The election of 2025 isn’t a surprise. Nor the end for Virginia. It is a clarion call warning.

The election of 2025 isn’t a surprise. Nor the end for Virginia. It is a clarion call warning.

Here is a piece, in two parts, written in 2020 after the Democrats won back the General Assembly in 2019 and an update after the 2021 Republican win state-wide. The pieces point to some key reasons – not all – for why Virginia Republicans just had our November 2025 loss.

1. Why Virginia Is at the Precipice of Socialism
2. Virginia’s Way Ahead (from 2020)
3. How Virginia Dodged a Bullet in 2021

Introduction

The return of Democrats to total power in Virginia after 26 years of power sharing has a history.  It is the tale of what has happened across America and uniquely in Virginia. It would be the ebb and flow of politics as usual story, except the Democrats of today aren’t the Democrats of 26 years ago.  The new Democrats are dedicated to Identity politics, Socialism, Open Borders, and Statism, as well as the increasingly bizarre anti-science theology of Climate Change and DoubleThink of Transgenderism.  Today’s Democrats, for the lack of better label, are the “Left.”  And, they are rabid.  The root of their ideas is the French Revolution.  Those ideas are evolved to become full-blown Human Secularist Totalitarianism.  Now, they will govern in Virginia.

1. How We Lost the Government of the People, For the People, By the People

It took a long time to get to this precipice of doom for Virginia and America.  From the Federalist Papers and the ratification of the 1787 Constitution to the ‘Recent Unpleasantness’ of 1861-1865, the disagreements about government had limits.  The disagreements ranged from Thomas Jefferson’s ideas on one side to Alexander Hamilton’s on the other.

During the Civil War and Reconstruction the Federal government expanded, created new powers and seized new authority.  At the dawn of the 20^th century, the American society’s adjustments from an Agrarian to an Industrial Era called for reform.  Because of the corruption of one party rule, either Republican or Democrat, in too many cities and rural counties, across the North, South and West, the Federal government was the focus for reform.  These ‘Progressive’ reforms were embraced by wings of the Republican and Democrat parties.  The power of the Federal government was expanded in labor laws, land use, public health and banking.

From 1900 to today, all branches of the Federal Government – the executive, legislative, and judiciary – have abrogated, ignored, abused, and shredded the Constitution of the United States of America.  Many Americans, sometimes a majority, have applauded these unconstitutional actions, laws, and rulings.

Republican President Herbert Hoover overreacted to the shock of Crash of 1929.  Democrat President Franklin Delano Roosevelt pushed for socialism in the name of democracy as far as he could.  Big government ‘Statism’ became normal.  The only issue between Republicans and Democrats was how much state power and control was the right amount.  Very few voices spoke out with an alternative view.  Then, Ronald Reagan challenged incumbent President Gerald Ford in 1976.

President Ronald Reagan changed the debate during his eight years from 1980-88.  His tax cuts and build up of National Defense transformed the economy and Cold War.  He was the architect for victory for both.  Reagan was unabashedly Conservative.  Thirty years later Reagan remains the icon of what Right looks like for Conservative Americans.

President George H.W. Bush compromised on tax hikes.  His betrayal of principles – in the name of compromise – cost him a second term.  President Bill Clinton’s overreach on liberal social issues, tax hike and socializing healthcare prompted the Republican Revolution of 1994.  But, the Republicans promptly blew it.  The modest improvements in cutting the rate of government growth and welfare reform didn’t fulfill a Conservative agenda.  The election of 2000 showed how divided the country was – and how little the difference between second generation Establishment politicians mattered. 

Yet, the Conservative momentum begun by Reagan continued to build across America.  It produced Republican majorities in both Houses of Congress.  Unfortunately, Republican electoral victories became the decade of lost opportunity. 

Republicans supported a strong National Defense, however ill-managed, and the Bush tax cut – to their credit.  Meanwhile, Republicans grew government.  Republicans lost the Congress in 2006 because they abandoned Republican principles.  Like the Virginia Republican Creed’s:

• Fiscal responsibility and budgetary restraints must be exercised at all levels of government and
• That the Federal Government must preserve individual liberty by observing Constitutional limitations

Republicans bought the convenient lie that they couldn’t win elections unless they brought home the bacon to their constituencies.  Republicans doled out favors to corporations, paid contributors with expensive earmarks, and expanded the fundamentally flawed entitlement programs.  The Republican Congress became “Democrat Lite”.  Conservatives lost trust in Republicans.

During the six years the Republicans controlled both Houses of Congress and the White House, they added over three trillion dollars to the national debt, passed No Child Left Behind, passed Medicare Part D, reversed themselves on welfare reform with huge expansion of food stamps, and subsidized corporations – like the corn ethanol program – while expanding mandates. 

Republican misrule extinguished the distinction between a party of fiscal Conservatives – limiting the role of government and the party of fiscal spendthrifts, fools, – expanding government regardless of the cost.  The difference became: Democrats want to harness government for Liberal goals and Republicans want to harness government for “compassionate Conservative” goals.  The difference is moot, because both approaches are wrong and unconstitutional.

Furthermore, both Democrats and Republicans leveraged the economic transition from an Industrial Era to the IT Era to line their pockets.  They – the Political Establishment – sent American jobs overseas in guise of free trade.  The career Democrats and Republicans in power, whether elected, appointed, or bureaucrats of the state, are measured in degrees.  Together, the Rs and Ds are the Political Establishment.

They never considered alternatives to make production more profitable in America – like cutting corporate taxes, increasing energy production, etc.   

The unprecedented overreach of President Barrack Hussein Obama created the TEA Party.  Obamacare was the naked government grab for one sixth of the U.S. economy.  It sought control for what is deeply personal to every person – their healthcare. 

The TEA Party captured frustration against the Democrat and the Republican Establishments destroying the United States of America and the Commonwealth of Virginia.  They’d been at it for decades.  This Political Establishment spends and taxes too much, seizes new powers, and punishes with over regulation and judicial tyranny.  They won’t defend our borders. The Establishment can’t fix the Federal healthcare, welfare and social security entitlements – which will bankrupt the Nation.  During the economic crisis, a housing and banking bubble, of 2008 the Political Establishment made economic troubles worse

The TEA Party had big marches, elected a few candidates, and dissolved its political power as divided into factions, personalities, and insignificance.  In Virginia, the demise was a lost opportunity

The long eight years of the Obama Administration included the slowest, weakest economic recovery in American history.  The leftward lurch of major institutions across America – government at all levels, public education and academia, media, entertainment, large corporations, unions, and too many churches and synagogues gained speed and momentum.  Consequently, the Great U.S. Culture War between Conservatives and the Left intensified.

Many Americans realized the career politicians flunked the competency test.  The good people of Virginia and across America expected their elected representatives to do their duty.  But, the elected leaders proved to just be elected politicians where politics is just business.   These career politicians can’t be trusted with The People’s money, liberty, or lives.  Both parties failed.  Neither party listened to what a clear majority wanted.

Donald Trump got it.  In 2016, Donald Trump won the Republican nomination.  He defeated every other GOP candidate in primary after primary. He won the election with the White, working class Yankees in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin putting him over the top.  They had voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012, but they saved the Republic from HRH Hillary the First.  Trump didn’t carry Virginia. 

Meanwhile, What Happened in Virginia

Despite districts gerrymandered by Democrats, Republicans built to a majority of seats through the ‘90s in the General Assembly under Governors George Allen and Jim Gilmore.  Then, successive Republican candidates for governor (until McDonnell in 2009) ran weak, government business as usual campaigns and lost.  In 2003, Republican legislators gave the Democrat governor the largest tax increase in Virginia history.  The tax increase created the largest budget surplus – and Republicans spent every penny.  Then, they did it two more times.

Furthermore, Republicans tried – as allies joined at the hip – with the Democrats to create regional governments to tax and spend more for ‘transportation.’  Virginia voters rejected regional governments at the polls in 1998 and 2002.  Yet, in 2007, the Republicans cheered the infamous HB 3202 to cram regional governments, more taxes and more spending for doubtful projects – and worse management – down Virginians’ throats.  Until, the Virginia State Supreme Court unanimously over-turned the law as Unconstitutional.  It seems Virginia Republicans misunderstood what “no taxation without representation” meant.   In 2008, for the first time since 1964 Virginia voted Democrat for President.  No wonder why.

Bob McDonnell won the Governorship in 2009 with “Bob is for jobs.”  No Republicans have won statewide since then. 

Republicans lost badly in 2013 and 2017 across the Commonwealth.  They had no message, no focus, no vision, and weak campaigns.  Even when Ed Gillespie gained more Republican votes than any Republican in Virginia history, the Democrat turn out buried him. 

An election can be won in Virginia by carrying 8 cities and counties and losing 125.  Democrats have proven and are expanding this urban and suburban vs. rural and small city divide.  Clearly, other factors are involved as well.  Racial identity politics plays.  The role of NoVA as the bedroom community of Rome II is significant.  The cultural differences between Virginians as Southerners and non-Southerners who have moved to Virginia matter.  And, President Trump is a polarizing figure by his words and actions as well as being objectified by those suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome.

The Democrats developed the information technology to ramp up their turn out in off year elections.  It succeeded well in 2017 with micro-targeting of individuals with text, emails, calls, mail, many platforms of social media, and messaging.  It did well again in this recent election of 2019.  Although, the Washington Post reports Republicans got 40k more votes than Democrats.  The votes weren’t in the Virginia house districts gerrymandered by a University of California professor to be D+8. 

In 2018, the Republicans helped expand socialist Medicaid for 400k Virginians.  With a few outstanding Conservative exceptions, the Republicans in the General Assembly represent Crony Capitalism.  The Republicans fail to provide a vision for the way ahead on issue after issue.

The Republican Party of Virginia became an impotent, incompetent, and insignificant excuse for a state political party.

The Democrats morphed during the past two decades. 

The Democrat coalition of Identity Politics coalesced behind candidates with the discipline the old Soviets and Mao’s Red Guards would admire.  The Governor and Attorney General weren’t held accountable for their acts of racial mockery.  The Lt Governor wasn’t questioned by the Me Too Movement about accusations of sexual assault. 

The hard Left, rabid Democrats have a lengthy agenda of socialist transformation to impose on Virginia in 2020.  Just watch and see.    

2. Virginia’s Way Ahead (written in 2020)

This precipice for Virginia is not the party politics as usual competition of elections among Republicans, Democrats, and Libertarians.  It’s more than the ideological differences among Conservatives, the Left, and Libertarians – even though ideas matter greatly.  The issue at this precipice, is who gets to acquire and exercise power – and why and how they legislate, govern, and adjudicate. 

If the Democrats, the Left, keep power, they will expand government authority and intrusion, make people more dependent, more subservient, and more controlled by the state. They may call themselves Democratic Socialists, but they will push Socialism, Political Correctness, and advance their incipient Totalitarianism against free speech, Christian morals, and every belief and heritage they hate.  They will make the state the useful fools, d’himmis, to Islamists who use our freedoms against us.  The Left will transform Virginia, in the same manner they seek to destroy America, to re-make it as every failed socialist, communist, and national socialist has before them.

The Republicans are incapable of gaining power as they are.  There is no leader.  No purpose.  No vision.  Additionally, should a leader arise, unless the basic business proposition – follow the money – of the Republican Party of Virginia changes, a victory would produce the same feckless Republican Establishment as before – in short order. 

What is about to befall our Virginia, our lives, is too important to leave it to the politicians. 

The People feel like they are losing their country.  Some are certain America and, especially now, Virginia are already lost.  I meet these folks across Virginia.  I read their fears on social media.

This is not the time to quit.  Not the time to surrender or run. 

This is a unique time of opportunity. 

It can be a revolutionary season that starts here in Virginia.  Just as the ideas that shaped America were defined in Virginia.  We can proffer the ideas that will serve our children and their children well. 

Virginians want to be free.  Virginians want the government to respond to their direction, not to be servants of the state.  Virginians want to live under the Rule of Law.  Virginians don’t want to be ordered about by bureaucrats in Washington, judges, or career politicians.  Virginians know their personal liberty and opportunity for their families is directly tied to economic freedom.  Virginians know socialism, statism, and the oppressive Nanny state are a direct threat to their freedom, family and faith.

We, The People, are looking for new leadership.   Not tried and compromised, tried and found wanting, or tried – rejected and trying again – leadership.  Politics can be more than the mere business it is where elections are just promotions for career politicians.  New faces are needed.   Moreover, The People need clear voices and brave hearts. 

In 2021 Virginians can take a big step to taking back their freedom.  We can lead the fight in the states for America’s soul.  We can regain the freedoms lost and honor stained since the Founders’ followed noble Virginians to pledge their life, liberty, property and sacred honor to fight for their Rights.  It will be a tough challenge to win back rights.  And, tough again to propel what is right – forward to the next generation.

The first order business is this: We, The Good People of Virginia, need 100 candidates ready to run as Republicans in all 100 seats for the House of Delegates election of November 2021. 

We cannot, must not, be passive spectators to the Republican Party nomination process for the House.  We must recruit new candidates and vet incumbents ourselves. 

When a new majority is elected, they can repeal every wrong piece of legislation from 2020-21. 

We need our candidates by Labor Day 2020. 

Everyone will be engulfed by the Presidential election.  Virginians should care and vote appropriately in the Congressional and Presidential races.  But, our objective must be 100 candidates for the House of Delegates by Labor Day 2020.

Republican Party politics will offer candidates for state-wide office for 2021.  If they are trustworthy, good.

Regardless, the grassroots, The People, can change the House of Delegates in 2021. We can change the Senate in 2023.  The power to protect, preserve, and move Virginia forward wonderfully is in the Virginia General Assembly.

Let’s do this.

James Atticus Bowden

3. How Virginia Dodged a Bullet in 2021 (written in 2021)

The win in Virginia is a huge as the talking heads are saying.  Several key points stand out:

• The Mama Bears matter.  Suburban Mothers and their compliant husbands in NoVa, Richmond, and Tidewater (Hampton Roads) are a huge part of the winning coalition. The pragmatic, non-ideological or religious, objections to Critical Race Theory (CRT), Trans folly with boys in the girls room and winning their sports, and dumbing down academics with no advanced courses, order of merit, standardized tests, etc. wins a lot of votes. 
• Rural votes matter.  If you lose 70-30 in an urban congressional district, you must win 80-20 in a rural congressional district.  The huge increase in rural votes is how Ohio became more safely conservative.  It’s a winning tactic.
• Woke is a joke.  The media takes it seriously, but a governing majority of Americans rejects it.  Have to keep up the fire in a big way – confronting them with facts over and over.  The small, but real, movement of Blacks to leave the Democrat plantation is significant. 
• Half of Virginia votes hard core Commie.   Yes, almost half of Virginia are hopeless today.  Maybe they can be converted to embrace a more conservative reality.  TBD.  It’s pathetic and deeply concerning that so many people vote this way.  This is not a win for ideology.  It’s a win for pragmatism called “Commonsense.”

2021 was the “perfect storm” that elected Glenn Youngkin.  Not an transformative win.  Not an epochal change.  A squeaker win which can be capitalized or wasted in the next four years.

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