Virginia is America, and America is conservative

OPINION:

America is a conservative country. The progressive agenda, whether it’s Critical Race Theory or transgender activism or even radical abortion rights, hasn’t burst forth from within the heart of the nation but rather been implemented, sometimes clandestinely, by unelected government agencies. Despite COVID-19 tensions and urban unrest, Americans are still religious, modest, and patriotic. 

Joe Biden ran on that agenda. Not “conservative” as a political position, but “conservative” as in, to use Mr. Biden’s own words, the “heart and soul of the nation.” The values of small towns like Scranton, the wisdom of American old-timers like Joe’s mom and dad whom he quotes like Socrates, the mutual understanding of former American politics where elected officials could “reach across the aisle” and “find common ground”. “Life, Liberty and, you know, the, the thing” he once said. Americans longed for “the thing” and thought Joe would bring it back. Build it back. Better. He didn’t. He won’t. 

He can’t. 

That indescribable thing was on the ballot box Tuesday in my state of Virginia, and it won. Yes, Glenn Youngkin, the Republican businessman won, but larger than him was the small “c” conservative values that brought people to the polls: the rights of parents. School curriculum. The power of government bureaucracies. Enough Virginians saw the former governor and quintessential insider Terry McAuliffe running for a second term decrying all the things wrong with the commonwealth and wondered “why didn’t you fix it last time?”

I won’t chastise Terry McAuliffe for not being a native Virginian (unlike Virginia-born and bred Youngkin). Most people in D.C. eventually move there for schools or safety or both. You cross the Potomac and your taxes go down. Your schools are better. You can carry a gun. But sadly, it’s those ever-growing suburbs that have shifted the much larger state from “red” to “blue” in the past generation. 

Mr. McAuliffe is proof of that. He brought his northeastern liberalism with him. He ran as a local but governed as Andrew Cuomo, minus the allegations of sexual assault. Virginia may have a lot of Democrats, but it doesn’t have a lot of liberals. The McAuliffe campaign didn’t understand that. 

You look at many “blue” states in the last presidential election and you see the same phenomenon drops of deep blue in a sea of red. My blue hometown New York City swings very red New York State. The same thing happens in Illinois. Washington. Oregon. The “turn Texas blue” effort doesn’t focus on Midland or Waco but Austin and San Antonio. Urban centers elect Democrats.

We don’t have one. 

The commonwealth’s largest “city” is Virginia Beach with a population of approximately 450,000, almost 100,000 of them are on a military base. Terry McAuliffe ran a campaign appealing to the liberal voters of cities which don’t exist. There’s no Beacon Hill section of Richmond or Upper West Side area of Norfolk. And here was Mr. McAuliffe’s biggest mistake: many of the wealthy democrats in Virginia’s blue suburbs like Great Falls and McLean are parents. They want to be involved in school decisions and education. They don’t want bureaucrats pushing an agenda even if in their political careers they espouse that agenda publicly.

To paraphrase the wartime expression about atheists and foxholes: there are no progressive parents when their children are the pawns. 

This race was hailed as a bellwether and it is because Virginia is America, and America is conservative. We are leery about a government that promises to fix all our problems for us from cradle to grave. We reject bureaucrats who tell us to get out of the way and let them rule over us. And we are willing to give the new guy a shot.

Mr. McAuliffe may have been governor before and may have lived here for decades, but he’s clearly doesn’t know Virginia. It’s not progressive. It’s not partisan. It’s not even political.

Glenn Youngkin ran as a Virginian. Now it’s up to him to govern as one. 

• Daniel Turner is the founder and executive director of Power The Future, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for American energy jobs. He raises heritage breeds on a farm in rural Virginia. Contact him at daniel@powerthefuture.com and follow him on Twitter @DanielTurnerPTF