Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe departs his election night event after his loss to Glenn Youngkin. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images
The post-mortems on Virginia's election debacle go on apace. In the face of a GOP alternative reality and a toxic right-wing media aiding and abetting its delusions - "CRT went straight fromFox Newsto the top of voters' minds" - many argue too-timid Dems must ditch the "wounded, dying animal" that is neoliberalism, embrace their better angels, and move bravely left, not fearfully right. As usual, the Liberal Redneck, aka Trae Crowder, cuts to the dire chase. An atheist son of the South, "displaced trailer baby" and walking contradiction who grew up poor in rural Tennessee and was the first person in his family to go to college, he found his politics in part through a close relationship with an uncle who was gay: "That was a moral thing to me. You hate my uncle for being gay? You don't even know my uncle." After years of doing stand-up, he now also joins a "Well Red" comedy trio of Liberal Rednecks that boasts two other "blue sheeps" in their conservative Southern families, Corey Ryan Forester and Drew Morgan. Together, they challenge the stereotype of a "right-wing, Bible-beatin', assault-rifle-totin'" culture while adding their own progressive takes on guns, race, class, addiction and other ills in hopes of nudging red states at least purple. For Crowder, whose Liberal Redneck persona is "a character that's just me cranked up to 11," the Virginia election reveals what's wrong with Dems' approach to good ole boys and girls "by nature skittish creatures unnerved by that they do not understand." The solution is not to "find an even moldier piece of bread" than Terry McAuliffe - "Stop trotting these goddamn day-old baked goods out there and expecting the electorate to be inspired" - but to run young progressives and then "DO STUFF, actual stuff, that will help poor people." "Start getting shit done," he warns, "or start getting shut out."
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Abby ZimetAbby Zimet has written CD's Further column since 2008. A longtime, award-winning journalist, she moved to the Maine woods in the early 70s, where she spent a dozen years building a house, hauling water and writing before moving to Portland. Having come of political age during the Vietnam War, she has long been involved in women's, labor, anti-war, social justice and refugee rights issues. Email: azimet18@gmail.com
The post-mortems on Virginia's election debacle go on apace. In the face of a GOP alternative reality and a toxic right-wing media aiding and abetting its delusions - "CRT went straight fromFox Newsto the top of voters' minds" - many argue too-timid Dems must ditch the "wounded, dying animal" that is neoliberalism, embrace their better angels, and move bravely left, not fearfully right. As usual, the Liberal Redneck, aka Trae Crowder, cuts to the dire chase. An atheist son of the South, "displaced trailer baby" and walking contradiction who grew up poor in rural Tennessee and was the first person in his family to go to college, he found his politics in part through a close relationship with an uncle who was gay: "That was a moral thing to me. You hate my uncle for being gay? You don't even know my uncle." After years of doing stand-up, he now also joins a "Well Red" comedy trio of Liberal Rednecks that boasts two other "blue sheeps" in their conservative Southern families, Corey Ryan Forester and Drew Morgan. Together, they challenge the stereotype of a "right-wing, Bible-beatin', assault-rifle-totin'" culture while adding their own progressive takes on guns, race, class, addiction and other ills in hopes of nudging red states at least purple. For Crowder, whose Liberal Redneck persona is "a character that's just me cranked up to 11," the Virginia election reveals what's wrong with Dems' approach to good ole boys and girls "by nature skittish creatures unnerved by that they do not understand." The solution is not to "find an even moldier piece of bread" than Terry McAuliffe - "Stop trotting these goddamn day-old baked goods out there and expecting the electorate to be inspired" - but to run young progressives and then "DO STUFF, actual stuff, that will help poor people." "Start getting shit done," he warns, "or start getting shut out."
