Want a quick preview of what the Virginia Republican ticket’s campaign the next four months or so is going to be like? Warning, though, it’s not for the faint of heart or those who care about facts, reality, the truth, etc. So if you think you can listen to a bunch of fear mongering, blather, demonization, etc, then see below for some video from this morning:
- AG Jason Miyares arguing (falsely), as Republicans always do, that Democrats supposedly love felons, hate the police, are “soft on crime,” blah blah blah. Of course, it’s particularly rich coming from the party whose leader, Donald J. Trump, urged on a violent mob to attack the U.S. Capitol (and, in the process, injured/maimed/assaulted police officers), then pardoned a bunch of those violent insurrectionists and people who assaulted law enforcement officers. Also note that Republicans have been using essentially this EXACT SAME MESSAGING for decades, going back to Nixon or earlier, regardless of what the crime rate is (right now, it’s near the lowest it’s been in decades), what the facts are regarding the causes of crime, etc. So why do they keep using this messaging? Because, correctly or not, they think it works. This November, we need to prove them wrong on that assumption.
- The conversation on John Fredericks’ MAGA talk show this morning with 2025 VA Lt. Gov. nominee John Reid, in which Fredericks repeatedly called Abigail Spanberger “Abbitard” (and John Reid enthusiastically nodded along), attacked Ghazala Hashmi as some sort of far-left radical, etc. By the way, as you listen to this crap, remember that this is only the tip of the iceberg of a massive right-wing-media echo chamber that was built over many years, while Democrats did NOTHING to build their own, which is a huge part of why right-wing messaging, framing, etc. is pervasive (and dominant) in the media, while progressive, liberal, Democratic, etc. messaging gets swamped. Just disastrous – and no, it’s not because individual Democrats don’t have a message or don’t know how to communicate; this is a SYTEMIC problem in which Democrats have almost no ability to get our message out relative to the right wing’s ability to do so…
With that, see below for the videos…as well as a few comments by yours truly.
Jay Jones is soft on crime and hostile to law enforcement.
I’ll keep doing the job his record proves he won’t do. pic.twitter.com/mY6u9scUtG
— Jason Miyares (@JasonMiyaresVA) June 26, 2025
First, watch as John Reid argues:
“…the focus now has got to be very clear, because we now have candidates against Jason Miyares as attorney general, Jay Jones, who’s always been a nice guy when I met him, but I think he’s pretty far left. Ghazala Hashmi, the senator from Chesterfield, is now my opponent, and she is one of the leaders of the crazy progressive left in Virginia; she’s very unapologetic about it. Everything you hate about liberal leftist policy she has been the champion of it… [voters are] going to see such an incredible contrast – this leftist woman who really has led the fight on trans issues and high taxes and all the problems with public education we see today, versus the guy who worked for Ronald Reagan when he got out of the White House, who ran communications for George Allen, who stood up and fought for conservative values for 40 years. I don’t think you could see a clearer contrast. And the people who aren’t partisan, they have listened to my radio show and they know I’m a pretty reasonable guy…you can count on me at the capitol, you can’t count on this other crew.”
Then, a very telling moment, as John Fredericks rails that the Democratic ticket is “all leftist communists, that’s the bottom line,” and self-proclaimed “reasonable guy” John Reid nods along, says “yeah, they’re crazy!” Reid then listens as John Fredericks rails against Abigail Spanberger, calling her “hashtagabbitard,” says she’s “full of crap…just she says one thing and does another… if you want to be a Communist like the guy that just won the Democratic nomination in New York City, you’re an avowed communist and you say what you’re going to do, which is we don’t need police, we’re going to be a sanctuary city, illegals can come, somebody else is going to pay for them, we’re going to give away free food, free buses, free education, everything is free, and you know we’re going to tax the rich…”
So, obviously, this is another thing Republicans have done for literally decades now, which is call basically any/all Democrats – no matter whether they’re liberal, “moderate,” etc. – “Communists,” “crazy,” etc. Because, apparently, protecting the environment, providing affordable healthcare to people, working to make the country a better place, etc. is “crazy” and “Communist.” But again, this is the messaging Republicans have used for literally DECADES, and they keep doing it because, apparently, they think it works for them. Plus, of course, they have nothing positive to offer themselves, no constructive ideas of their own, so they constantly rever to demonizing liberals, Democrats, the “other,” etc. Truly obnoxious – and should be rejected by all Virginia voters this fall.
Next, we get the Islamophobia, as John Fredericks implies strongly that Ghazala Hashmi agrees with people who chant “from the river to see, Palestine will be free” (which, of course, would mean the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state – and yes, obviously screw Hamas and others who think like Hamas). Except that there’s no evidence Ghazala Hashmi supports destroying Israel, expelling or killing Israeli Jews, etc. But hell, just throw that out there, right guys? Thus, John Reid says he’s “going to have to talk to [Hashmi] about that she has marched with the Palestinian crowd on these college campuses” and that “Senator Hashmi didn’t stand up for those [Jewish] students and actually stood with the radicals” (let’s see the evidence, other than Hashmi supporting peace between Israel and the Palestinians, humanitarian aid to Gazans, etc. – which is what Hashmi supports, of course). Reid goes even further with his inflammatory rhetoric, saying “I think we got a problem on our hands here… I’m for free speech but I’m not for this radical, almost domestic terrorist attitude that is taking hold in Virginia.” Yikes – is he actually implying that Hashmi supports domestic terrorism? God, this is going to be a loooong next few months…
Finally, John Fredericks goes back to calling Abigail Spanberger “Abbitard” (did they do polling/focus groups on this phrasing or what? LOL), claiming (as John Reid nods along) that the entire Democratic ticket is “radical Communists,” that “Abbitard is a deep-state CIA operative that they ousted…then she votes with AOC.” Finally, John Fredericks and John Reid talk about how, supposedly, Winsome Earle-Sears is getting like 1/3 of the Black vote, according to polling, and how that means she’s got a good shot at winning the election in November. So, on that latter point, just keep in mind that in the 2021 Virginia governor’s election, Youngkin got just 13% of the Black vote; that in November 2024, Trump got just 15.7% of the vote in Richmond, 13% in Petersburg, etc; and that recent polling has Trump at just 12% approval among African-American voters. But sure, whatever guys…you keep believing what you want to believe, and we’ll see how it goes in November.
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