Republicans got their 2020 voters out. Democrats didn’t. It’ll soon start to sink in to folks who couldn’t hold their noses and vote for Terry McAuliffe what we’re about to lose.
“We caution Gov.-elect Youngkin against focusing his administration on making the wealthiest Virginians even wealthier through unneeded tax cuts,” Virginia Organizing Chair Ladelle McWhorter said. “We oppose any efforts to roll back voting rights or women’s rights. Instead, we hope that he will fully fund the public services Virginians need, side with communities across the Commonwealth in the fight for environmental justice, and build on the modest progress of the last few years toward ending mass incarceration.”
Fat chance of any of that. Folks who picketed Terry McAuliffe rallies to remind voters of his alliance with Dominion Energy can expect Dominion plus whatever is on the wish list of the fossil-fuel folks.
And as far as that modest progress toward ending mass incarceration? We’re going back to being “tough on crime.”
Translation: more people in jails, prisons.
Not to mention: a huge step backwards on LGBTQ+ rights.
“Glenn Youngkin’s anti-equality, anti-choice, racist tactics sought to sow fear and confusion, turning Virginian against Virginian for political gain,” Human Rights Campaign Interim President Joni Madison said. “His hateful policies and rhetoric will have a real, devastating impact on LGBTQ+ people, women, and people of color across the Commonwealth. This is particularly true for transgender young people and their parents, who have faced an onslaught of targeted attacks that have put them in danger in their schools and communities.”
This is a very real clear and present danger for literally hundreds of thousands of Virginians. And the success for Youngkin, who told the AP last month that he opposes same-sex marriage, in using LGBTQ+ right as a wedge issues to get elected only portends more of the same in terms of strategy in the future.
“Anti-equality extremists will continue to use bigotry to score political points. But we know that history has proven hate-filled electoral strategies ultimately stir the conscience of the nation. And we know it is not the time to give up the fight,” Madison said. “The Human Rights Campaign will fight alongside our members and partners to block anti-equality policies and overcome the forces that are trying to drag us backwards. The movement for equality is on the right side of history.
“We’ve never backed down from a fight. We don’t intend to start now. Progress will prevail, and our country will be stronger for it.”
Thing is, progress had already prevailed, our country was already stronger for it, and now we’re taking the step back to where we had been.
“The alarm has been sounding. If you’ve been hitting snooze, it’s time to get up. Right now,” #VOTEPROCHOICE co-founder/CEO Heidi Sieck said.
“We are in the fight of our lives. In exactly one year, we will have thousands of opportunities to elect pro-choice champions in elections up and down the ballot, in races across the country. While there will be much focus on expanding Democratic margins in the House and the Senate – which are both important – we need to fight even harder in state and local elections.
“Roe v. Wade has never been enough to guarantee equitable access to abortion care, but Texas is showing us what will happen in a world without its protections. Twelve-year-old children are being turned away by clinics, and patients are flooding neighboring states as healthcare refugees. Having anti-choice and anti-abortion leaders in our communities is unacceptable. We need to expand upon current abortion access protections, and the results from Virginia are instead a rollback.”
But, McAuliffe didn’t energize you – a Clinton Democrat, cozied up to the money people, a boring white guy, like the other guy, what’s the difference?
You’ll soon find out when you’re fighting to keep in place the marginal gains that we’d made here the past few years, and have to fight again in four years to put what we have now, and are about to lose, back in place.
But, hey, at least you didn’t sully yourselves.
Story by Chris Graham
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