This Can Either Be a Wake...

 

(Tip o' the tinfoil hat to Constant Reader, CC)

     ...or a wakeup call, Virginia. The choice is yours.

     As is usual after a general, midterm or, in this case, an off off year spate of elections, the Democrats lose (legitimately, this time) and the usual circular firing squad begins. White "progressives" get out the cat o' nine tails and start flogging black voters for not coming out in sufficient numbers (a non-starter, as that same black voting bloc gave us control of the Senate by sweeping the Senate races in Georgia January 5th). Also, they tacitly forget the much larger white voting bloc that wouldn't vote for anybody even if their first born male child was held hostage.

     And so, just like a bunch of brainiacs in white lab coats who stand around the crater residing where their lab used to be, Democratic pundits are waxing not so poetic (or even remotely correctly) on what went wrong in Virginia. Among them is America's foremost and most beloved political coroner since Bill Kristol, James Carville.

     Because the Clinton fuckstick who desperately needs a prophylactic for his big mouth blames "stupid wokeness" for the loss in Virginia's gubernatorial election (which, over the last few days before Tuesday, was a tossup, depending on who you asked, so it was far from a lock). It's always nice to see literal eggheads like Carville channel their inner Rick Scott but in this case he's way off the mark.And, when Sippy Cupp becomes the voice of reason over James Carville, you know it's time to right the ship.

     Like the gentleman above says, Democrats have to give progressive voters a reason to turn out for the polls aside from the existential threat of a third rate Adolph Hitler like Donald Trump and the balance of power in the US Senate. And, I'm sorry if this offends any centrist reading this (not really, since I didn't set up this blog 13½ years ago to expand anyone's comfort zone and I made that plain from the gitgo), but what it simply comes down to is the choice of candidate the party fields.

     And offering up only a bowl of animated oatmeal like Terry McAuliffe was a nonstarter from the beginning. McAuliffe, who's that non-threatening type of centrist in the mold of Tim Kaine, the B side of the losing Clinton/Kane ticket in 2016, never really stood for a damned thing and is doomed to be a one term governor.

     Glenn Youngkin will be gone in four years, not through "stupid wokeness" on the part of the voters but because Virginia law forbids governors to serve consecutive terms. But if VA progressives and the machine Democrats running their side of things want to recapture the governor's mansion, they'll have to field a better candidate. It's really that simple. Youngkin won by dint of his greatest claim to fame: Using Trump to catapult him to the top of the shit heap of the GOP primary, then stiff-armed him for the rest of his campaign despite his ongoing endorsement without somehow alienating Trump's base in the Commonwealth. He won't be able to do that again in eight years because Trump will either be dead by then or eating tapioca in a Supermax somewhere.

     It wasn't the white housewives or missing black voters or "stupid wokeness" or anything that simple. It's the Tammany Hall 2.0 wing of the Democrat Party that still cannot and will not wean themselves off this idiotic belief that centrism, which consists of caving to the Republicans without seeming too overt about it, is the way to win elections. It didn't win in 2016, it didn't win last Tuesday, it won't win next year and it damned sure won't win in 2024.

     Plus, as our Appalachian pundit says in his short but pithy video, Democrats on Capitol Hill have to show they can do a lot more than hold failed impeachments and spin their bald wheels in the mud every time Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema feel like unleashing their inner right wing version of Che Guevara.