Flash again to January 6, 2021 – Ralph Northam was governor of Virginia, doing considered one of his routine briefings on COVID19, speaking about how he was relieved to place the COVID pandemic 12 months of 2020 behind us and “begin the new year [2021] with optimism.” In the meantime, whilst Northam briefed the press on Virginia’s progress within the COVID pandemic, all hell was breaking free on the U.S. Capitol – just some miles from Virginia – with 1000’s of offended Trump supporters (egged on by Trump himself) violently assaulting law enforcement officials, seeking to maim/kill Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi, trying to cease the certification of the 2020 presidential election, and so forth.
Northam’s response was to order Virginia Nationwide Guard and 200 Virginia state troopers to the U.S. Capitol to assist restore order, which lastly occurred as soon as reinforcements had been introduced in and Trump belatedly known as for his shock troops to go house. As for the response of Virginia politicos, Democrats – and some Republicans – expressed their disgust, outrage and unequivocal condemnation of what occurred. As for a lot of Republicans, in distinction, whereas they virtually all condemned the violence, they continued to perpetuate the lies concerning the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election which helped gas the rebel within the first place. As an illustration:
Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA09) tweeted that the US Capitol “should not be subject to break-ins and violence,” that “its occupiers must leave and face justice.” Nice, besides that Griffith himself was a part of the issue, having introduced on January 6, 2021 that he would ” vote to maintain objections to slates of electors submitted by states we consider clearly violated the Structure within the presidential election of 2020.” This was whole bullsh**, clearly, and likewise the kind of unhinged rhetoric that helped gas the anger of those that participated within the rebel.
Trump’s former Virginia marketing campaign chair, MAGA radio host John Fredericks, tweeted that “the violence we’re witnessing at the U.S. Capitol is unacceptable & wrong” and “must stop,” additionally that it “doesn’t speak to our movement or the 10’s of millions of #MAGA Deplorables that I know & love.” So positive, the primary half is 100% right, however the second half, about how the rebel supposedly didn’t “speak to our movement” shouldn’t be correct in any respect. As an illustration, a ballot in January 2024 discovered that “Two-thirds of Republicans polled said they still do not believe Joe Biden was legitimately elected, while 62% say there is solid evidence that there was widespread voter fraud in 2020.” Simply as unhealthy or worse, solely 14% (!!!) of Republicans stated that Trump bears a “great deal” or “good amount” of accountability for the assault on the U.S. Capitol, with 54% truly saying Trump bears no accountability in any respect (right reply: Trump bears a HUGE AMOUNT of the accountability!). And solely 18% of Republicans stated that Trump was responsible of “criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States which alleges he lied about voter fraud in an illegal effort to overturn the 2020 election” (corret reply: Trump was VERY MUCH responsible, no query about it!). So yeah, what occurred on 1/6/21 very a lot DID converse to the MAGA motion, no query about it.
Rep. Ben Cline (R-VA06), a far-right MAGA Republican, tweeted, “While people have a right to peaceably protest, those who breached he Capitol and assaulted Capitol Police officers should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law…Violence is never the answer, and I condemn their actions in the strongest possible terms.” (After all, Cline was one of many members of Congress who dishonestly/falsely denied the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election and voted in opposition to certification, so he was very a lot a part of the issue)
Rep. Rob Wittman (R-VA01) wrote: “What happened on Wednesday in our nation’s Capital is a blemish on this nation and I condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the acts of violence and destruction that occurred at the Capitol building. We may disagree on policy and who we support for President, but this country is built on law and order. We must continue to stand for the great American tradition of peaceful disagreement and debate rather than anarchy and violence.” Good assertion – if Wittman had stopped proper there. As a substitute, sadly however tellingly, Wittman adopted that with a bunch of blather – and outright lies – about how supposedly “the facts support my vote to object to the Pennsylvania electors.” Wittman additionally voted in opposition to certifying the 2020 presidential election, which was completely inexcusable, unjustifiable and unforgivable.
Rep. Bob Good (R-VA05) wrote: “The lawlessness that broke down our Capitol doors is a reminder of how sacred our duty is to uphold the rule of law.” Sure, clearly, besides that Good then famous that even AFTER the rebel (on January 7, 2021), he “continued with my objection to the submission of electors’ from six states in question (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin).” Good additionally blathered about how Congress ought to “not accept electoral submissions from states with sufficient evidence of fraud, which warrants full investigation, as well as states where legislators did not ensure the law was followed or ensure the integrity of their elections.” Insane.
In stark distinction, Virginia Democrats voted to certify the election – which, clearly, EVERY member of Congress ought to have performed – whereas unequivocally condemning the violent pro-Trump rebel and mentioning the apparent: particularly, as VA Democrats’ Chair Susan Swecker wrote on the time, that:
“What we saw at the Capitol is the direct result of Republican elected officials undermining our democracy at every turn…The Republican Party has made their disdain for democracy very clear…It’s up to every Virginian and every American to reject the values of the Republican Party that led to a violent coup attempt…in our nation’s capital. The future of our democracy depends on it.”
Bingo – significantly that final half about how “every Virginian and every American to reject the values of the Republican Party that led to a violent coup attempt…in our nation’s capital. The future of our democracy depends on it.”
Besides that that is NOT what ended up occurring. In hindsight, and even on the time, there have been quite a few indicators that U.S. democracy was on a disastrous course. For starters, not like what we’ve seen in different international locations (e.g., South Korea not too long ago), Trump and his fellow coup plotters weren’t arrested, aggressively prosecuted, jailed, and so forth. As a substitute, many of the ringleaders of 1/6/21 by no means confronted justice for what they did, not to mention shortly – like, within the days/weeks/months after 1/6/21. Thus, Senate Republicans (thanks a LOT, Mitch McConnell!) overwhelmingly voted to let Trump off the hook but AGAIN; the Biden administration, significantly Lawyer Basic Merrick Garland, did not act with the urgency that the scenario merited; the U.S. justice system largely failed to carry the perpetrators accountable; and so forth.
And, ultimately, U.S. voters largely moved on, “memory holed” 1/6/21, and virtually instantly went again to enterprise as normal. The primary severe indicators of this began over the summer time of 2021, with Joe Biden’s quickly declining approval ranking – largely due to rising inflation, which was a worldwide phenomenon popping out of the COVID pandemic (supply-chain points, recovering demand, and so forth.) and positively wasn’t Biden’s fault (not that Trump supporters will EVER consider that truth), in addition to the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, and so forth.
By way of elections, the primary REALLY huge signal that we had been in serious trouble got here on November 2, 2021 – the primary statewide election because the rebel, which passed off simply 11 months earlier, proper down the highway from Virginia, and which if ANYONE ought to have remembered was Virginia voters. The end result: Republican Glenn Youngkin — who boasted about how he was “honored to receive President Trump’s endorsement,” how “President Trump represents SO MUCH of why I’m running” and the way “They said: This guy is like Donald Trump. I said thank you very much.” — truly received the election, albeit narrowly, over former Gov. Terry McAuliffe. A number of classes from that election for Trump’s victory within the 2024 presidential elections and for U.S. politics extra broadly, embrace:
Youngkin’s marketing campaign was based mostly on demagoguery, worry mongering, falsehoods/lies, xenophobia, transphobia, racism, and so forth, and so forth. As an illustration, Youngkin et al ranted (falsely!) about “Critical Race Theory,” one thing that 99% of Virginia voters had by no means even heard about earlier than, which wasn’t even taught in Virginia colleges and which had no influence on anybody’s life. But they managed to show “CRT” and different lies (e.g., see “Youngkin’s claim that McAuliffe asked the FBI to go after Virginia parents is deliberately false“; “[Youngkin’s] Claims U.S. Traditions Are Being Axed From Schools Are False“; Youngkin’s “pants-on-fire” declare that “Terry (McAuliffe) calls in his friend Joe Biden to actually put the DOJ on Virginia parents”; Youngkin’s false declare that Terry McAuliffe favors “taking the Pledge of Allegiance and the 4th of July out of the (school) curriculum”; “The Right’s Big Lie About a Sexual Assault in Virginia“; etc, etc.) into a huge issue in the 2021 gubernatorial campaign, demonstrating the power and reach of the right-wing “noise machine” (whether or not we’re speaking about Fox “News,” right-wing speak radio, social media – significantly Twitter) and particularly its capability to make a difficulty out of actually ANYTHING, even when it’s full horse manure.
We noticed most if not all of this in Trump’s 2024 presidential election marketing campaign, which was closely targeted on…yep, demagoguery, xenophobia, transphobia (a whole lot of thousands and thousands of {dollars} in adverts by the Trump marketing campaign stoking anti-trans and anti-immigrant sentiments).
For its half, the “mainstream media” in 2021 virtually utterly did not name out Youngkin’s lies and demagoguery, early and sometimes, for what it was. As a substitute, the “mainstream media” did its normal – false equivalence, “both sidesism,” “sanewashing,” normalization of extremism, refusal to obviously inform readers/listeners/viewers of the truth that Youngkin was LYING, stenography masquerading as journalism, and so forth. This culminated in a whopping three godawful WaPo front-page tales on the Virginia governor’s race on October 9, 2021, by which they – amongst different issues – falsely claimed that Youngkin was some form of “6 foot 5 mystery date.” Ugh.)
We most undoubtedly noticed the “mainstream media” fail to tell the general public, fail to name out Trump’s lies and extremism, and so forth., within the 2024 U.S. presidential election. As a substitute, we bought relentless “both sidesism,” false equivalence, “sanewashing,” whitewashing, fixed bashing of Joe Biden, relentless badmouthing of the U.S. financial system (aka, the envy of the world!), and so forth, and so forth.
Virginia Republican voters had been REALLY fired up, whereas Democratic voters turned out in massive numbers – simply not massive sufficient to beat near-presidential-election turnout ranges by Republicans in deep-red components of Virginia. There are quite a lot of misconceptions concerning the 2021 Virginia gubernatorial election. For starters, Democrats DID prove to vote for Terry McAuliffe, who truly bought 200k extra votes in 2021 than Ralph Northam bought in 2017, when he received in a landslide. The issue was that Virginia *Republicans* turned out in large, unprecedented numbers, near-presidential-election ranges in some deep-red components of Virginia, for Glenn Youngkin. Which enabled Youngkin to drag of a slim victory of McAuliffe, with Winsome Sears and Jason Miyares successful much more narrowly over Hala Ayala and Mark Herring for LG and AG, respectively.
Within the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Kamala Harris obtained 75 million votes, down from Biden’s 81 million votes in 2020. That’s completely different than the Virginia 2021 gubernatorial election, the place Terry McAuliffe bought extra votes than Ralph Notham 4 years earlier. As for Trump, he bought 77 million votes in 2024, up 3 million from his 74 million votes in 2020. So, ultimately, Virginia’s 2021 gubernatorial election demonstrated that there was nonetheless room to develop for the pro-Trump Republican “base” – which is what we noticed in November 2024. As for Kamala Harris, if she had simply held regular in comparison with Biden’s 2020 vote whole, she would have received. However she didn’t, for a wide range of causes (largely, Biden’s low approval rankings, media-driven “vibecession” and America’s significantly intense anti-incumbent bias), and so forth.
As famous above, the truth that Youngkin received the 2021 Virginia governor’s election – held simply 11 months after the violent, pro-Trump 1/6/21 rebel (proper down the highway from Virginia, with Virginia nationwide guard and state troopers even being despatched to assist safe the U.S. Capitol) – ought to have been seen as extremely ominous for what was to come back in 2024 and past. As Virginia Democrats’ Chair Susan Swecker stated after the 1/6/21 rebel, that ought to have disqualified Republicans – actually ones who supported Trump, or Trump himself! – going ahead, FOREVER. I imply, if trying to stage a violent coup and dealing to destroy our democracy isn’t disqualifying, then NOTHING is in U.S. politics. And but, 11 months later, a small majority of Virginia voters was like, positive, what the hell, let’s go together with the man who’s endorsed by Trump, who says he’s similar to Trump, and so forth. Greater than something, this could have set off red-alarm warning sirens for anybody/everybody who cares about our democracy. Nevertheless it largely didn’t, largely as a result of the media didn’t need to speak about that, as an alternative closely normalized it, and so forth.
In 2024, it wasn’t simply Trump-supporting Glenn Youngkin successful the Virginia governor’s race, it was Trump himself – the man extra accountable than anybody for nearly destroying our democracy – getting 77 million votes and successful the election. Loopy.
Earlier than lurching laborious proper, Glenn Youngkin HAD BEEN a comparatively normal-sounding, “moderate” enterprise man on the Carlyle Group. Hell, Youngkin had even praised Communist China’s “unique system,” talked about some great benefits of range, ESG (“environmental, social and governance” rules in investing), “lowering [our] carbon footprint,” and so forth. But on the similar time, whereas kinda/sorta protecting Trump at arm’s size from the attitude of the “mainstream media” and most of the people, Youngkin in 2021 enthusiastically embraced Trump in his marketing campaign supplies geared toward Trump voters, bragging about how very like Trump he was, and so forth. Then, by 2024, Youngkin had morphed COMPLETELY into the MAGA/Trump extremist camp, showing on stage for Trump’s marketing campaign, endorsing/embracing Trump, you title it. This can be a clear illustration of how Republicans – Mitch McConnell and plenty of others – thought they might handle Trump, profit from Trump’s energized “base” however not have all the social gathering go into far-right-extremist crazytown. Besides that this technique didn’t work. In any respect.
Quick ahead to 2024, and the craven, calculating “mainstream” Republican failure to reject MAGA extremism (mixed with many Republicans who enthusiastically embraced MAGA extremism) has come to full fruition, with Trump’s reelection and catastrophe looming for the USA of America. And sure, you possibly can see that coming in 2021, first with Senate Republicans’ refusal to convict Trump, then the pilgrimage of Republicans (e.g., Kevin McCarthy) to kiss and make up with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, then the election of Trump-endorsed Glenn Youngkin proper down the highway from the place the 1/6/21 rebel passed off. Disturbing. (Oh, additionally notice that Trump beforehand had been a member of the Reform Occasion, a Democrat and an impartial, whereas not SOUNDING just like the authoritarian he’s morphed into. For each Trump and Youngkin, plainly no matter core rules they’ve are subservient to their very own private ambitions for cash and energy)
Within the 2021 elections, Youngkin received by a slim majority, whereas Home of Delegates Republicans managed solely a slim majority, whereas the State Senate remained carefully divided (Democrats maintained a “blue wall” there). This considerably foreshadowed what ended up occurring within the 2024 U.S. presidential and congressional elections.
In November 2024, whereas Trump received by a reasonably slim margin (underneath 50% of the vote, just some 10s of 1000’s of votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin), US Home Republicans barely squeaked by with a tiny, fairly presumably unworkable, majority, whereas U.S. Senate Democrats hopefully have the ability – with the filibuster – to dam not less than a few of Trump’s disastrous insurance policies. The primary distinction with Virginia 2021 is that the State Senate wasn’t on the poll that 12 months, so Democrats maintained a transparent capability to dam Youngkin’s insurance policies. In distinction, Democrats (mixed with independents Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, each of whom caucused with Democrats) misplaced a number of U.S. Senate seats in November 2024, so issues are worse on the federal degree, from a Democratic perspective, than in Virginia after the 2021 elections. Nonetheless, the outcomes of the 2021 Virginia elections had been considerably, albeit not completely (e.g., US Home Republicans truly LOST seats from their pre-election majority) predictive of what ended up occurring in 2024…
One other idea that involves thoughts when interested by the 2021 Virginia gubernatorial elections – and which turned out to be predictive, not less than to an extent, for the 2024 presidential election – is “thermostatic politics” (“After a party takes power and moves the country in a new direction, voters quickly put on the brakes. Rather than being rewarded for their successes or keeping their promises, they’re punished.”) It’s utterly senseless, in fact, within the sense that voters usually don’t appropriately attribute coverage successes and failures precisely, nor do they constantly (or in any respect?) reward/punish events for what they did proper or unsuitable (for a LOT extra on this matter, undoubtedly learn “Democracy for Realists” for those who haven’t already!). Within the Virginia 2021 elections, we might see “thermostatic politics” very a lot at work, in just a few alternative ways. First off, Virginia did what it virtually ALWAYS does, which is to go laborious reverse of no matter social gathering simply received the White Home the 12 months earlier (e.g., in 2009, Bob McDonnell received the Virginia governor’s race by 18 factors, only one 12 months after Barack Obama had received the White Home – and had received Virginia by 6 factors!; in 2017, Ralph Northam received the governor’s race by 9 factors, a 12 months after Trump received the White Home). Second, there was ZERO connection between coverage accomplishments – particularly, the myriad of excellent bills handed in the course of the Virginia Democratic “trifecta” of 2020-2021, plus Ralph Northam’s skillful dealing with of the COVID pandemic, and so forth. In the long run, as an alternative of *rewarding* Democrats for all of that, a slim majority of Virginia voters truly PUNISHED Democrats and rewarded Republicans (who had opposed virtually all the glorious insurance policies handed within the “trifecta,” whereas additionally opposing efforts to attenuate hospitalizations and deaths from COVID). Sensible.
Within the 2022 “midterms” and the 2024 presidential election, we noticed all of this on a nationwide scale, with tens of thousands and thousands of voters: a) truly PUNISHING Democrats and the Biden-Harris administration for what was, indubitably, the simplest response to post-COVID issues (e.g., inflation, supply-chain snafus) on the planet; b) failing to reward Democrats for his or her large, historic, legislative accomplishments (the CHIPS Act, the Inflation Discount Act, large infrastructure investement, the American Rescue Plan, and so forth, and so forth.) regardless of a tiny legislative majority; c) truly REWARDING Republicans for his or her obstruction, incompetence, extremism, and so forth. Once more, all of this was foreshadowed by the 2021 Virginia governor’s election.
Backside line: Virginia’s elections aren’t an ideal predictor of nationwide tendencies, but when you consider it, the 2021 Virginia elections did a reasonably rattling good job of highlighting and foreshadowing what was to come back in 2022 and 2024. Perhaps everybody needs to be paying extra consideration to Virginia politics?
P.S. If I consider some other parallels, I’ll add them. Additionally, be happy to remark and let me know what I missed. Thanks.
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