Crazy times in Virginia
Some may not have caught up with what is happening in Virginia. It’s crazy.
The Governor, Ralph Northam, is under huge pressure to resign after it emerged his yearbook page has a photo of two men – one wearing blackface and one dressed in KKK robes. He initially apologised for being in the photo, and then the next day claimed it wasn’t him. No one believes him. He has also admitted to doing blackface once before to dress up as Michael Jackson (wouldn’t whiteface be more appropriate for that? đ
Maybe the blackface photo is survivable, but being in a photo with someone in KKK robes is not. One is merely offensive, while the other is hateful. It’s like dressing up as a Nazi, and send that in as your yearbook photo.
The Lieutenant Governor is Justin Fairfax. Also a Democrat and incidentally African-American. Normally the Governor would resign and he’d take over.
But a Democratic activist who is now a university professor accused him of sexual assault at a democratic conference around 15 years ago. There are no witnesses. Do all the Democrats who demanded one believe the Kavanagh accusers, now look the other way for Fairfax?
And now a second woman has come forward, accusing Fairfax of rape.
But it doesn’t stop there. The third in line of succession is the Attorney-General, Mark Herring. He called on the Governor to resign for the blackface/KKK photo. Now he has admitted he also dressed up in blackface. Arguably could normally survive that, except he had explicitly called on the Governor to resign.
If all three Democrats resigned, then the 4th in line is the Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates – Republican Kirk Cox.
The Democrats won’t want that, so if all three men have to go, they may arrange the order so the Lieutenant Governor resigns first, the Governor appoints a replacement. The Governor then resigns and the new Lieutenant Governor becomes Governor.
But all such a mess. Almost unheard of for the the top three people in a state to all have their careers crumble at the same time.