Good morning, everybody, and welcome to another edition of the TNR Daily. I’m Jason Linkins, editor of The Soapbox, TNR’s political vertical, filling in for editor Michael Tomasky, who did late-night duty watching the Virginia gubernatorial election last night and deserves a break. 

 

Let’s jump in. Obviously, the aforementioned election in Virginia is going to be the top political story of the day, if not for weeks to come. Last night, fleece-vested Republican plutocrat Glenn Youngkin rather handily dispatched Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe in a state that Joe Biden won going away in 2020. The stock prices of corporations involved in the manufacture of adult pee pads spiked overnight in anticipation of Beltway Democrats returning to their natural state: lying in a prone position as they slowly unburden themselves of their bladders’ contents.

 

Democratic despondency isn’t entirely unjustified. McAuliffe was essentially the ne plus ultra of establishment Democratdom, designed in a lab to be the safe, center-left political candidate; sent from Clintonland’s gilded capital to be the adult in the room. And while there are apparently already natterings about the progressive left being responsible for McAuliffe’s downfall, that dog won’t hunt: The left doesn’t have any meaningful control over the Democratic campaign infrastructure, in Virginia or anywhere else. Sorry to say, the so-called adults need to go back to the drawing board.

 

What they’ll find, in terms of guidance for the midterm elections, may be troubling. McAuliffe’s approach in the late stages of the campaign was to relentlessly tie Youngkin to Trump in an effort to rekindle the forces of negative partisanship that delivered Biden’s win in 2020. The attempted connection clearly failed to stick. And with Trump nowhere near a ballot in 2022, Democrats need an alternative plan. The passage of a transformative legislative agenda might do the trick—though one immediate impact of McAuliffe’s loss is that Democrats may grow even more skittish about passing it than they already are.

 

But affluent career politicians are not really the ones who will suffer from last night’s loss. The big losers in Virginia are public school teachers, who became Youngkin’s bête noire in the last few weeks of the campaign. Youngkin’s promotion of the “critical race theory” con likely means that Republican candidates across the country will try to replicate last night’s results. That doesn’t mean they’ll be successful: Voters in Wisconsin rejected the entreaties of CRT fearmongers last night, despite a campaign that was every bit as furious as the one mounted in the Old Dominion. Still, Virginia teachers have reason to worry: The mob that Youngkin ginned up is going to demand its pound of flesh. 

 

In other news, the future of Biden’s legislative agenda actually got a little brighter, as Democrats seem to be nearing a deal that would provide lower drug prices for average Americans, after several days in which prospects seemed to have decidedly dimmed. With an agreement in hand, it’s possible that the end is in sight. As The New York Times reports: “The completion of the prescription drug section could be among the final major changes to the sprawling climate change and social safety net bill that Democratic leaders hope to bring to a House vote this week.”

 

Meanwhile, if you’re looking for some perspective on the state of our democracy, The Washington Post reports that the latest Pew Global Attitudes Survey, in which “18,850 adults in 17 advanced economies, including the United States” were asked “about their views of American society and politics,” found that very few respondents “view American democracy as an example for the rest of the world to follow.” As President Biden prepares to lead next month’s virtual “Summit on Democracy” with other leaders from around the globe, he may want to spend some time considering whether he has much to teach the rest of the world, or if he should instead seek out their advice.

 

Today at NewRepublic.com: Tomasky offers his own verdict on Virginia’s governor race: “If we’re worrying about the ramifications of McAuliffe’s defeat for the midterms, we should worry about the frightening paradox this drubbing confronts them with: McAuliffe’s defeat could increase the chance that Joe Manchin and/or Kyrsten Sinema (or now maybe a few nervous House moderates) throw in the towel on the Biden agenda, at the very moment when passing that agenda becomes mission critical.” Chris Lehmann reviews Leigh Eric Schmidt’s new book, The Church of Saint Thomas Paine, and finds that the “golden age” that the secular movement promised “never got off the ground,” owing to its vast underestimation of the devout. And Alex Shephard explains how the core of the GOP’s new Trumpian ideology revolves almost entirely around spectral ravings of nonexistent election fraud.

Jason Linkins, deputy editor

Yesterday’s political history question: Since we’re talking about Virginia and schools and race—in 1959, two court orders demanded that Prince Edward County, Virginia, integrate its schools. How did the county respond?

 

Answer: It responded by digging in its racist little heels, that’s how! According to the Virginia Museum of History and Culture, “Ordered by two courts on May 1, 1959, to integrate its schools, the county instead closed its entire public school system. White officials in Prince Edward created private schools to educate the county’s white children. These schools were supported by tuition grants from the state and tax credits from the county. Prince Edward Academy, in particular, became the prototype for all-white private schools formed to protest school integration; segregationists from elsewhere in Virginia and other Southern states toured the facility.” Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

 

Yesterday’s U.S. geography question: Of the three cities of Detroit, Milwaukee, and Boston, which is the northernmost?

 

Answer: It is, of course, Milwaukee, the most romantic city on earth.

 

Today’s trivia question: Since I feel that we need something of a palate cleanser to remind ourselves that the Commonwealth of Virginia is and shall remain a place worth celebrating, let’s revisit some Virginia history. According to Genius, precisely one basketball player from the University of Virginia has been name-checked in a hip-hop song. Name the player and, as a bonus, name the song.