I Support Virginia Governor, Ralph Northam
I Support Virginia Governor, Ralph Northam
Current media is denouncing VA Gov Ralph Northam with many demanding he resign now over an unfortunate incident in his youth.
I note that that the final crucial person who gave us Obamacare was the late Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia. He was in his youth a member of the Klu Klux Klan, indeed held some office in it. In the end when the ultimate votes in the Senate came, which had Republicans denouncing him over his 1940s support of the KKK, and some of them openly hoping he would die as he was in bad health and did die thereafter, Robert Byrd did show up for the ultimately crucial vote, wheeled in in a wheelchair, to cast the ultimately final crucial vote that gave us ACA/Obamacare, which despite its many flaws has improved the health of many people in America.
Regarding Ralph Northam, an extremely excellent and super competent governor of Virginia, a few days ago, affirmed the right of women to make the ultimate decisions regarding their bodies with the support of just one doctor (three are now needed), he has just been denounced on alt-right and even Hannity outlets for his defense of a woman’s right to choose. The attacks on him from the organized right on this matter have been horrendous. They have accused him of supporting “infanticide.” This charge is disgusting and false. But the GOP is trying to make his supremely responsible and medically wise view a crime. They are just hypocrites.
I will not call those now demanding Northam’s resignation over his unfortunate photo from 35 years ago hypocrites. Indeed, I sympathize, especially with African Americans, who have had to face all kinds of racism here in Virginia as in the awful violence in Charlottesville in 2017 as well as the ongoing refusal at the state level to allow local governments to remove Confederate statues and monuments. It may well be that Northam will feel in the end that he must resign for his youthful mistake. But I think it will be unfortunate as he really has been a good governor and is personally a nice guy (I have met him). The photo certainly does not represent his current views at all.
Addendum, 3:25 PM, 2/2/19
I fear that I am increasingly leaning to Northam needing to resign, despite my generally high regard for him. He has just made a public statement that has really confused things, and I fear he may simply have fatally damaged his governorship with how he has messed this story up. He is now claiming that he is not in the photo, but says he did blacken his face once in 1984 to pretend to be Michael Jackson for a dance or skit, where he even won a prize (ugh). He also says he is not the person now he was then and is begging for forgiveness. I guess he deserves the latter, but he made a real botch of this, and I fear it will not get better. Ironically the lt. gov who would replace him if he were to resign, Justin Fairfax, is African American. Anyway, I am sorry about this whole situation, but now fear Northam simply cannot clean up the mess he has made of it.
Barkley Rosser
Sadly, he must step down now. If he had owned it from the beginning, he might have survived. Too little, too late.
No reason to step down. No reason to bother. Ignore and watch this die.
If there was any value to Northam staying I’d be with you, but really Fairfax would probably be a better governor, so his resigning would be pretty purely positive from both a messaging and a policy perspective.
In case it is unclear, I have fully shifted my position and now think Ralp Northam should resign as Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Another aspect of this is on thinking about it, and recognizing that whatever are the facts in the case, probably what was done was considered to be humorous by those involved at the time. The problem is that even though 1984 was 35 years ago, it is not far enough back in time to so easily forgive and forget. Robert Byrd’s KKK association was in the 1940s, a time when Jim Crow was fully in place, and such conduct was essentilly socially acceptable in his world then. Northam’s might also be more acceptable if it had been in 1954 or even as late as 1964. But by 1984, civil rights laws were in place, things had really changed in Virginia, and this sort of thing was simply not socially acceptable. I was livingi in Virginia then, and I know. This was way over thr top and out of line.
I appreciate that Northam has been a good governor and seems to be genuinely a good man. It has also been handy that with his rural background and good-ole boy quaint Virginia accent, he has been able to get along well with many Republican legislators, who still hold the majority, if narrowly, in both houses of the VA legislature. This has been crucial especially in getting the Medicaid expansion passed last year. I am afraid his departure will make it much harder to obtain such legislative achievements now without simply having the Dems win majorities in both houses, which may be coming soon. But, that is too bad. Northam reallly needs to go.
I will not weigh in on Northam resigning because I am not a resident of Virginia, but I do not think that being a medical student is youthful and I do think that there is an element of our society that being a racist is socially acceptable today and certainly was in 1984. I attended a relatively elite college and knew a guy there who I ran into on a regular basis in the late 70’s and early 80’s—we and our wives would go out to dinner or to a party or whatever probably once a month. It finally got to the point where I could not stand to see him or be with him because of his overt rascism, which he and many with his privileged upbringing found to be “socially acceptable”. I also know that despite never agreeing with his comments, I never really took a stand against them, preferring instead to simply stop associating with him. I would like to think that I have grown some since then and I guess maybe Northam wants the opportunity to show that he has too. As noted I think that is up to his constituents, but I understand why it might be very difficult for African Americans to trust him, just as I would understand them not trusting me because I walked away rather than confront the overt rascism I saw,
Well except Northam isn’t even in the “photo”. If anything, there should be a investigation who ran the photo and why.
Northam is only hanging on to keep VA’s lieutenant governor, who happens to be black (but also a Berniecrat and a piepline opponent), from taking office. Back during the campaign, the Dems got caught encouraging people to vote for the Republican LG candidate, who of course was white.
Anyone who supports this piece of racist garbage can, politely, KMA.
Northam is circling the drain.
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2019/02/come-on-ralph-its-time-to-go/
lol, nope, Northam is not circling the drain. Fairfax is. I bet he resigns soon.