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People Are Laughing at Last-Ditch Attempt to Smear Youngkin With Confederate Patch Photos

Journalists shared photos Monday of a man wearing a Confederate flag jacket at Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin’s final rally before Election Day.

SO WHAT

This smells like desperation.

WHAT HAPPENED

The photos — taken from behind of a man sporting a sporting cowboy hat and a jean jacket with a Confederate flag patch — were snapped from the press pen at the Loudoun County Fairgrounds Monday and shared by reporters from the likes of NBC News, Salon and local CBS affiliate WUSA.

Conservative commentators on Twitter ridiculed the media for what they saw as yet another dishonest racism smear of Youngkin — whose rise in the closely watched “blue state” race has raised Democratic fears of a national collapse.

Noam Blum, an editor at Tablet, listed some of the widely cited reasons to be skeptical of the photos:

  • The man’s jacket and patch looked brand new.
  • He conveniently stood directly in front of the assembled press.
  • He and his female companion kept their backs turned and wore cowboy hats so almost no identifying features were visible.

Michael Brendan Dougherty, a National Review writer, speaking for many on the right, criticized reporters’ failure to interview the man — and assumed he was as fake as the white supremacists who showed up to Youngkin’s rally Friday in Charlottesville.

Others just LOL-ed.

  • “Who cares?”asked Republican activist Pete D’Abrosca.
  • Tom Elliot, the founder of Grabien Media, joked the media would soon be “burning crosses” as fodder for anti-GOP Twitter content.
  • The PoliticalMath account shared its own version of a news photo from a Youngkin rally.

CLOSING ARGUMENTS

On stage at the Loundon County rally, Youngkin reiterated his winning message of support for local parents, who have led a nationwide uprising against woke school boards.

  • “Let me be clear,” Youngkin said to cheers from the large and boisterous crowd. “On Day 1, we will not have political agendas in the classroom, and I will ban ‘critical race theory.'”
  • Youngkin, an underdog in Virginia, which President Joe Biden won by 10 points in 2020, has surged to a late lead in the major polling averages.

Meanwhile, Terry McAuliffe, the establishment Democratic candidate, made a final push in his party’s dishonest effort to portray Youngkin as a Trumpian bigot, at one point calling him “Glenn Trumpkin.”

  • “Guess how Glenn Youngkin is finishing his campaign?” McAuliffe told a modest crowd outside a Fairfax brewery Monday night. “He is doing an event with Donald Trump here in Virginia.”
  • “That was a lie,” as Politico Playbook reported Tuesday. “Trump wasn’t in Virginia and he never campaigned with Youngkin, though he did make the case for the GOP candidate — ‘fantastic guy!’ — during a brief  ‘tele-rally.'”
  • McAuliffe also promised, if elected, he would create a program to bring more nonwhite teachers to Virginia.

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