Joe Biden was in Arlington, Virginia, yesterday stumping for Democrat gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe. His message to voters was clear, and it’s a message around which McAuliffe has sought to build his entire campaign: Republican Glenn Youngkin is actually Donald Trump. “I ran against Donald Trump,” Biden stated. “Terry is running against an acolyte of Donald Trump.” Throughout his 17-minute speech, Biden referenced Trump 24 times. Around the country, the Democrats’ election strategy is to paint all Republican candidates as Trump stooges. Make everything about Trump and dismiss all other significant political issues as nonexistent or inconsequential. It worked in the California recall, and Democrats are banking on it working in Virginia.

Earlier in the week, Barack Obama played to this strategy when he dismissed the culture war that has seen parents protesting and facing off against school boards over serious concerns regarding gender policies and Critical Race Theory indoctrination. “Phony,” he called it, and “trumped-up.” Meanwhile, the very day that Obama was dismissing parents’ concerns, the skirt-wearing boy accused of raping a girl in the girls’ bathroom of a Loudoun County school was convicted.

Speaking of being concerned for the kids, on Biden’s short jaunt across the Potomac River to Arlington, there was not a mask in sight at what leftists would otherwise deride as a “super-spreader rally,” where the president was personally greeted by more than a hundred people. Biden’s so concerned for the welfare of kids that he mandates mask-wearing in schools, but when it comes to their education and personal safety, it’s a “phony” culture war.

And on another note relating to supposed concern for children, the attitude McAuliffe displayed regarding his view that parents should not have a say in their children’s education was not a view unique to him, but one that is par for the course when it comes to today’s Democrat Party. This reality was driven home by a recent Washington Post column whose title says it all: “Parents claim they have the right to shape their kids’ school curriculum. They don’t.” To put it simply, leftist elitists believe the state, not parents, have authority over deciding what children should be taught. That perspective is the antithesis of American Liberty and finds its true roots in Marxism.

Youngkin has been hitting McAuliffe over his war on parents, as the former governor has referred to parents expressing concerns over CRT as “racist” and “right-wing conspiracy theorists,” all while he insists that CRT is “not taught in Virginia.” But Youngkin is also criticizing McAuliffe over his dismal record on crime as governor from 2014 to 2018. Under McAuliffe, the homicide rate in Virginia jumped 43% and the number of rapes rose 25%.

Will a president whose poll numbers are in a nosedive be able to gin up enough voter energy to put McAuliffe over the top? Will the Democrats’ strategy of avoiding the issues and simply painting every Republican as Trump pay off?