Steve Helber/AP Photo
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin in his office at the Capitol in Richmond, Virginia, February 15, 2022
The first executive order to come down from Virginia’s newly elected Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, directed education officials to root out “inherently divisive concepts, like critical race theory and its progeny”—and steered Virginia straight back into the morass of the culture wars. This opening salvo revealed that beneath the fleecy red vest of friendly moderation with which Youngkin had campaigned there was a pol of Trumpist tendencies.
Today, the only people standing between Youngkin and a full-scale takedown of American history instruction, voting rights, and humane sensibilities are Virginia’s Senate Democrats, who hold a slim two-vote majority in the legislature’s upper house. Youngkin and the Republicans who now control the General Assembly have already made clear how they plan to rewire Virginia politics, and potentially the electoral map of a somewhat purple state, should Virginia Democratic voters fail to summon up the civic enthusiasm for voting that escaped them in last year’s election.
Meanwhile, Black History Month started out quietly enough. Youngkin availed himself of the moment to issue a sterile proclamation that named-checked Martin Luther King, Booker T. Washington, and Douglas Wilder, the first African American governor of Virginia. But February went downhill from there, after the governor sent Sen. L. Louise Lucas, a gray-haired, 30-year Democratic veteran of Virginia politics and president pro tempore of the state Senate, a congratulatory text on her Black History Month remarks. Unfortunately, Sen. Mamie E. Locke, another Black female lawmaker, actually made the speech. If Black History Month has taught the governor and his staff anything, it is that Black, female Virginia senators are not interchangeable.
Not to be deterred by a month marking Black achievements, Republican members of the House of Delegates recently went off on their own CRT tangent, introducing a bill that would outlaw instruction of subject matter that does not exist in K-12 curricula in Virginia or anywhere else in the country, but that specifically prohibits the instruction of “divisive concepts.” But why let mere nonexistence get in the way of their campaign to fan the flames of white grievance and resentment, and to distract from pandemic economic hardships or climate uncertainties? (And while taking aim at teaching American history, why not pare back state K-12 education altogether by defunding local schools? Senate Democrats stopped that GOP plan in its tracks, too.)
Rather than take an eyes-open approach to the subject, these Republicans are trying to make Virginians settle into the comfortable (as they see it) narratives made possible through more selective renderings of American history, ones that ease their own discomfort with the barbarity of African chattel slavery, the war that ended it, and how those legacies endure to this day. Such a move would ostensibly gladden the hearts of the parents convinced that the curricula that teach about the Jim Crow period are too traumatic or guilt-inducing for their children. And if executives and legislative moves fail to erase uncomfortable truths, Youngkin has set up a parental tip line (via email) that parents could use to report teachers or administrators teaching “divisive material.”
Enthusiasm-starved Democrats who did not vote last year may have misconstrued Youngkin as a moderate Republican throwback.
In an act of legislative trolling at its finest, a group of House Democratic delegates offered amendments to preserve the teaching of such historical phenomena as Jim Crow laws and practices; the Confederacy’s animating beliefs; the impacts of policies that led to race, wealth, income, and health disparities; and the Constitution’s three-fifths compromise. They also added protections for teaching about Asian American discrimination and hate crimes and gay rights. House Republicans defeated all the amendments and passed the measure, which then died in the Democratic-majority Senate Education Committee.
With the history-erasure plank defeated, Republican delegates proceeded to lay out a road map for voting restrictions they intend to offer should they win control of Virginia’s Senate in November 2023. For now, Senate Democrats have defeated GOP election administration proposals to reinstate photo IDs, end same-day registration, change the deadline for absentee ballots, and cut the number of early-voting days.
Facing a recalcitrant Senate, Youngkin has relied heavily on executive orders, including one that allows parents to opt out of mask mandates for their children, which has created new conflicts for schools, especially ones with pockets of mask adherence and mask resistance in the same building. He signed an executive order to have the state exit the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, and is also considering having a state regulatory body maneuver to implement his order. (A Senate committee blocked legislation that could have done that.) He tried to nominate Andrew Wheeler, Trump’s EPA administrator, to a comparable position in the state; opposition from environmentalists and Democrats quashed that idea. The abortion fight will ramp up as well, with Republicans in both chambers introducing bills that would ban abortion at 20 weeks.
Youngkin’s decision to put on the GOP’s culture-warrior armor is a strategy that Democrats have not fully figured out how to counter. While their defense of voting rights and education is widely popular, their positive agenda—including support for programs that counter pandemic economic hardships and position the state to deal with the climate crisis—is getting short shift as Virginia tilts rightward.
Not only has Youngkin taken up the Trumpist agenda in its entirety, his administration has begun to teeter into the same political pettiness that characterized the Trump years. Shortly after coming into office, Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares fired Timothy Heaphy from his post as the attorney for the University of Virginia system, for working while on temporary leave with the U.S. House January 6 investigators as a key investigator.
Enthusiasm-starved Democrats who did not vote last year may have misconstrued Youngkin as a moderate Republican throwback or a more measured regional leader like Republican Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland. With a month of GOP issue-positioning in full view, no such Democrat or Democratic-leaning independent can misunderstand the consequences of their November choices as the governor and his acolytes speedily deployed their program and revealed their true selves.
But with the Trumpists in full control of the national GOP, Youngkin’s posture makes sense as his name has begun to appear in the mix about a possible presidential bid. Within Virginia however, Youngkin’s moves are distinctly unpopular. A poll released this week by the Wason Center for Civic Leadership at Virginia’s Christopher Newport University found that state voters support teaching how racism affects American society by 63 percent to 33 percent; oppose banning CRT by 57 percent to 35 percent; and support the regional climate plan, 67 percent to 33 percent.
The governor’s approval rating is lower than his recent predecessors’ at similar points in their terms: After a little more than one month in office, only 41 percent of Youngkin’s fellow Virginians support him; 43 percent disapprove; and 16 percent do not know where they stand. The partisan numbers are not surprising: The vast majority of Republicans support him while most Democrats are disapproving. The middle is still soft, however. Independents are wavering: 42 percent approve of his moves; 36 percent disapprove; and a significant 22 percent don’t know.
