The Patriot Post® · Virginia Runs Hard Left

One of the maxims of American politics is that elections have consequences.

And now that Abigail Spanberger is Virginia’s new Democrat governor, the consequences are making many Virginians who didn’t vote for Spanberger see the reality of what happens when your party loses.

It didn’t take long after Spanberger’s inauguration for Democrats in Virginia to start rolling out their radical agenda to remake the Old Dominion state.

WTOP notes that Governor Spanberger “wasted no time during her first day in office, signing 10 executive orders Saturday at the Virginia State Capitol aimed at boosting affordability and steering the commonwealth away from former Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s policies on education, immigration, diversity and public safety.”

Steering Virginia away from Youngkin’s policies is a nice way to put it. In reality, it’s more like driving the state over a cliff.

Democrats have introduced a dizzying array of bills mandating sales taxes on Amazon deliveries and Uber Eats, free education for illegal aliens, internet voting, higher income tax brackets, forbidding the arrest of illegals in courthouses, a per-mile driving tax, and replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

This is only a short list of items on the far Left’s agenda.

One of the more outrageous proposals is removing minimum mandatory sentencing for criminals charged with rape, manslaughter, and possessing child pornography. As for the crackdown on illegal aliens, Spanberger signed an executive order on her first day in office to prevent law enforcement cooperation with ICE, ironically citing public safety concerns.

According to The Washington Times, “Now, when liberal judges turn loose criminals who are also illegal aliens, they will be released onto the streets instead of being returned to their home countries.

Spanberger also embraces the green energy scam. "One of Spanberger’s first moves as governor is expected to increase families’ electric bills by $1,100 per year,” reports The Daily Signal. “Spanberger wants Virginia to rejoin the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.”

And to make sure extremists remain in power in Virginia, Spanberger is working with other state leaders to make sure only Virginians who live in the suburbs of Washington, DC, have representation in Congress.

Fox News explains, “Another top concern for Virginia Republicans is a push by Spanberger and Senate Leader L. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, to redraw the state’s congressional map in a way that would leave only one GOP-held seat — represented by Rep. Morgan Griffith — in an otherwise purple state.”

Clearly, many people voted for Spanberger without knowing what they were really getting.

Hot Air’s David Strom elaborates, “Virginians were sold a ‘moderate’ Democrat as the Democratic Party’s gubernatorial candidate, and what they have gotten is a radical Democrat with an aggressive left-wing agenda that not coincidentally will make Virginia more chaotic and voter fraud much easier.”

Republicans, for their part, didn’t seem to put much effort into choosing the strongest candidate, supporting that candidate, and giving voters a real alternative.
Strom adds, “Republicans didn’t focus too much on Spanberger because they saw the gubernatorial race as lost from the beginning, and perhaps it was given that Northern Virginia is dominated by the federal government and the money gusher that spurts out of the swamp.”

Sounds like the Virginia GOP chose to raise a white flag rather than put forth the effort to make it a competitive race.

As reported by Politico, “Many say lackluster gubernatorial candidate Winsome Earle-Sears was deeply flawed and didn’t focus enough on the economy. Some accuse popular GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin of failing to use more of his war chest to boost candidates. Others complain that the state party failed to employ an aggressive strategy.”

Now, buyer’s remorse has set in for some who thought they were voting for a moderate. As Meghan McCain, no friend of Donald Trump, commented on X, “Screw any and all of you who lied to low information voters and sold Abigail Spanberger as some kind of moderate. She’s been in office like 6 hours and is already trying to turn Virginia into Minneapolis.”

That pretty much sums up what Spanberger and the Democrats are planning to do to Virginia. It’s what they’ve done everywhere they’re in power. And with a near veto-proof majority in the House of Delegates and little opposition in the Senate, there’s little Spanberger and Virginia Democrats can’t do.

Imagine voting for Spanberger, thinking she was a commonsense, moderate Democrat, only to find out you woke up the next day in a sanctuary state where criminal illegal aliens roam the streets, taxes are higher, and you no longer have representation in Congress.

That’s why this election was so important and why Virginians will have to endure four years of unchecked Democrat power. Maybe next time around, voters will look more closely at the gubernatorial candidates and realize that what you see isn’t always what you get.