Virginia Democrats Promised Moderation – Then This Happened

Elections have consequences. In the blink of an eye, the Commonwealth of Virginia has gone from a well-managed, moderate red state to a radical, far-left blue state on a tear to impose an extremist agenda. This, despite Democrats, like new Governor Abigail Spanberger, running as moderates in last November’s election.

Democrats fooled voters yet again.

As the National Review editors explained:

Unlike her opponent in the race [black, immigrant former Marine], Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, she [lily white Spanberger] did not present herself as a brash culture warrior.

Under those circumstances, Spanberger needed to do little to win other than run as an uncontroversial cipher, which is exactly what she did. However much her Republican opponents criticized her for playing coy about the state Democratic party’s long-term plans, voters were in little mood to listen, rewarding Democrats with a blue wave: Not only did Spanberger win office by 15 points, but Democrats won a supermajority in the House of Delegates as well.

The bait and switch. And it didn’t take long to see how “moderate” these Democrats intended to be as they enacted an unprecedented left-wing agenda.

On her first day, Spanberger rescinded Governor Youngkin’s Executive Order requiring statewide cooperation between the Virginia State Police and the Department of Corrections and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

That coordination allowed the federal and state governments to cooperate to remove people in the country illegally who had committed additional crimes. She has now made it harder to catch and deport these criminal illegal aliens.

Spanberger then moved to reconstitute the boards of Virginia’s state-run universities like George Mason and the University of Virginia, ousting Youngkin’s selections, and replacing them with left-wing and DEI activists. And it has only gotten worse and more extreme from there.

They also went after the state’s venerable Virginia Military Institute (VMI), using the DEI cudgel again to destroy a great military institution, even threatening to remove state funds.

Garrett Exner, who was just replaced by Spanberger, said to Fox News that VMI is just “the latest target of Democrats’ assault on America’s institutions. The school, with its strict honor code and devotion to merit, stands in direct opposition to the new ideals of the Democrat party — socialism and equity.”

But there is much more, notes National Review:

… Democrats are using their legislative gains to advance a bevy of radical policies. Those include pushing a constitutional amendment that would create a “fundamental right” to abortion that would pave the way for abortions in the third trimester if a physician rules it necessary for not just the life but the “mental health” of the mother; the creation of a government-run childcare program; and a return to the draconian regional effort to cap carbon emissions. 

They want to raise taxes and expand gun control. Additionally, they are wasting little time in reinstituting DEI. The Washington Post reported that funding for the Virginia Military Institute is under threat “as newly empowered Virginia Democrats seek to determine whether it has done enough to root out racism and sexism at the school.”

But the ultimate test will be how Spanberger reacts to the push by Virginia Democrats to redistrict the state’s congressional seats. Since October of last year, state Democrats have been pushing to place a California-style amendment to the state constitution before the voters, so that Democrats can set aside current congressional lines and redraw what currently stands as a 6-5 D/R map. 

Of all these things, I’m especially offended by the Virginia Democrats’ extreme abortion-on-demand policies and their equally radical gun control proposals.

Some Republicans have expressed concern that the amendment easing abortion could be interpreted to allow abortion up to the “moment of birth.”

Meanwhile, Democrat lawmakers introduced about 40 different gun control measures for this legislative session, in a gun-friendly state with minimal gun-related crime.

Remember also that the newly elected Democrat attorney general of Virginia, Jay Jones, was elected despite his outrageous comments, privately calling for his Republican opponent’s children to be murdered so he could understand the importance of gun control.

As The Washington Times noted:

Bans on assault weapons, raising taxes on firearms sales… have all been part of a sweeping package of bills put forward by Virginia lawmakers during this session’s General Assembly session. Virginia Democrats have made regulating [i.e.: strangling] the firearms industry in the state a top priority during the early part of the year.

Among them is a ban on assault weapons (House Bill 217), which will include anything from semi-automatic handguns to rifles that accept magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.

This defines 95% of modern firearms.

Then there are taxes: an added 11% on ammunition and on guns, plus $500 on a suppressor when suppressors are used in 0.003% of crimes. The federal government just removed its $200 tax stamp on suppressors in January.

Fox News concluded:

Democrats are going to spend the next four years moving Virginia as far left as they can get away with — unless Virginians stop them. Virginians who want to save their state have to keep pointing out that Spanberger the candidate is not Spanberger the governor, and that the state government being fully controlled by the Democratic Party is turning lawlessness and social engineering into policy. Virginia can be saved from this, before it becomes another failed blue state with residents running for the door, but they need to act quickly.

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