Glenn Youngkin Refuses to Condemn Trump's "Big Lie’

Glenn Youngkin's gubernatorial candidacy offers Virginian's two things: (i) a warmed over version of the GOP's 2009 campaign platform of tax cuts to benefit the wealthy and promises of school choice policies that would have taxpayer dollars got to private and religious schools thus thrilling The Family Foundation crowd that hates public education, and (ii) an embrace of Trumpism and the big lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.  Like the majority of Republicans, Youngkin can't find it within himself to be truthful and cease self-prostitution to Trump and his base.  Obviously, if Youngkin cannot be truthful about the 2020 election, it is safe to assume he will lie about everything else, especially his embrace of the far right Christian agenda to inflict their beliefs on all Virginians.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at Youngkin's deceptive campaign.  Here are excerpts:

After weeks of running an empty-vessel campaign into which voters could pour whatever ideas, hopes, fears and theories they wished, Virginia Republican gubernatorial nominee Glenn Youngkin has finally put some ideas on the table.

They aren’t fresh or new ideas. The tax rebates, small-business support and modest school-choice policies, plus a spending spree on constituencies such as law enforcement, would be standard fare for a Republican running for office in, say, the late 1990s or early 2000s.

There are flaws with each proposal — the biggest being that many of them are based on Virginia’s share of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). Youngkin has flip-flopped on the spending plan, calling it unnecessary in the spring but more recently saying he wants to spend it.

That change of heart — or bow to reality — means the starry-eyed outsider has taken a big step toward becoming the transactional insider he’s running against.

But even as Youngkin was floating his ideas, he’s still playing footsie with the Trump dead-enders who’ve brought the GOP so low.

The most recent instance: his inability to denounce the conspiracy theory that former president Donald Trump (and other defeated Republicans) will soon be restored to office.

At a recent campaign event, an audience member insisted that “Trump won,” the election results were “all fraud,” that a number of Virginia races were “stolen” and Trump will return in “August or September.” The audience member asked Youngkin whether Trump’s fantastical return would help get “our people back in office.”

Rather than politely but firmly say there is no means, method or reason that will restore Trump to the presidency, Youngkin offered a bizarre word salad instead:

“I don’t know the particulars about how that can happen, because what’s happening in the court system is moving slowly and it’s unclear. And we all know the courts move slowly …”

That’s an unforced error. Youngkin tried to change the subject, saying, again, that Joe Biden was legitimately elected to the presidency. No dice. He had the chance to put a stake through the QAnon cancer coursing through the GOP and didn’t.

But not all is lost. The 5th Congressional District “conspiracy-palooza” happens this weekend. Officially billed as an election integrity event, GOP lieutenant governor nominee Winsome Sears and GOP attorney general nominee Jason Miyares, who were dubbed “featured guests” on the announcement, now have plans to campaign elsewhere. Youngkin, who said he’d stop by, hasn’t made similar plans.

He should make other plans now and get to work advocating for his newfound policies rather than feeding the big lie.

Vote a straight Democrat ticket in November.  The rest of the GOP ticket is just as scary - Winsome Sears is even more scary, in fact - as Youngkin.