Election Day
It’s the first Monday of November. Here in the United States, election day is always the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November – so America votes tomorrow. There is always “hope” on the day before the election, hope for change, hope for things to get better, hope that Americans will go to the polls and with their “righteous might” and mass wisdom make America…well hopefully not “great again”.
But it’s the off-off year election. Kind of like the non-Olympic years, this is a very preliminary election year. Here in Ohio, it is elections filled with local offices: the school boards and township trustees and local ballot issues. There are no statewide issues here. And, unfortunately, only around twenty percent of America’s “righteous might” will show up at the polls. Only one in in five citizens will make these local decisions, choosing the leaders for the most direct and immediate jobs.
Virginia
However, there is a statewide race in Virginia. Republican Glenn Youngkin is running against former Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe. The Virginia race is considered a “bell weather” state, a predicator of how the nation is reacting to national leadership. In 2017, Democrats took charge of the state, supposedly in response to Trumpism. Democrat Ralph Northam won the Governorship. It’s easy to forget what happened soon after: photos were found of Northam in college in “blackface”, photos that Northam denied, and then acknowledged, and then denied again.
National Democratic leadership (and this essayist: Equity and Absolution) called for Northam to resign. But the Democratic Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General had their own issues, and if all three resigned the Republican Speaker of the House of Delegates would become Governor. So everyone stayed.
Virginia bars Governors for running for consecutive terms, so Northam could not run again. But the people of Virginia haven’t forgotten all of the controversy, even if the rest of the nation has. When we see tomorrow’s results, remember that. McAuliffe is running “uphill” against more than just Joe Biden’s popularity rating.
Moving On
But there is a greater question to answer in Virginia tomorrow. Republican Glenn Youngkin is working to distinguish himself from Donald Trump. While the former President endorsed him, Youngkin has carefully created space. He hasn’t asked Trump to come in and campaign. And while McAuliffe has done his best to make Youngkin a “Trumpian Candidate”, it appears that the Republican is “having his cake and eating it too”. He’s benefitting from Trump’s support and issues, but constantly declaring he’s “not Trump”.
The national Republican Party is still under the thrall of Donald Trump. Local candidates, particularly in “Blue” states like Virginia, are trying to run away from Trump, while still getting his supporters. That’s not true in more “Red” states: here in Ohio Republican candidates are “doubling down” on Trumpism. Josh Mandel, a former State Treasurer running in the 2022 Senate election, is running as close to Trumpism as he can get. His web page leads with Trump’s “America First” rhetoric. And just last week he disrupted a local school board meeting, standing up and demanding that “student be allowed masks” (Springfield). He was escorted from the meeting by Sheriff’s Deputies, but he got the “sound bite” he wanted for his future advertising.
Absolution
And the rest of the nation is faced with a question of absolution or amnesia. The four years of Donald Trump ended with the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans from Covid. The groundwork of distrust created by the Trump Administration is still impacting us today – thus Mr. Mandel thought he could “make hay” by opposing mask mandates. And even worse (hard to imagine worse than all those deaths) Trump led the nation to attempt to overthrow the Constitution on January 6th. And just like Covid, that isn’t over either, as state after state attempts to restrict voting access.
But candidates like Youngkin are trying to return to Republican “business as usual”. They aren’t asking for absolution from the terrible actions of Trump. They can’t, they still need Trumpist supporters to come to the polls. So instead, they are asking for “amnesia”. They want Americans to “move on”, to put the Covid failure and the Insurrection “in the past”. These post-Trump Republicans are trying to tap into Americans desire to “return to normalcy”, what they remember of politics before Donald Trump came down the golden escalator.
We went through two immense tragedies, one impacting each of us personally, and the other threatening our Constitutional order. Neither of those tragic events are over. One of the questions answered tomorrow in Virginia will be: is it absolution, amnesia, or accountability?
