Yesterday, Glenn Youngkin was back to doing what he most likes to do – namely, posing as a possible 2024 Republican presidential candidate, pandering to the Trumpist “base” of the party, kissing the a** of far-right media figures, etc. – while AVOIDING doing what he LEAST likes to do – namely, doing the job he was “hired” to do, namely be the governor of Virginia.
So for 30 minutes yesterday, Youngkin spoke at an event in Atlanta called “The Gathering,” hosted by right-wing radio host Erick Erickson (see below for video) – who among other things has said that “males dominate females in the ‘natural world’ and it was only ‘science’ for men to be the breadwinners for their families”; “it is sinful to approve of homosexual immorality or transgenderism and that such approval constitutes an essential departure from Christian faithfulness and witness”; Michelle Obama is a “Marxist harpy”; “President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize because of an ‘affirmative action quota’”; etc.
During his half hour with “Erick, Son of Erick,” as Jon Stewart likes to call him, Youngkin had a lot to say, almost all of which was either false or heavily distorted from reality. See below for a blow-by-blow account of this freak show.
- Erickson started by telling a whopper, that Youngkin’s appearance on his panel was NOT about his presidential ambitions. Alrighty…sure! LOL
- Youngkin started by praising right-wingnut Erickson as supposedly doing “great work” and carrying a “message of commonsense.” Again, see here for what Erickson’s actually all about.
- Youngkin falsely claimed that there’s such a thing as “conservative commonsense policies” and that they “work.” Apparently, he thinks that denying climate science, attacking LGBTQ kids, waging war on public education, pushing for tax breaks for the wealthy, etc, etc. are “commonsense policies.” Youngkin further claimed that Virginia went from being “totally blue to being red” (in fact, Dems had a trifecta for two years, but that didn’t mean Virginia was “totally blue” and it’s certainly not totally “red” now) and that Virginia went from being “bottom third in job growth to top four in job growth” (source on that? also, how much of Virginia’s economic growth is due to Youngkin’s policies? presumably zero, since he just got into office in January 2022 and claims that Senate Dems have blocked his policies), that we supposedly went “from having schools that were driving people to move away” (that’s just wildly false), blah blah blah.
- Youngkin then went into his (false) spiel about how Republican governors are amazing in every way (ABSURD LIE), that “Democrat [sic] governors” are a failure (LIE), that Joe Biden’s been a “failure” (HUGE LIE; Biden’s been one of the most successful presidents in terms of transformative legislation EVER, while the economy is booming and inflation’s down to around 3%) that the Democratic Party is “extreme” (COMPLETE LIE; the Democratic Party is in the majority or plurality on the vast majority of issues and also has won the popular vote for president in all but one election since 1988, including by millions of votes in 2016 and 2020) and “throws out everybody who’s reasonable” in their primaries (WTF? where does he get his crap from?), etc.
- Youngkin then recited a litany of lies and distortions of what VA Senate Democrats did in the last session, including on fentanyl (“they chose dealers over victims” – completely false), “we’re gonna side with social media companies over families” (that’s not at all what VA Senate Dems did), that supposedly VA Senate Dems “outsourced our government to California and now requires Virginia to follow the mandates on what car you buy…so in 2024, Virginians will have to start buying electric vehicles based on California’s decisions…the last place Virginians want to be is California” (WTF is he even ranting about? does he really not understand how any of this works?), wild distortions on what Senate Dems have said about “tax relief” (Senate Dems have offered multiple compromise proposals, including significant “tax relief,” but Youngkin’s holding out for permanent tax cuts slanted towards the wealthy and corporations), and a whopper about how Virginians are “way overtaxed” (in fact, Virginia ranks 13th-LOWEST in state “tax burdens”), etc. He then claimed, falsely, that he has to “battle every day with folks who really are extreme” (“the far left”) – huh? Crazy, delusional shit.
- Youngkin claimed that he won Hampton Roads and Greater Richmond in 2021, yet still only just won the governor’s race with 52% of the vote. In fact, he got crushed in Richmond and Henrico and Norfolk and Newport News and only won the election with 50.6% of the vote.
- Youngkin also claimed that Republicans need to NOT just talk to their base…while talking to hard-right Erick Erickson, and while he goes on Fox “News” and other right-wing media ALL THE TIME.
- Youngkin argued disingenuously, as he often does, that “kids belong to families…not the state.” Of course, kids don’t “belong” to the state and nobody on the Democratic side is arguing that. And parents obviously *do and should have a big say in their kids’ upbringing*! But that does NOT mean that a small minority of loud, right-wing individuals gets to tell the *majority* of parents what should happen to THEIR kids, and that’s exactly what Youngkin’s doing – putting the power of the state behind his preferred (right-wing) policy choices, the books that he and his followers think should (and shouldn’t) be read, the history that he and his follower thinks should (and shouldn’t) be taught, the kids that should (and shouldn’t) be treated with dignity, etc.
- Youngkin’s been called on this a million times, but he just keeps lying and claiming he *won* the Hispanic and Asian votes in 2021 and got a higher % of the Black vote than usual. In fact…he got trounced among all three groups, per CNN exit polls.
- Youngkin falsely claimed that the “spirit of Virginia” supposedly “[went] to sleep” under “really oppressive left policies.” That’s all just completely false. In fact, Gov. Ralph Northam was one of the best governors in Virginia history, dealing with massive challenges, including the COVID pandemic and Trump’s assault on our democracy. So the challenges to the “spirit of Virginia” were really from the MAGA *right*, Donald Trump, etc, not from some mythical “oppressive left policies” that Glenn Youngkin invented in a fever dream or something…
- Youngkin also lied about Virginia schools being “locked tight” a year longer than in Georgia; in fact, by the fall of 2020, Virginia schools could choose what mix of learning (in-person, remote, hybrid) they would conduct, with appropriate safeguards against the deadly COVID pandemic. And no, Democrats weren’t claiming that remote learning was as good or better than in-person learning, but that there was a deadly pandemic and that until there was a vaccine, there was a significant health risk that needed to be considered in how best to educate kids (while keeping them, their teachers, their families, etc. safe). And no, this had nothing to do with “progressive left” (whatever that means) policies, as Youngkin keeps repeating; it had to do with legitimate health concerns, while Donald Trump was president by the way, and in both “blue” and “red” states…
- Finally, Youngkin did what he loves to do – bashed teachers, as supposedly not caring about educating kids (WTF???) but about being all about advancing Democratic and progressive politics. This guy’s a real piece of work…
********************************************************
Sign up for the Blue Virginia weekly newsletter
