates start routinely getting even 25% of the black vote, there will be a lot of unhappy Democrats. But there may well be more happy parents.
@MMcC, both you & your sister miss the mark. The argument hinges not on strong/weak mix. It’s all about pool size. I do mean per-pupil funding, mainly. But splitting up strong/weak–I should scare-quote that–is fraught, too. By far the weakest leg in K-12 is teachers. It’s a big problem. We need to pay them more, to raise the level of how they teach, not just what. But also what. Except, we need a lot of them. Too many. There’s no pool of teacher talent in the world that’s up to it. But we could up the job requirements. It’s at that point that unionized labor gatekeeping blocks change. That’s why choice comes into the picture. It lets a relative handful of pupils escape the gridlock. This raises a fairness problem. It’s not clear to me there are any real winners.
When I say how, I mean mainly the teacher’s practical need for right answers. Expertise can reduce that need. Grade school is BS bc of answer-based grading. Only gradeable work, that’s the how, & it dictates the what. We need to teach kids to round instead of truncate. Like our silly .99 & 9/10s at the gas pump. To be able to see that a cabinet probably won’t fit thru a doorway.
As for the pupil mix, I have some rare experiences. I’m a mediocre mind & was a lousy pupil. In HS, I had 2 math teachers who’d majored in math before their Ed degrees. I wound up majoring in math at a 4yr college. But long before then, in grades 5-6, I was put in a gifted class. I hadn’t made the cut by my teachers. But the IQ test screen uncovered a problem. The experts had to explain, no, not the top of the class, but the “creatives”. My daydreaming was an asset, not a source of demerit.
We were given 2 great teachers. They taught us in tandem, not separated into year groups. We were taught in seminar style. There was something like what I’d now call Socratic dialogue. Based on this experience, I can see that school teaching has improved. But not by much, for the vast majority of pupils.
The one lasting benefit from school that’s universal is reading. All else pales. Far more would be possible. But it simply isn’t feasible. The alternative seems to be elitism for the affluent. That’s what “electorate quality” was about. Critical thinking. Ability to sift information. We need to inculcate that into kids from a young age.
I’ve known pizza delivery drivers smarter than some lawyers, like the one here named Michael McChesney, a member of the fascist, neo feudalist and fraudulent Federalist Society, and a failed pretend economist.
I agree with Michael on the charter schools however. I don’t think it does anybody any good to have the absolute genius students in regular schools and I think a variety of teaching methods, as can be provided through charter schools is the best approach.
I agree with Mykey though more broadly. Success in schooling is not measured through standardized tests, success is measured ultimately by the accomplishment of the student when they are adults. Of course, there is no way to measure that in school, and schools can’t achieve that by themselves, but since these things need to be measured, students demonstrating an ability to show critical thinking is certainly the only really thing that comes close to an accurate measurement of a school’s quality.
Adam. If I am not permitted to have opinions about economics because I don’t have an economics degree, should an economist be permitted to have opinions about the law if he or she lacks a law degree? Do you by any chance have a law degree? I’m just curious. But regardless I don’t believe you need a degree in a subject to have opinions about it.
I can’t be sure from reading your comment because you are so subtle, but I get the impression you don’t like the Federalist Society. I was president of the Washington & Lee chapter when I was in school, but I don’t recall reading anything about wanting to bring feudalism to the United States. That would seem to conflict with their generally libertarian positions. But maybe they started advocating feudalism after I graduated and didn’t continue my membership. Could you point me to where they advocated it?
When you call the Federalist Society fraudulent are you saying they committed a financial fraud? Or do you mean the society members don’t believe in the conservative/libertarian legal views they advocate? I’m genuinely curious.
MyKey I think you are actually making an argument for school choice. Different kids have different way they learn best. Public schools tend to teach all their general ed students the same way. Special ed students are taught with more variety in the methods, but many do not receive the services they NEED. I have been told that when creating IEPs (Individual Education Plans) for special ed students, NYC teachers are not allowed to put a service in the IEP that their school doesn’t offer. It used to be that if a school didn’t have a needed service available, a student would be transferred to a school that offered it. But that was expensive. So the unofficial but very real policy was instituted to hold down costs. Otherwise they might have to down size administrative personnel in order to hire more teachers. They can’t let that happen.
Randi Weingarten, the current AFT president, was president of the UFT when I was a member. She came to meet with the teachers at my school. One of our teachers asked her why the union wasn’t running ads comparing suburban student teacher ratios with NYC ratios. She said that the union didn’t want to ask for smaller class sizes because a reduction of 2 students per class would cost the same as a $10,000 raise for teachers. The teachers unions make lots of claims about how much they care about giving the best possible education to students. That is actually how many if not most teachers actually feel. But the unions are only interested in what’s best for their teachers.
Not remotely. Those people haven’t been paying attention.
You’ve got a republican who managed to keep Trump at arms length yet not repudiate him vs a relatively unpopular Democrat in a true swing state that goes back and forth on their governors.
Any race with a full tilt Trumpite is a whole other ballgame. Any race with a moderate republican that rejects Trump is another ballgame.
It’s a new thing out there. The old rules don’t apply.