It’s funny how the critics say (rightly) that one of the big negatives to Donald “The Don-Don” Trump’s personality is that he can’t control his impulses, but those critics, themselves, seem unable to do so, either.
Consider the case of Saturday’s Arlington County Board meeting. A person at public comment made a plea for support of Ukraine, but also not to hold the Russian people morally responsible for the actions of their leaders. (Reasonable on both counts.)
In response, one County Board member couldn’t help him/herself, and made a somewhat oblique but unmistakable reference to Donald Trump being another leader who the people had to suffer through. Trump’s name was not mentioned, but one can assume the reference was to nobody else.
Quoting the current slightly dazed and confused occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., “c’mon, man!” Give it a rest. Trump is gone. Let’s move on. (Hopefully the former president will allow us to move on by not running again in 2024, but time will tell.)
Those who keep bringing up the political ghost of the Don-Don are giving an insight into their own psyches. And it’s not, necessarily, a pretty picture.
RIGHT AGAIN? Some months ago, many in the Virginia politic-o-sphere seemed confident that a federal judge was going to rule that the commonwealth would have to run a special election for all 100 House of Delegates seats this November, because the 2021 election had been held under the old (pre-redistricting) seats.
Those with long memories will recall I opined that such a prospect was both unlikely and, perhaps, wishful thinking on the part of Democrats, who desired to use the new districts to claw back the majority they lost last November.
The issue of a special election has been very quiet of late, and it seems that, logistically, it’s getting close to impossible to pull off. Even Blue Virginia’s delightfully kooky Lowell Feld, who has a vested interest in such an election taking place because he’s traumatized over the current GOP majority, called a court order for new elections at this point “very unlikely.”
It is not for we mere mortals to try and outguess the decision-making process of a federal judge, and in fact Democrats may now have reasons to hope that elections are NOT held this fall.
First, they’d have to sort out districts where a number of incumbents have been lumped together via the redistricting process, and second, if the mood of Virginia voters is even surlier in November 2022 than it was in November 2021 (which is a possibility), then Democrats might stand to take another shellacking and lose further House of Delegates seats.
— Scott McCaffrey