Home Ben Cline wants us to believe that Harrisonburg is somehow in Fairfax County
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Ben Cline wants us to believe that Harrisonburg is somehow in Fairfax County

Chris Graham
two faces of ben cline
Ben Cline. Photo: © lev radin/Shutterstock

Ben Cline either doesn’t know geography, or he just thinks you are as dumb as he is.

“It’s clear that the Democrats realized that they couldn’t beat me at the ballot box, so they wanted to chop the district that I currently represent up and parcel that out to so many Northern Virginia seats and try and beat me through an unconstitutional gerrymander,” Cline, the MAGA who represents the Sixth District in Congress, said in an interview with WDBJ, a Roanoke TV station, on Friday, addressing his political future, which, I wouldn’t invest in his political future, if I were you.


ICYMI


Now, first off, shame on the interviewer, for not pushing back on Cline here about the “chop the district” to “parcel out” to Northern Virginia.

The new Sixth District doesn’t go any farther north than the City of Harrisonburg, which, at last check, isn’t in what we think of as Northern Virginia.

Interviewers: your job isn’t to let politicians just say whatever they want to say.

If Ben Cline tries to tell us that Harrisonburg is in Northern Virginia, it’s your job to say, Excuse me, Mr. Congressman.

Instead, the WDBJ presenter – I’ll drop the pretense here that this was anything other than the TV station just running straight-up MAGA propaganda – let Cline double down.

virginia 10-1 referendum map
Photo: Virginia Legislative Information System

“They don’t want Fairfax County making their decisions, representing them in Congress, advocating forgetting about them,” Cline went on. “You know, our part of Virginia gets forgotten about too often in Richmond, too often in Washington. That’s why I’m up there fighting every day in Washington on behalf of this part of Virginia.”

I wouldn’t disagree with Cline on the observation that our part of Virginia is often overlooked in Richmond and in D.C.

A big part of the problem there: we’re represented in Richmond and D.C. by feckless MAGAs like Ben Cline, who put their focus on doing TV interviews and playing tough guy on Twitter and Facebook, and do exactly zilch to make sure that we get our fair share out this way.

I’ve been advocating for years that we keep voting in the wrong people to represent us; Ben Cline, trying to get us to believe that Harrisonburg is in Fairfax County, is a prime example.

Multimedia

 




Chris Graham

Chris Graham

Chris Graham is the founder and editor of Augusta Free Press. A 1994 alum of the University of Virginia, Chris is the author and co-author of seven books, including Poverty of Imagination, a memoir published in 2019. For his commentaries on news, sports and politics, go to his YouTube page, TikTok, BlueSky, or subscribe to his Street Knowledge podcast. Email Chris at [email protected].

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