Americans are not going to be told anymore that we are all racist, as many on the left apparently believe. We have long been a guilted people. It has become the very bad habit of the elite to browbeat all the little people, going about their business in the workaday world, for a whole rap sheet of offenses. Let Winsome Sears be the face of post-Guilted Age America. Let her Virginia give hope to the rest of us that the guilt trip is over.
Jason Morgan in The American Conservative
Filled with hope after a multiracial GOP ticket trumped identity politics in Virginia, Jason Morgan, a professor at Japan’s Reitaku University wrote, “the Guilted Age is over.” I’d go one step further. Virginia, home to the 1619 Project’s original sin, is now home to the 2021 Project, the now and future commonwealth that elected a black woman and a Latino to statewide office. Huzzah! The land of E Pluribus Unum is alive and kicking. To wit…
The GOP tapped Tim Scott to rebut President Biden’s speech in April, Larry Elder was the GOP leader in California’s September recall election, James Craig now leads the GOP field of nominees for governor of Michigan, and Winsome Sears was elected Virginia’s lieutenant governor last week. These black conservatives are, of course, profiles in courage, but their stories are important lessons for GOP success.
The first lesson is that Republicans, by elevating and electing black conservatives, honor Dr. King’s dream of “my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” In 2008, CBS polling found 61% of the GOP said “America is ready for a black president.” In 2021, Virginians faulted the “character” of (white) school boards and judged a “conservative” black woman fit to be lieutenant governor.
The second lesson is that high voter turn-out does NOT doom Republicans. Terry McAuliffe got the most votes ever (up 170,000) for a Democrat in a Virginia race for governor, including record black turn-out (source: WRIC-TV). Virginians cast over 3.3 million votes – more than 2017 (2.6 million) and 2013 (2.2 million) – with a clear majority going to the GOP. Glenn Youngkin is governor because he embraced mail-in voting, early voting, and election-day voting.
The third lesson is that voters know “an honest-to-goodness white supremacist” when they see one. Morgan correctly states “white supremacists like [David] Duke do not hide their views” or indulge in “a subtle art.” No kidding! Virginians decided “systemic racism” was white Democrat Ralph Northam posing as a “racist jackass” – not black Republican Winsome Sears supporting charter schools. The Democrat’s anti-racist campaign against a multiracial ticket flopped, especially with Latinos.
The fourth lesson is today’s anti-racists lack the humanity of historic anti-racists. Stephen Douglas and Dr. King had humanity on their side as they fought to end slavery and segregation. In their place, anti-racist Nikole Hannah-Jones false-claimed “the year 1619 rather than 1776 as the true founding of America,” and black MSNBC pundit Eric Dyson smeared Winsome Sears as “a black face speaking on behalf of a white supremacist.” Where’s the humanity in that?
Democrat James Carville blamed his party’s losses last week on “stupid wokeness” that turned off independent voters and turned parents everywhere against school boards and their allies in the Democrat party. Without fear of being cancelled, he faults progressives who re-define familiar words, restrict religious freedom, re-locate illegal immigrants to non-border states, and turn grade schools into political re-education camps.
Virginia’s 2021 election is far more consequential than ending a GOP losing streak. It was a massive re-set in center-left and center-right thinking – toward the value of citizenship, common culture, energy independence, fiscal responsibility, and the ideals of US History. I no longer live in Virginia, but I knew McAuliffe’s defense of “woke” school boards and Biden’s mishandling of almost everything would cost Dems on Election Day.
After GOP wins in Virginia (and elsewhere), there’ve been many told-you-so articles about poking the Great American Melting Pot in its patriotic eye. Peggy Noonan (WSJ) writes that “Democrats need to face down the woke” because Youngkin won’t be the first Republican to tell parents “who really runs the schools: unions, school boards [usually] handpicked by unions, and businesses that sell curriculums and textbooks” that don’t “put students’ interests first.” Bingo!
Youngkin found a part of “the swamp” parents can hate and drain. As Noonan notes, the political middle has tolerated AOC’s attacks on them and “endless [HR] anti-racism and gender-bias sessions” where they work because that “wokeness” doesn’t affect their kids. So, as long as Democrats take money and advice from teachers unions, expect more rural and suburban parents to vote against them. See ya!
