Check out the following speech delivered by Glenn Youngkin last night in Oregon for right-wingnut gubernatorial candidate Christine Drazan, and please explain how any journalist ever could have referred to this guy as a “moderate.” To the contrary, this ugly, angry, falsehood-filled speech – and other speeches, and the extremist candidates he’s been campaigning for – make it clear that Youngkin is very much like the guy about whom Youngkin said last year, “President Trump represents SO MUCH of why I’m running!” A few “highlights” from Youngkin’s speech last night include:
- He entered yet again to the strains of “Spirit in the Sky,” which is not surprising, given that Youngkin’s very much a right-wing evangelical like his pal Ted Cruz. He then proceeded to shout/scream almost his entire speech. Disturbing.
- For whatever reason, he weirdly called Democrats “left liberal progressives,” and falsely claim that we “want to stamp [out]…the spirit of freedom,” that we supposedly “don’t want the spirit of liberty to exist.” He flat-out lied that Democrats supposedly came “really close to stamping out the spirit of Virginia.” What. The. F***???
- He bizarrely blamed Democrats for taking measures to protect people from DYING FROM COVID, twisting that to his narrative of Democrats supposedly crushing the economy, small business, freedom, etc. Really warped…
- He railed against the “pundits in DC” who supposedly claimed that Youngkin couldn’t win, when in fact most people thought he could win, and most journalists handled him with kid gloves, whitewashing him as a “moderate” or “mystery date” in a sweater-vest.
- He flat-out lied that Oregon Democrats were “trying to raise your prices to heat your home,” praising Drazan for “staging a walkout in the capitol.” In fact, Oregon Democrats were attempting to combat the climate crisis and to promote clean energy in their state. THAT is what extreme Republicans like Drazan and Youngkin believe needs to be opposed, including by walking out of the legislature to prevent action from being taken. Of course, Youngkin is a climate denier who is simpatico with Trump’s former EPA Administrator, Andrew Wheeler, so…draw your own conclusions.
- Youngkin flat-out lied that Democrats are “agents of chaos” who supposedly want to “legalize drugs so that they can in fact take over all our communities”; “demean and defund law enforcement so crime can escalate”; “shut our schools so our kids can suffer”; etc, etc.
- In short, this was a very, very dark, Trumpian speech, kinda like Trump’s inaugural address, during which he bizarrely claimed, “This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.” How is Youngkin’s rhetoric any different than that? Hint: it isn’t.
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