If you’ve been following the political drama in Virginia, it almost seems like a surreal soap opera. Had anyone written a fictional account of what is going on, it would have been dismissed as being absurd and unrealistic. But every day seems to bring more and more damning revelations.
To sum up what has happened so far, a photo surfaced of Virginia Governor Ralph Northam wearing blackface (or a KKK hood) in an old medical school yearbook photo. Northam first admitted being one of the men in the photo, then denied it in a press conference the following day. Refusing to step down to allow his Lieutenant Governor to take office, accusations of sexual assault then surfaced against the Lieutenant Governor. And now we have the Attorney General admitting that he too wore blackface to a party in the early 1980s.
With the Governor facing calls to resign, the Lieutenant Governor facing allegations of sexual assault that are far more recent and far more damning than the allegations against Brett Kavanaugh, and the Attorney General now admitting that he engaged in the same type of behavior that led to the calls for the Governor’s resignation, what will happen in Virginia? Well, since this scandal is enveloping Democrats, probably nothing. They’re doing their best to hope that all of this blows over without them having to face up to the reality that they’re hypocrites all around.
But what really motivates them is the fact that if all three elected officials step down, Republican Speaker of the House Kirk Cox would then become Governor. Having already called for Northam’s resignation over his blackface photo, Democrats now face the possibility of ceding most of their power within Virginia if they remain logically and philosophically consistent. Expect to see the calls for Northam’s resignation fade into the background as Virginia Democrats do their best to sweep this whole sordid mess under the table.