Virginia

Watching the news about the Virginia governor's race between Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Glenn Youngkin.

Although Virginia went for Biden and is a pretty blue state, the Republican candidate seems to be doing very well. Why? Youngkin's main issue, an issue that has energized his base, is "education". This is a joke, of course - Republicans have had no interest in public education - they just want vouchers to send their kids to private schools.

Along this line, Youngkin has told his base that he will ban the teaching of critical race theory to children in Virginia schools if he wins. The thing is, critical race theoru is not being taught in Virginia schools at all. So his candidacy is based on a lie. Reporters have asked Republican voters if they actually had any evidence that CRT was being taught in the schools. None did, but many still "believed" it was being taught.

I used to think it was a disadvantage to the Republican party that their base is so, well, stupid. But now I see that it's actually a bonus for Republican politicians.

These politicians can lie to their voters with no fear that their lies will be found out. It's this stupidity (really, it isn't just factual ignorance, it's a willful choice to believe whatever makes you feel better, raher than what correlates with reality) that allows Republican politicians to create a completely alternate world for their voters in which Democrats are satan-worshipping lizard people, vaccines are more dangerous than the diseases they prevent, climate change is a hoax, and Donald Trump is the true Christian messiah.

God help us.