US Politics February 2019: This is one of the great losers of all time.

I'm a little skeptical of that one myself

How hard can it be to find #problematic shit in any member of the VA GOP’s past I mean get an intern on that

the difference is that stuff actually *earns* GOP votes

An '80s Polaroid of the candidate in a klan hood carries roughly the same political weight as a flag pin on the lapel with yer average GOP voter. Its absence is troubling and raises questions/eyebrows.

This is not a *defense* of Herring, but the year of his Kurtis Blow party, Neil Diamond starred in a "Jazz Singer" remake that features a "funny" blackface scene. People used to be more racist/get away with more racism! https://t.co/Ce5BBIZ4Et

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) February 6, 2019

People used to be more racist/get away with more racism!

For whom is this supposed to be news?

Remaking the jazz Singer pretty much had to have some homage to Jolson didn't it?
Wonder if it is a film that has now been relegated to the past and now not something that anybody would think of remaking. In an age full of remakes, like.

lol @ Shakey's contrib upthread

“What was a slow-moving train wreck is now like a bullet train wreck,” said Chris LaCivita, a Republican strategist and a veteran of numerous Virginia political wars. “The reports of Republicans’ demise in the Commonwealth of Virginia have been greatly exaggerated.”

He said the scandals provide Republicans with an opportunity, but one they have to approach with care. “Don’t gloat, don’t overplay your hand,” he said. “At the end of the day, voters want candidates who speak to their concerns and issues. You can’t run campaigns in the modern age based solely on the fact that a party’s top messengers have problems.”

Dan Scandling, a Republican and former aide to Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), said that before the scandals Republicans were facing “ long slow walk in the wilderness. As long as President Trump was on top of the ticket, everything was going to cascade down from the White House and be a hundred pound weight on your head.”

Now, Scandling said, “the window of opportunity is back open.”

“The swing voters are going to tap the brakes now,” he said. “And the minority community is going to look at the Democrats and say, ‘Really?’ Have you been pulling the wool over our eyes all these years?”

that sounds like gloating to me

TS: candidates who were racists 35 years ago or candidates who are racists now.

The VA GOP has done something truly diabolical here that only works because all three top Dems are compromised. Dems won't turn over power, so now they'll be painted as hypocritical.

For all those wondering, the line of succession for Virginia Governor Ralph Northam is Governor Northam (Democrat)➡️ Lt. Gov. Fairfax (Democrat)➡️
AG Mark Herring (Democrat)➡️
House Speaker Kirk Cox (Republican)➡️The Republican controlled House of Delegates elects a new governor

— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) February 6, 2019

there is no way all three of those Dems resign, esp not with such a calculated hit job clearly underway

Maybe I don't understand succession correctly but not everyone has to resign at the same time. You don't just automatically get a Republican. Here's just one way you could do it.

Step 1. Northam resigns. Fairfax becomes governor.

Step 2. Fairfax appoints someone less compromised, like Tom Periello, as his new Lieutenant Governor.

Step 3: Fairfax and Herring resign simultaneously.

Step 4: Periello appoints a new Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General.

that's what I was thinking

hmm yeah that could work. although that's a lot of resignations, and you just know none of these guys want to bow out this way.

Such a weird scenario

You make legislative confirmation of a Democratic LG nominee contingent on a public pledge to resign.

Enforce it with the threat of legislative impeachment for anyone who doesn't follow the plan.

Republicans control the House of Delegates and state Senate, why would they play along?

^^ my thought exactly

really not sure that the middle of a scandal is the best time to be pulling these highly contrived partisan moves tbh

As was pointed out on Twitter, the only reason that the Republican Speaker in VA is there is because there was a tie at the ballot box and the race was decided by a fershlugginer coin flip.

Kirk Cox was not elected in a statewide election. The three Democrats were.

Installing Cox as governor by "conveniently" "discovering" preexisting flaws in the D officials all at once is amusing, on a nakedly Machiavellian level. But I am not sure it will fly. I have lived in this here Commonwealth since. 1976. With all its well-documented problems there are some pockets of decency.

Kinda feeling torn between a) acknowledging that everyone does dumb shit when they're young that they hopefully learn from and then ultimately grow and become better people as a result, and that thoughtfully addressing those dumb mistakes of youth and taking responsibility for them (as opposed to being a squirrelly little shit about it, looking at you Kavanaugh et al) can go a long way, and b) feeling like anyone who's done shit this dumb + compromising maybe should consider a career in the private sector because politicians (particularly dem politicians) ideally should be held to a higher standard (and yes I know that's pretty much a la-di-da utopian af notion but still).

I'm extra torn, because there are dumb things you do when you're young and then there are things so dumb that you should know they're dumb, even when you're young. Like, it never occurred to me to ever put on black face or want to put on black face because I always understood it to be wrong. No one had to sit me down and teach that to me, let alone when I was in my college years. You can't undo the past, which is why the AG's apology might be enough but the gov first admitting it was him and then backing off, while still admitting he'd done things like it in the past, is a pretty bad look.

Yeah, that's why I'm leaning b). Like I totally buy that people who harbor horrible ideas in their early twenties are capable of turning it around and becoming decent people later in life. I'm just not particularly convinced that those people need to be elected officials.

Per the Wapo article I posted above, minstrel shows were still popular in cville into the 1970s and people have lauded their participation in minstrel shows in very, very recent obituaries. It's all sorts of fucked up.

No one had to sit me down and teach that to me

really? you just magically grasped the history of blackface as a child?

Like, you probably still have some internal work to do, my dudes, so why not do it while you're like selling real estate or something instead of representing a diverse constituency.

xposts

I mean I know I'm biased here cuz it's a Dem but I don't think Herring should be stepping down over this

Northam should definitely go though

(I say this as someone who has children that are of the age where I need to explicitly explain why certain depictions of various ethnicities are racist and not ok)

xp

I love Elie Mystal and his headline made me LOL "Virginia A.G. Admits To Wearing Blackface As We Enter The ‘I Am Spartacus’ Part Of Black History Month"

I would argue that there's a pretty distinct difference between an eight-year-old's tragic mispronunciation of Niger (ahem, guilty) and someone in their early 20s thinking it's totally cool to engage in Stepin Fetchit cosplay.

i want to know who’s funding the outlet that broke these stories

xpost Yeah, no one told me it was bad, I just knew. My parents never instilled in me much of anything more than the general importance of education, but at the same time whatever their political or personal leanings (my dad definitely leaned conservative, though he never told me who he voted for) I never once saw them treat anyone less than respectfully, so I guess they lead by example? Now, on the other hand, as a family we watched "Airplane!" last year, and my kids looked at me and said, "um, isn't this kind of racist?" And I had to explain, yeah, it's racist - and sexist, and homophobic, and etc., and that's sort of what makes it funny. It's OTT offensive. And that was tough to explain to them. But I've never felt the need to teach them about racism and so on because they've always seemed to grasp it, but have no problem talking about it as needed. I think having diverse schools and good teachers/curriculum clearly makes a difference!

maura otm, follow the money

xpost I saw an interview with one of his medical school classmates, iirc, and they said everyone knew about the pictures and were shocked it took this long for them to come out.

Even if it's an organized effort by the GOP, it's not like they're inventing a picture of the gov in fucking blackface and/or a klan robe, or an accusation of sexual assault or whatever. Now, why this is happening now ... who knows. Why did all the Al Franken stuff come out when it did?

the candidates are breaking these stories themselves!

politicians*

in both cases because they were "unearthed" and promoted by RW media outlets/opposition researchers

the candidates are breaking these stories themselves!

this is only true in Herring's case, I think?

minstrel shows were still popular in cville into the 1970s and people have lauded their participation in minstrel shows in very, very recent obituaries.

Robert Byrd (an actual Klan member) was in the Senate til his death in 2010

George Wallace renounced his racism and won a fourth and final term in 1982 with a large amount of black support. He also appointed several African-Americans to the state cabinet.

A lot worse than dressing up like Kurtis Blow in that dude's personal history.

Can't believe that anyone schooled in his personal history could have ever believed his renunciation of racism was the tiniest bit sincere.

The michael jackson thing he admitted to seems qualitatively different than the minstrel photo with the kkk guy.

OF COURSE Morbius is still getting mileage out of "Robert Byrd was in the Klan!!!"

xpost He became a born again Christian, right? Point being that he couldn't make anyone trust him except through his words and actions, whether they believed him or not. Whether that's enough to justify forgiving one of the most virulent racists in US history is a different debate, but I suppose related to what we're talking about now.

a morbs in the thread is worth a byrd in the klan

I am ok with all these jackasses resigning if it means less-->0 people wear blackface or push down heads for coercive oral sex.

xpost Speaking of the MJ thing, the only explanation I can think of for his confusing bullshitery is him being told there was a picture of him in blackface in the yearbook, him thinking of the admitted MJ incident and then immediately saying yeah, it's me, my bad, and then seeing the picture of someone in blackface next to someone in a Klan Kostume and thinking, whoa, I said I dressed up as MJ once, but that's not me hanging with a klansman! But that's not what he said. What he said only flies - and still doesn't excuse his actions - if he's not sure it's him in blackface or the klan uniform, because the implication is that he did it enough that he can't be sure. His heartfelt mea culpa only makes him look worse.