“Family Values” and the GOP Class of 2022
Amanda Carpenter on how the GOP is looking the other way on a series of alleged abusers.
🏒 FACEOFF 🏒
Don’t make the papers. An early embarrassment for Glenn Youngkin before he takes office, as NBC reports:
The 17-year-old son of Virginia Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin twice tried to cast a ballot on Election Day even though he is not yet eligible to vote, election officials confirm to News4. He was unsuccessful in his attempt to vote.
News4 is not naming Youngkin's son because he is a minor and has not been charged with a crime.
Fairfax County election officials said the teen went to the Hickory precinct polling place at Great Falls Library. The location is not the polling place assigned to his home address.
It’s hard to know somebody’s motivation when they allegedly commit voter fraud. It’s sort of ironic, given Youngkin’s “election integrity” paddyfingers with #stopthesteal crowd.
Sometimes kids will do stupid things. And in the case of an extremely rich politician whose children attend elite private schools, one cannot chalk this up to being an honest misunderstanding, or a failure of education.
Sorry, but this answer from Team Youngkin doesn’t do it for me.
Civics are important, kids. Except, apparently, in the Youngkin family. This is a failure of parenting and a failure of his campaign staff. Oh well, only four more years to go.
Leading The Bulwark…
“Family Values” and the GOP Class of 2022
AMANDA CARPENTER: How are Herschel Walker, Eric Greitens, Sean Parnell, and Max Miller going to run the Glenn Youngkin playbook?
🎧 On the Pods… 🎧
Bill Kristol: The Party Gets Defined by the President
After this week's drubbing at the polls, Democrats have to get some stuff done, improve their messaging, and they need to tell voters, "We hear you." Bill Kristol joins Charlie Sykes on today's podcast.
SECRET POD: Ruraldammerung 🔐
What are Democrats going to do to stop the bleeding?
Sarah and a very cranky JVL talk about the Bulwarkian New York Times editorial, the Republican surge in rural areas, and Democratic policy priorities.
B2D: Do Democrats Need “Woke Detox”?
The Atlantic’s Jonathan Rauch helps dissect Tuesday’s election results. Are both parties unfit to govern?
For Bulwark+ Members… 🔐
MORNING SHOTS: Is Today (Finally) Infrastructure Day? 🔓
CHARLIE SYKES on how The NYT channels The Bulwark.
THE TRIAD: Gerrymander Mania Is Here. We're All Screwed. 🔐
JVL:
I keep banging on about how anti-democratic redistricting has become, where institutional leverage is used to magnify small majorities (or even small minorities) into distortions so that political power is not meaningfully related to electoral support.
From The Bulwark Aggregator…
President Biden, don’t help our adversaries break NATO - Eric Edelman and Franklin Miller, The Washington Post
All Hail ‘Dormzilla,’ the Monster Dorm the Internet Hates - M. Nolan Gray, City Lab
New Jersey’s Education Rebellion Was a Long Time Coming - Andrew Rice, Intelligencer
MAGA’s New Shock Jock Is a Bounty Hunter With a Troubled Past - Will Sommer, The Daily Beast
Employers who break Biden's incoming vaccine rules could be fined $13,600 per employee and another $136,000 for 'willful violation' - Tom Porter, Business Insider
Rioter who bragged she wouldn’t go to jail gets prison term - Jacques Billeaud and Lindsay Whitehurst, The Associated Press
In Today’s Bulwark…
John Eastman Is Not Good With Computers
JIM SWIFT: The legal scholar who advised Trump on his Jan. 6 strategy is making a lot of mistakes.
‘Eternals’ Review
SONNY BUNCH: Marvel’s first DC movie.
Summit for Democracy: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
SHAY KHATIRI: It’s all about the guest list.
Policing for Profit Targets Low-Income People Who Can’t Afford to Fight Back
JENNIFER MCDONALD: . . . rather than drug kingpins.
🚨OVERTIME 🚨
Dormzilla…
A lot of people on the Internet have been obsessing over this proposed dorm in California. The short version is that Warren Buffett’s right hand man donated $200 million to a school on the condition he got to design the dorm.
I suspect I am younger than the median-age Bulwark reader, so your dorm experiences and mine are probably a little different. As a Freshman at Saint Louis University, I was on the 16th floor of a weird dorm complex named after a beer baron whose business went bust. Sinks in the room (why?) but shared bathrooms and shared showers. Pretty typical.
As a Sophomore, I lived in a former nunnery that housed sorority and fraternity students.
The walls were cinderblock and we had windows that largely faced out and showed us nothing. Usually another building. It felt like a prison or a mental institution.
The big hubbub over #dormzilla is that people won’t get windows. Maybe during COVID people cared more about windows if they were allowed to occupy a dorm, but I don’t know about you: the majority of time spent in a dorm room in college is spent sleeping. And if you don’t want to live there, don’t. But in a place where housing is scarce and expensive, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth… even if he has unconventional ideas about architecture.
Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV. The Nikki Haley edition.
Problems for Project Veritas…
Teaming up for cronyism…
That’s it for me for today. We’ll see you back on Monday. Tech support questions? Email support@substack.com. Questions for me? Drop me a line: swift@thebulwark.com
—30—
Editorial photos provided by Getty Images. For full credits, please consult the article.