“Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam met with top aides Sunday night amid mounting calls from fellow Democrats to resign over a racist photograph, an episode that has pressured a party that has promoted a zero-tolerance policy against members who have been accused of bigotry and sexual misconduct.”
“after party leaders urged the governor over the weekend to step down after the photo surfaced from his 1984 medical-school yearbook—showing one person in blackface and another wearing a white Ku Klux Klan uniform—he refused, saying the depiction is horrible but that he isn’t in the photograph. He said earlier that he was in the photo.”
I know they are trying to project some kind of collective moral quality here, but is it really in the party’s interests to hunt their own elected members over 35 year old party photos? To me, this portrays them as radicals who put political correctness over practicality.
I mean, it could also be that the guy hasn’t had a change of heart in thee past 35 years with regards to race relations.
The GOP is losing among almost every demographic except for 45+ white men without a college degree – I don’t think they want to lose what little support they have among non-white voters.
Really? This causes me to be less supportive of the Democratic party. I don’t fit the demographic you described and I have not voted for a Republican other than Mitt Romney. Minority voters who oppose Trump on the basis of perceived racism aren’t going to flip parties because of this. However, center people who do not affiliate with either party generally have a negative view of political correctness.
Lol, just realized he was a Dem. That makes a lot more sense – the Dem’s don’t support racists. He should step down. It’s about setting a standard for everyone in the party. You can’t call out GOP for being racists when you protect racism.
This isn’t calling for a resignation because he misgendered a non-binary individual. This is a bit more straightforward.
Ah yes, who can forget that time the dem president got his initial rise in the political world because he led a movement saying the current GOP president wasn’t born in America because he had a non-white name. Despite there being no evidence, and no real claim for it, And the party members/media couldn’t stop talking about it for a couple of years.
The fact that the yearbook would publish this photo in the first place leads meto at least consider that the picture was put on his page as a prank or by accident. Apparently it wasn’t the only extremely racist photo in the yearbook? I mean wtf? What kind of medical school is this?
My concern is that Democrats, having botched the 2016 election badly, will pursue a lose-lose path for themselves and possibly for a majority of US people. They are clearly bowing to leftist pressure within their party to move away from the center. If they run a very left leaning candidate, they will most likely lose, but if they win, it will be bad for the country, which is best represented by moderate representatives.
I would say that it places “principles over party”, which is a good thing. (at least in theory)
The modern Democrat party is largely becoming the party of race- and gender-based identity politics. So trying to distance a known racist from your party is probably in the best interests of the party.
This happened 35 years ago. IMHO, a person’s merits should be evaluated based on their current character–not what they were like when they were a kid.
That said, at least they are being consistent. They are treating their own the same way they treated Kavanaughty.
What do you mean? It’s clear that the Democratic party has opened themselves to internal issues through their previous rhetoric. This has nothing to do with other parties. You can’t just deflect issues and pretend they don’t exist.
I agree with Ohai, and this is a worth complaining about. Northam seems like a dope who is comfortable with casual racism, but he also seems like he has changed and evolved in positive ways. If we destroy everyone who makes a mistake, it sends the message that people can’t learn from their mistakes, and we end up with organizations that don’t learn.
For many middle-aged voters this seems to high a bar – who at that age hasn’t done or said something they regret or is now considered unacceptable? Many of the same pundits calling for Northam to resign are also calling for comprehensive criminal justice reform so convicted criminals can get a second chance.
people with leadership positions should be held to a different standard than say cockroaches of society such as criminals or trust fund babies!
totally kidding trust fund babies should be allowed to do anything as it is given by divine right! their forefathers paid high taxes to give them the privilege to be anything they want to be!