You Hate to See It: Youngkin has big sadz

In the run up to the 2020 Presidential and the chaos that was creating, I began to grasp for some right of center voices, and I found some never Trump groups and people that helped me understand that there was some goodness on the right.

While this desperate finger hold on to some common cause with the other party helped me get through what I was seeing and experiencing, I often found their wishcasting and overdosing on hopium somewhat delusional.

That contingent (the never Trump folks) kept grasping at “normie” Republicans to give them some hope that the fever would break. It was a stream of people who would go on to disappoint when they would inevitably cave in to the MAGA pressure and fall in line behind the Bronzed Hippopotamus.

This brings me to the shitbird I am writing about here.

In early 2023, when the Republican presidential field was shaping up, Ronnie Dee was in the catbird position, but there were murmurs from Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, and others.

These all got the never Trump cohort’s jimmies aroused, and stirred feelings of hope that the Mango Mussolini would be relegated to the dustbin of history.

Ha ha hahahahahaha good luck with that.

Of this wishcasting, the one personality that was feted, Governor Glenn Youngkin, of Virginia. He bypassed the messiness of the primary process because the local Republican Party had the least democratic excuse for a primary that pretty much made it impossible for a hard MAGA candidate to break through.

So, Youngkin was able to dictate the terms of the electioneering without having to deal with being typecast as a hard MAGA to get through the primary.

And it worked. He kept Trump at arm’s length, able to dribble in the MAGA best-of’s to burnish his bona fides, but it gave him room to appeal to the northern part of the state that is lousy with Federal Government workers due to the proximity to DC.

And frankly, this was a sound strategy. If he had been happy with that, all would be well, and I wouldn’t be drafting this post at 5:12AM.

Today, there’s an article in the Washington Post lamenting about how Youngkin’s big bet for a legacy, scooping the two professional teams from DC and relocating them to a brand spanking new super arena in Alexandria.

While the article goes into depth about how the Democratic controlled house and senate in Virginia had other thoughts, and put the kibosh on this $2B boondoggle handout to fucking sports team owner billionaires.

The plan’s failure wipes out a significant legacy-making opportunity for a novice politician who burst onto the scene in 2021 and drew national attention as a fresh Republican face. In his first two years in office, Youngkin enjoyed state coffers overflowing with federal pandemic relief funds and a friendly GOP-controlled House of Delegates. But as the clock winds down on his four-year term, the governor has lost the legislature to Democrats and seen his priorities slip away.

“He’s a total lame duck right now,” said Robert Holsworth, a Richmond political analyst who has studied Virginia governors for decades. “He has shown tremendous political inexperience.”

Oh, who will think of the children?

You might be thinking “But Geoff, how does this relate to the great white hope of Youngkin?”

Glad you asked.

In early 2023, there was a dark horse hopeful that a lot of the Never Trumpers latched onto. See, they never really liked DeSantis, and many of the other slate members were equally awful, falling all over themselves to suck up to Trump. But Youngkin? A classic Republican. A manly man, in a sweater vest who was a venture capitalist, a man with principals, money, and incorruptible.

It was a NT wet dream.

Throughout 2023, Youngkin played cloy. He kept saying that he was not thinking to the White House, he was 100% focused on making the Virginia solidly Red (aka Republican). Of course, he was genuflecting to the Never Trumpers with winks that once he flipped the statehouses solidly RED, he would then pivot to the “future1”.

Then the election happened, and what happened?

If you guessed that both houses are now in Democratic control, you win the prize.

To state that this was a seismic slap-down is the master us understatement.

Youngkin’s strategy was already unlikely to work, but in the aftermath of his “project RED” disaster, nobody believes that Youngkin will be their great white hope, the only one who can slay the Cheeto colored shit-gibbon.

The glee I got out of reading the linked article above and how the Democratic leadership telling Youngkin “Nah, you’re not going to spend $2B of public funds to benefit your fellow rich bastards who happen to own a couple of sports franchises. Bye Felicia.”