As a Nova parent with a kid about to enter grade school I co-sign this statement. p.s. sam get out of my neighborhood
I'm curious. Why did Younkin find it necessary to then make CRT as his central platform during his campaign run? Did he misread the polling days that suggests that hammering that talking point would help him win an election and in reality he just stumbled his way into winning?
That paragraph does absolutely nothing to bolster your assertion. "Education was important to voters". No ****. There were school board members being recalled left and right over the covid shutdowns here. This area shut down schools fast and kept them closed way longer than most and it hit middle and lower class parents hardest. This, along with the normal losing-party-splash-back, got a lot of Republicans off the couch and pushed many swing voters right. The smoke and noise about CRT was a national media creation that didn't play locally.
If it didn't play locally, than Younkin wouldn't make it a central premise of his campaign to win in the state of Virginia unless you believe he needed to play up CRT to get endorsements and campaign donations from outside the state.
I followed this race closely, got bombarded by a bazillion ads over it, and voted in it, and I barely recall hearing Youngkin mention it.
I'm sure CRT found its way into the picture because it's a safe thing to stump on, but "central premise" is way off base.
He is exactly equating CRT to being History, as if it is like the civil war or the moon landing. CRT is not History it's a theory, yes that theory is based on a lot of facts, but it is still a theory nonetheless, and theories should never be taught as fact and that line gets even more blurry in lower academic settings. So what is the backlash is created by bad faith actors if you are then pushing CRT as if it's some legitimate history lesson that is like everything else.
Thank you for pointing this out. Dummies who think CRT is "white people = evil" are as annoying as people who think CRT is "just history".
Yep, its maddening to keep hearing or reading that they just don't want the real history of America being taught, which feeds right into the backlash it's a freaking feedback loop.
Well you're only human - I don't expect you to pick up on everything he says. But he mentioned it explicitly and promised to ban it. https://www.newsweek.com/glenn-youngkin-vows-ban-critical-race-theory-1641987 And look what's happened in the past few days.
Wut? **** I guess we shouldn't teach germ theory as fact. I think you are confusing "hypothesis" with "theory"?
Like I said, I lived through the race. Races, especially gubernatorial ones, are long, drawn out affairs composed of many, many parts and pieces. I'm aware he's mentioned it (as if you could avoid it), but you guys are acting like it was tattooed on his forehead. It wasn't. It also didn't send a bunch of single-issue voters out to the polls, either. The data is in, CRT was a nonstarter. School closure and parent/local autonomy did the heavy lifting.
Wrong You just claimed it was a non-factor when the guy said EXPLICITLY that he'd ban it and did so a few days into his terms. And seriously - what do you think autonomy means beyond the school closure issue? This is typical conservative dog-whistling, just like busing was in the 70s and welfare reform was in the 80s and 90s. However, you are right that races are composed of many parts and pieces. But while CRT wasn't the lone deciding issue, it wasn't a nonstarter either. And you've presented literally no data to the contrary.
Who cares if he pretends like CRT in schools (which doesn't exist - the executive order is meaningless) is still a factor? That's the narrative that those guys wanted to create for the national media (and due to the availability heuristic, fell for,,) it's in their interest to keep feeding it. It's a distraction from the real agenda, its not schools or the economy (which is like in it's second decade of boom) it's standard issue Trumpism; the main goal right now of the Va is to deliver Virginia (which he lost by about a zillion votes) to Trump in 2024 by any means necessary.
Is your theory that because Youngkin signed this ban into law (fulfilling a campaign promise while expending no political capital and requiring input or cooperation from no one else, a practically zero down-side move) that somehow that proves it was a huge influence on the election? That's a little tail-wagging-the-dog. My assertion is it didn't affect the outcome. It registered high in concern among self-identified Republicans who were going to vote Youngkin in any situation. It fizzled among independents. It's hard to argue it got any Republican off the couch whom otherwise would not have voted. One of the most telling stats is that folks who rated it as "important" (a 3 on a 4 point scale of importance, with 4 being "most important issue") broke 50/49 for McAuliffe. 24% of voters chose education as their most important issue, and that only broke for Youngkin 53/47. There's just not a lot there to support the idea that CRT sent a lot of otherwise disinterested people people out to vote for Youngkin. Considering the top-down closure mandates and the gigantic gaffe by McAuliffe, it meant a lot of things to a lot of people I'd imagine. My main argument to you is that I was bombarded with hundreds of TV ads, dozens of mailers, and even a handful of blockwalkers, all for Youngkin. Not a single one of them mentioned CRT. None. Zero. The closest I ever saw was a mailer that said something to the effects of "Parents matter". The thing Youngkin leaned into most heavily IMO? Anti BLM sentiment. That was everywhere with him. The funniest footnote to all of this is that I received a mailer that had Trump and Youngkin photoshopped together (I only knew it was photoshopped because I know they have never been pictured together... and for good reason), it was very well done, looked extremely official and pro-Youngkin, like Trump was endorsing Youngkin. Turns out it was paid for by the VA Dem Party. Hilarious.
It's a good message for his base, because it's basically a white grievance macguffin. Can mean anything from "i found a typo in the 1619 project" all the way down to guys in hoods killing people. Its s good message for beltway media, because it gives them a nice "both sides" backlash narrative. And having this as front page news is amazing for him, because it's not the 1-6 terrorist attack, or whatever. But, when you dig in to the actual votes its not really material combined with other factors, off year, thermostat, pandemic, etc. There's not much evidence of crossover voters yet there's nearly 800,000 Biden-stay-home voters in a race decided by 66k votes. Every headline about CRT (again, which doesn't exist any more than the MS-13 takeover that Rethugs tried to run on in 2017) is a headline that is probably not going to motivate those people either way, which is a win for Trump/Youngkin.
