I’ve always appreciated the only meaningful liberal blog in Virginia, Blue Virginia, for their coherent strategy and measured attacks on Republicans. They have had so many opportunities to embrace Democratic Socialism, just as we’ve had to embrace nationalist populism on our side, and yet they rarely take the bait.
This is a problem for Virginia and for us.
Democrats in Maryland, New York, California, Kansas, and Illinois may be losing their minds and embracing socialism as their political religion, but Virginia, which is now a blue state, hasn’t.
And Blue Virginia has done a pretty good job at directing most of their energy, not toward socialist idealism, but toward defeating Donald Trump’s agenda.
This will make our job harder here in Virginia.
As Republicans, the national Democratic Party has served all our interests by pivoting hard left. I’m still waiting for the DNC to actively promote 20th century communist propaganda. What worries me is that we aren’t seeing this in Virginia.
With PF obliterating Stewart’s claim that Kaine supports the abolition of ICE, we’re left with two Democrat Senators that seem to refuse to jump off the same deep end that the rest of the Democrat Party has embraced.
The 2013 bill, for which Kaine delivered a Senate floor speech in Spanish, was the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, and it passed the Senate by a 68-32 vote. Although it ultimately died in the House, the bill would have increased the number of federal agents along the U.S. border with Mexico, required construction of 700 miles of border fencing and allocated money for aerial drones, among other border security measures.
Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner are playing a brilliant game of virtue signaling to the progressive left, while not actually saying anything damning them with the their center-left.
Kaine was Secretary Clinton’s VP after all and he understands the liberal wing of the party. Kaine knows how to speak to the socialists while not offending the liberals in the party. Blue Virginia seems to have adopted those skills as well.
While Republican Blogs move further and further “Right” or “Populist” in order to support Supervisor Stewart, Virginia Democrats are strategically securing the “middle” by acknowledging their populists and socialists, and essentially speaking directly to their liberal, center-left base.
I first became impressed with Blue Virginia’s strategy when they began trying to lump E.W. Jackson and Nick Freitas in with Corey Stewart. They had no idea that Stewart’s White Nationalism would win the day, nor did they have any reason to believe that we’d be so stupid as to place economic protectionism at the center of our party’s statewide platform. They were successful at turning off moderates from both Jackson and Freitas, leaving us to defend the very worst ideologies our party has to offer.
Now they are simply attacking our extremism. Every populist, ignorant tweet, post, or congressional statement is being used by Blue Virginia to paint a picture of the Republican Party that most Republicans would give their very lives to prevent ever being true. We can’t stop it. We have people who are saying, posting, and delivering messages that Virginia Democrats are able to share and use to their benefit.
We may be a blue state, in fact, but we’re a center right state that no longer believes that Virginia Republicans are “center-right”.
What our friends over at Blue Virginia are attempting to accomplish has nothing to do with Corey Stewart; and everything to do with Barbara Comstock, Rob Wittman, and Scott Taylor.
I thought the Democrats would throw all their money at Ben Cline and Denver Riggleman. They aren’t. They don’t even seem to care. They are going after the thrones of Republican Politics in the Commonwealth.
Again. Brilliant.
Their primary objective is taking out Dave Brat, because they know that after losing Hanover and New Kent, Congressman Brat depends on the very Cantorites he defeated four years ago. Cantor’s people long to see a Democrat elected in the 7th. They know that it will only last two years. They will all stay home. All of them. The establishment hacks in the 7th are going to do everything in their power to destroy Brat. Follow Shaun Kenney’s facebook account for hints and evidence.
Meanwhile…
Trump’s radical populists are most toxic in Northern Virginia and Virginia Beach, and the Democrats know that neither Comstock nor Taylor can embrace the White Nationalists and win, and have set in place a strategy to peal off intelligent Republicans from their party’s ticket by threatening to paint them with protectionism and nationalism and racism.
I keep waiting for Blue Virginia to go full communist, full socialist. I keep waiting for Kaine and Warner to screw up.
They don’t.
Kaine and Warner are going to advocate for the center-left and we’re going to lose…
Unless.
Unless we do something to win back the center. Unless we become wonkish and focused on policies that affect most Virginians. We can turn Virginia RED if we focus on policy, but we seem utterly incapable of doing that. We’d rather attack everyone that doesn’t obey us instead, as if that was a political strategy. Shame on us.
I’ve seen only four Republican campaigns utterly focused on the economy, on taxes, on regulations, and on jobs. Why can’t I say that about every Republican running for office in Virginia? Everyone needs to focus on the economy and the fact that we’re all better off than we were under Obama and especially under Pelosi and her ilk.
It is hard to make that argument when, days away from August 1st, we’ve only passed 6 of 12 spending bills through the House of Representatives.
If we can’t accomplish the one job we actually have, how can we fight back against the liberals and socialists trying to replace us?
It’s a question that demands an answer.
It’s a question that demands a political party brave enough to carry such answers to the American People.
