Our Best Stuff From a Week of Tricks and Treats (But Mostly Tricks)

Afghanistan evacuations, daylight saving time, and the Virginia governor’s race.

By
20

Happy Saturday! There is a slew of great football games to watch this weekend, plus the World Series, and of course it’s Halloween weekend. I don’t have any great ideas for a last-minute costume for you, but may I suggest you not dress up in khakis while carrying a tiki torch while posing in front of Glenn Youngkin’s campaign bus? 

It’s safe to say that something stupid happens on Twitter every day, and we don’t cover it 99 percent of the time. For good reasons. But the stupid thing that happened on Friday touches on a few issues plaguing our politics and our discourse. 

Youngkin, you probably know, is the GOP nominee for governor in Virginia. He was endorsed by former President Donald Trump in May but has largely avoided Trump during his campaign. He’s had no rallies with him and specifically stayed away from an event hosted by Steve Bannon in which Trump appeared by video and where the audience said the pledge of allegiance to a flag that someone waved at the Capitol on January 6. But his opponent, Terry McAuliffe, has made an effort to tie Youngkin to Trump (as Audrey noted in a piece covering a McAuliffe rally with Joe Biden).

Late Friday morning, I noticed a tweet by a reporter from a local NBC affiliate in Charlottesville, Virginia. 

Create a free account
Access additional articles and newsletters for no cost, no credit card information needed. Continue ALREADY HAVE AN ACCOUNT? SIGN IN
20
By
Comments (20)
Join The Dispatch to participate in the comments.
 
  1. Scott Mc

    You are the best! Thank you.

    Collapse
  2. DJ

    The Lincoln Project has said from the outset that their goal was not just tp defeat Trump but Trumpism. You may like Susan Collins but the fact is she voted against the first impeachment, and the "lesson" Trump learned is that he can do literally anything, including incite and insurrection, and the GOP will support him.

    This time last year Jonah, David and others were trying to make an intellectual case not to "burn it down." Subsequent events make that seem quaint. The horse left the barn long before that.

    Collapse
  3. Avatar photo
    rlritt

    "He touches on how withdrawing from Afghanistan was very popular with Americans—until we did so in embarrassing fashion"

    I have recently read some reports concerning Afghanistan. Apparently, the reason the Taliban was able to move through the country so quickly was because 75% of the population living outside the two main cities helped them. The majority of the people were enraged that for 20 years the US has been bombing and attacking the Taliban but in reality it was the citizens whose businesses and homes were being destroyed. Many lost family members due to night raids. The American trained Afghan soldiers were corrupt and brutal and were often hostile to their own people. 20 years is not a war its an occupation.

    The evacuation was only "embarrassing" to the news media so they could all pretend they actually gave a damn about the Afghan people.

    Collapse
  4. Avatar photo
    Phil H

    Since the Charlottesville protests were mentioned:

    When those protests started, I had the initial impression that the protests against removal of Confederate statues were hijacked by white supremacists. For that reason, I excused Trump's "very fine people on both sides remark". When it became clear the protests were organized by white supremeacists from the start, I was astonished.

    It certainly seems possible for a non-racist to protest removal of Confederate statues, some of whom like Robert E. Lee were honorable men, if fighting for a bad cause (and who are now being redefined as bad from the start). So where were the Southerners who wanted to defend their heritage while not upholding racial injustice?

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photo
      rlritt

      Well they were chanting Jews will not replace us. That doesn't to be about confederate statues. How could any decent person approve of that?

      Collapse
      1. Avatar photo
        Phil H

        No one, which is why I thought those protests were "hijacked".

        Collapse
        1. Avatar photo
          rlritt

          Thanks.

          Collapse
  5. Avatar photo
    Dave Conant - MO

    It's unfortunate that Mr. McAuliffe has nothing more positive to offer Virginians than "Youngkin is a Trump candidate". If he did, he might not have had to resort to that. Sometimes wisdom comes from other places and this is a much remarked thread from Heather Richardson's "Letters from an American". Spoiler alert, LFAA is relatively left leaning but normally as reasoned and reasonable as TMD and TD in general. This is quoted with the permission of the author in an effort to encourage the kind of dialogue we all say we'd like to see more of.

    "I started by answering her question on why I felt democracy was in such trouble. That included the super majority legislature, the vigilante injustice of the anti-abortion law going around the US Constitution, the gerrymandered redistricting that will assure minority rule, and talked about there was no voter fraud and we needed more not less voter access. Basically concluding that we were going to minority rule. I don't think I used the word Republican at all. In fact, in things like gerrymandering I stated that both parties used it when they could. Then I asked her what she thought. Here I stopped her when she tried the what if game -- Obama did the same wrong thing that Trump did... I told her two wrongs were still wrong. She had to agree with that and didn't use the what if game again. She was not convinced about voter fraud. And about how a poll watcher had been mistreated. We had a long discussion about the Harris County (Houston) judge who "overstepped" her authority in setting up putting in ballot drop boxes and encouraging mail-in voting. She didn't buy that the pandemic was the excuse for all this. I countered with Governor Abbott restricting the number of ballot drops to one per county rather than based on population was so unfair. She was convinced that Trump won the election because he had been ahead in the early returns and then all the voting machines stopped when the mail-in votes were counted and all the sudden everything was going the other way. I told of my technical background in information security and about the ERIC (Election Registration Information Center) database used in 35 states including Texas use that can detect voter fraud and found next to nothing. I talked about being an Independent and agreeing with John Adams on the two-party system would be the worst evil to befall the Constitution. Talked about how the two parties now represented the extremes and there was a big middle like myself who were no longer being represented by anyone. I believe she related to the big middle not being represented. I'll post this much. I'll post my reply in chunks...

    Cathy Learoyd (Texas)5 hr ago
    To continue... It did surprise me a bit that my view on no voter fraud didn't make a dent in her perception that lots of voter fraud had happened. When I asked about all the court cases that had dismissed the notion of voter fraud, she said that was all because the courts threw them out on grounds of not having standing so never addressed the voter fraud! It is interesting that the far right has given all these people an answer for everything. This was a new one to me. We spent a lot of time on poll watchers and all the fraud they had found. I wasn't successful in convincing her most of the poll watchers have no idea what they are looking at and was glad the "voter integrity" law in Texas at least included training for poll watchers through the efforts of the League of Women Voters among others. I do fear the November 2022 election is going to have some bad events with angry poll watchers seeing what they want to see. All my talk on people not knowing what they were looking at didn't seem to make a dent in her thinking about voter fraud. Perceptions are real is one of my favorite sayings. I continue in the next post..

    Cathy Learoyd (Texas)5 hr ago
    To continue... I didn't go too much into Trump or Trumpism. Wanted to try to stay on common ground if I could. She did see some flaws in Trump but then liked his brash talk. We talked about bullying and politicians calling people names a bit. The question I thought of asking but chose not to was "Would you allow you children to bully and call names like that." Another question I thought of asking and didn't was "Who do you trust?" I'll save that one for our next discussion since I didn't want to get into discussing Fox News or whatever. She is a concerned citizen and has gone to Austin to give testimony at committee hearings. She spoke in support of the "voter integrity" law. She had spoken to the President of the Texas League of Women Voters after one hearing and asked her an OR question I call them. She has joined the chapter of the League here in the Hill Country of which I'm the Leadership Team Coordinator (an egalitarian way of saying President). It was our LWV meeting where I talked about the critical need right now to defend democracy -- which is the mission of the LWV along with empowering voters. She saw the League of tending left. The League is totally nonpartisan and will not endorse or oppose any candidate for elected office. It does do advocacy for voting rights, fair redistricting, women's health and other positions. These are based on inclusion for all which can be perceived to be a more left position these days rather than simply being supporting the Constitution and We, the People, all of us this time. I encouraged her to participate in the review of the League's positions that is happening in the next couple of months to be voted on at the April state convention. The discussion then went to talking about we all have different life experiences which forms our opinions and positions. My answer to the OR question she asked the LWV-TX President was why can't we have both -- fair elections without fraud and ease of access to all voters. She liked this approach and looking at the perspectives of those with different life experiences. While we had very different views on a lot of topics, we do seem to agree that Synergy (my favorite word) where listening to lots of perspectives will lead us to better solutions for all that any one perspective could come up with. I left this discussion feeling like the main thing is to move people away from the OR positions -- you're entirely wrong and I'm entirely right -- and move toward synergy of respecting all perspectives and come up with AND solutions

    Collapse
  6. Avatar photo
    RevJulia

    Great write-up of the week, Rachel. And it was a week of excellent writing on the Dispatch. I sent my kid a free month and I hope he’s hooked!

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photocircle-angle-nib
      Rachael Larimore vertical-nib Author

      Thank you so much!

      Collapse
  7. Avatar photo
    PWLaw

    I don’t understand why 5 people holding tiki torches in front of a campaign bus is considered “breaking news.” Yes, I understand some on Twitter thought it was a big deal because it was a “stunt.” The current “unite the right” litigation is far more interesting.

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photo
      Phil H

      Apparently the tiki torch aspect of the Charlottesville protests didn't get much attention outside of Virginia.

      Collapse
  8. Avatar photo
    Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

    What I hate most about all this is that I actually like tiki torches! I built a firepit off our back patio, and in good weather we set out some tiki torches as we build a fire. I even set a groove between some pavers to optimize marshmallow roasting. But due to all the politicization I can only buy fuel for the torches in rural America, where they don't expect me to be a Lincoln Project grifter, where people primarily buy tiki fuel for their...wait for it...backyard parties.

    Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photo
      Dave Conant - MO

      But, thanks to a certain former President, even your comment will in some cases conjure up an image.
      I happen to like tiki torches too, especially as vehicles for citronella that are much more effective than the little pseudo-galvanized buckets that sit on the table.

      Collapse
  9. Avatar photo
    Victor Clairmont

    WHY DID ALEC DENT DO THAT REVIEW OF DUNE RACHEL AND TRICK US?!

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photocircle-angle-nib
      Rachael Larimore vertical-nib Author

      Occasionally we like to find out if our readers are sticking with us all the way to the end 😂

      Collapse
      1. Avatar photo
        rlritt

        I didn't but I read it until the end because I was annoyed. Then I read the comments and went back to it.

        Collapse
  10. The original Optimum.net

    I at first had some high hopes for the Lincoln project. So I gave them money. Big mistake. The appeals kept coming. And I realized they were the same as the grifters they claim to dispise. Too bad, really. Some of their ads are hilarious. But they are becoming what they profess to hate.

    Collapse
Load More