Justified Cynicism Regarding the GOP's 2021 Virginia-Election Narrative

Many Evangelicals have celebrated the win of Glenn Youngkin in the Virginia gubernatorial race. There have been various discussions regarding whether or not he's actually an Evangelical, his place in the GOP vis-à-vis Trump, and what his win means in terms of the pending 2022 mid-term elections.

Most of the discussion belongs to the categories of distraction, self-serving partisan commentary, and quibbling over minutiae. Youngkin is part of the quasi-conservative Anglican Church in North America – which is certainly more conservative than the apostate Episcopal body but at the same time is not all that conservative. Some congregations have an Evangelical flavour, others less so.

Youngkin tried to keep his distance from Trump and thus in some respects represents the kind of conservatism that some of the old guard Republicans would like to see resurface. And yet, it's not that simple. Youngkin certainly garnered the Trumpian vote and rode the movement's energy to electoral victory. He honed in on a few issues that resonate with the Trump movement – issues that are peculiar to the political moment, issues related to Covid and are part of the larger backlash against Biden's presidency.

In terms of the upcoming mid-term elections, the GOP's victory in Virginia suggests that swing-state Democrats are in danger and are going to face serious challenges all across the board. What this means in terms of the greater question of American politics and the struggles and divides generated by Trumpism is still unclear.

The Christian Right used the Virginia election as an occasion to attack the Establishment media. Youngkin's Lieutenant Governor is a Black woman, an immigrant from Jamaica no less, an ex-Marine who wears her 'Evangelical' faith on her sleeve. The incoming Attorney General is a Latino. The election (it is said) defies the DNC's racist narrative concerning the Republican Party. To the Right's outrage, the Mainstream media ignored the racial diversity of the victorious Virginia ticket and also downplayed and ignored the religious angle and the roll faith played in the respective campaigns and the statewide election. If this is true, then we must ask 'why'?

The Mainstream media may have ignored these questions due to inherent bias. It's certainly a possibility but there's also a cynicism at work that is not without foundation. The GOP has worked hard to shed its accusations of racism. It has employed an army of hack journalists and snake-oil historians who continue to argue that today's Democrats are the party of Jim Crow and the KKK. And likewise to foster this narrative, they must downplay critical events which took place in the aftermath of civil rights legislation viz., the party realignment that took place in the period from 1964-1984. And in reality the beginning of the shift antedated the Civil Rights legislation of 1964. FDR, Truman, and JFK had all made small moves in the direction of civil rights (alienating members of their Democratic Party) and yet it was LBJ who brought the old Southern Democratic Party (with its roots in the Confederacy and Reconstruction) to the breaking point.

An exodus ensued and it was one that Richard Nixon sought to exploit with his Southern Strategy – a reality that the Right tries to discount and explain away. The truth is by the time of Reagan's presidency, many of the old conservative Southern-oriented, segregationist, and anti-civil rights Democrats had become Republicans. The current Right-wing narrative regarding the Democratic Party completely ignores the reality of this political realignment.

Trent Lott who in 2002 controversially praised Strom Thurmond's Segregationist presidential bid of 1948 had been a lifelong Democrat. Lott switched to the Republican Party in 1972.

Strom Thurmond, the former Democrat, Dixiecrat, segregationist, and leading voice of opposition to civil rights, became a Republican in 1964.

Jesse Helms, one of the icons of the Right, switched parties and became a Republican in 1970.

Ronald Reagan himself had once been a Democrat. He left the party in during the Kennedy presidency in 1962 and yet was certainly a 'liberal' Republican for many years after. His governorship of California launched him into the White House but as governor he signed liberal abortion and divorce laws. It just goes to show that the contemporary lines of demarcation were not so clear just a generation ago.

Longtime Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran became a Republican in 1967.

John Connally, former Governor of Texas became a Republican in 1973.

Texas Senator Phil Graham, known for his conservatism became a Republican in 1983.

The Far-Right Evangelical Roy Moore only became a Republican in 1992.

David Duke, the former Grand Wizard of the KKK left the Democratic Party and became a Republican in 1988.

And Rick Perry, former GOP presidential candidate and Governor of Texas only became a Republican in 1989.

Today's Republican Party doesn't want to talk about this but the reason that many Right-wing figures stayed within the Democratic Party into the 1980's and after is because of the legacy of the Civil War. The descendants of the Confederacy hated the Republican Party as the party of Abraham Lincoln.

But by the mid-twentieth century, the party of Lincoln had changed as had the old populist Democratic Party – which in the North was the bastion of immigrant factory workers and in the South was the party of the old Confederacy. The hybrid-ticket of Kennedy-Johnson perfectly exemplifies this, a desperate attempt to hold an already fragmenting party together.

But the painful truth is this – the leading voices of Southern nationalism, state's rights, segregationism, and opposition to civil rights legislation were (it's true) all Southern Democrats. But by the 1980's it all had changed. And today, some of those very same people and their literal and ideological descendants make up the solidly red Republican bloc that dominates the South. Today's GOP is the direct heir of Southern Segregationism and all that went with it. No one wants a return to Jim Crow but the ideology that undergirded it lives on and is manifested in the Right's politics and economic policies.

On another level, financial wealth transcends race and as minorities have (thanks to civil rights legislation and programmes) entered the middle and upper classes, there are some willing to adopt elements of Right-wing ideology in order to protect what they've gained at the expense of others – even those of their own race. If they're willing to toe the line, they can quickly find a place in Right-wing circles and if at all charismatic, they are likely to be promoted in the political sphere.

This is why Marxists will argue that class transcends race categories – an argument almost completely absent in American political discourse. The handful of pseudo-Left figures (like Sanders) who on occasion appeal to this line of reasoning, subvert their own arguments and in the end fall into the same identity-politics traps and demonstrate an unwillingness to break with the pro-Wall Street, pro-Empire, DNC.

All of this is to explain why the GOP (in its desperation to disassociate itself from its post-Civil Rights era racist heritage) is determined to promote any and all minorities who will fall in line and adopt the rhetoric and positions of the party. If you are Black or Latino and you will stand with the Republican Party and promote its talking points and narratives – you can rise very quickly. You will be promoted. We've seen this time and again in academia, the entertainment world, and in politics.

And so, while it must be admitted the Mainstream media ignored this aspect of the Virginia story, I share their cynicism as to what it reveals about the GOP. The religion angle is part of the sad and tragic path Evangelicalism has forged – in Biblical terms a terrible story, a defection that took a tragic existentially fatal turn with the rise and embrace of Donald Trump. And yet it must be granted that the Mainstream in general is largely incapable of covering religious stories.

New Testament Christians are not impressed by ex-Marine women running for political office.

And the most salient aspect concerning Youngkin and his Christian profession has been utterly ignored by Christian media – his wealth and the origins of that wealth. When this is explored his character and ethics are cast in a very different light and the end result is – the Virginia election is nothing to celebrate from any angle by which it might be considered.

Youngkin is a millionaire many times over – his wealth acquired in connection with The Carlyle Group which he eventually headed. And what is it?

A private equity firm, The Carlyle Group is famous and by some estimations notorious for its investments and the nature of its structure. It was viewed as scandalous that George HW Bush (a major figure within the firm) as an ex-president and head of the CIA retained access to regular intelligence reports and briefings. In other words he had inside information and Bush, along with firm colleagues, James Baker, Frank Carlucci, and other former government officials used their connections to create a powerful firm that invested in defense, intelligence, and other strategic sectors, promoting and profiting from the US Empire, its wars, machinations, thievery, and exploitation of the poor and working people both in the US and abroad. Indeed, Carlyle in many ways epitomises the Wall Street side of the Military-Industrial Complex. It's a club of millionaires and billionaires with deep connections to the US Security State.

Youngkin spent twenty-five years at Carlyle, and was a major player in its Initial Public Offering (IPO), a structural transformation that undoubtedly filled his personal coffers. His fortune (estimated at over $400 million) is the fruit, the harvest of a lifetime given to usury, exploitation, and ill-gotten gain. He's not a person that any Christian should celebrate or for that matter associate with.

In the American system of usury, alchemy, and Darwinian ethics, he's a star and a 'good man'. But in terms of Zion, he's the kind of person we're told to avoid, those that have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof. Youngkin may use his blood-soaked gold to build churches, but his life testifies that Christ is not only a stranger to him but his enemy.