First things first: Republican politicians should never agree to participate in a town hall hosted by the likes of CNN or MSNBC — at least not unless a reliably conservative journalist is moderating or co-moderating.

Otherwise, one might as well agree to be a piñata.

Columnist Stephen L. Miller took Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin to task on Friday for having done just that, and for having given lefty Jake Tapper — the guy with the ever-present fishbone-lodged-in-my-throat expression — the opportunity to set a series of traps for him, much as he did for Florida Senator Marco Rubio and conservative radio host Dana Loesch back in 2018 in the wake of the Parkland High School massacre.

History has since proven Rubio and Loesch right and CNN’s gun-grabbing guests wrong, but the damage had already been done.

In this more recent case, Tapper tried to get Youngkin to bestow legitimacy upon Nikole Hannah-Jones’s abominable “1619 Project” as a historical resource. He didn’t, but nor did he dismiss it as a racially corrosive leftist fiction, which is what he should have done. Moreover, as Miller writes: “Also present was a 17-year-old transgender high school student who asked Youngkin why they should not be allowed to use the male restrooms at their school. ‘Look at me, I am a transgender man. Do you really think that the girls in my high school would feel comfortable sharing a restroom with me?’”

Youngkin is a man of good will, and he conducted himself as such even in the face of this ambush from a non-constituent. He held firm against the sickening spectacle of biological males competing against our daughters in sports, and he addressed the transgender issue by suggesting the need for an additional unisex bathroom to accompany the male and female ones. This isn’t ideal, of course, but it’s not as if he’s endorsing mutilative surgery for our children. Indeed, we’ve become accustomed to accommodating all manner of Americans with special needs.

Our sense is that Youngkin — who enjoys a remarkable +22 approval rating in a state that Joe Biden carried by 10 points — has studied these issues deeply and is confident not only in his grasp of them but also in the correctness of his positions and the strength of his persuasive skills. Still, why would he give the likes of CNN a ratings boost and a chance to bloody his nose?

According to a Washington Examiner op-ed by Jillian Balow, Virginia’s 26th superintendent of public instruction who is stepping down after two legislative sessions, Youngkin’s education agenda “serves as a model for pragmatic reform that empowers parents and raises the bar for schools in Virginia and across the nation.”

As Balow writes: “Long before winning his election, Youngkin’s ‘parents matter’ agenda captured the attention of education experts throughout the country … [and] exit polling showed that Youngkin earned a more than two-to-one advantage among voters for whom education was their most important issue.”

The Youngkin model, which has won over a strong majority of Virginians, should be replicable elsewhere. Legislatively, Youngkin’s first act was to eliminate the educational materials that sowed division, such as critical race theory in all its deceptive guises. But, as the Wall Street Journal editorial board notes, there’s still work to be done: “That hasn’t stopped the Virginia teachers union from using its pipeline to teachers to promote the teaching of a left-wing political agenda and activism. A ‘toolkit’ pushed by the Virginia Education Association (VEA) shows how they do it … by ‘advancing racial justice’ and following the highly politicized agenda of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.”

Youngkin also promised and delivered on educational transparency, while the state’s entrenched Democrat apparatuses — such as the one in Loudoun County — was doing everything it could to avoid transparency.

When educators are keeping things from parents, those parents should be deeply suspicious of their motives.