Virginia’s US Senate Race: Trumplicanism vs. Corporate Globalism

MAGA candidates were big winners on the June 12^th
primary, a continuing referendum from working, law-abiding Americans who want
their elected representatives to put Americans First. Candidates who strayed
from Trump’s agenda or spent more time attacking than working toward the
President’s goals, they faced a reckoning. Mark Sanford of South Carolina was
the most notable example.

Virginia’s US Senate GOP primary was also contentious and
the most revealing about the populist trend redefining the Republican Party.
It’s bad enough to have a left-wing Sandinista type like Tim Kaine serving as Virginia’s
junior Senator. It’s worse that Virginia’s Republican party pundit class seem
more interest in accommodating rather than confronting the culture wars head
on.

The Liberty Caucus/Koch Brothers/Establishment pick was state
senator Nick Freitas. He gave a stirring speech on the floor of the Virginia
State Senate which went viral. He has a solid but scant conservative voting
record. Corey Stewart is the four-term Chairman of the Prince William County
Board of Supervisors. He represents a county which is majority-minority, the
second-most populous compared to Fairfax County, which some have likened to Los
Angeles County: congested, cosmopolitan, and heavily Democratic. Stewart not
only pushed for his county to oppose illegal immigration, but to remove all
illegal aliens from the region. He proudly implemented the 287(g) program to
deputize county police to help with immigration enforcement.

Stewart has also been a committed conservative activist. He demanded
the Virginia GOP leadership to resign following their terrible losses in 2017.
He protested the Fairfax County Sheriff’s decision to end its 287(g) programs.
He recently rallied railed against Virginia General Assembly Republicans for
voting for the Obamacare Medicaid Expansion! Oh, and he also ran Virginia’s
Trump campaign.

Despite all this, the Virginia political establishment doesn’t
like him.

Stewart’s sharpest critics included
a Townhall.com contributor who connected him with an anti-Semite.
This allegation stems from his former friendship with populist outsider Paul
Nehlen, who ran a primary challenge against Speaker of the House Paul Ryan by
going after the Trans-Pacific Partnership. During his second bid against Ryan, Nehlen’s
comments veered from fiery populism to violence and anti-Semitism. Breitbart
News and Corey Stewart disavowed the man. Case closed.

Critics also slam Stewart’s brief association (if any) with the
Unite the Right Rally organizer in Charlottesville. Like Trump, Stewart has
condemned white supremacy, including on the Left, and he denounced the violence
which erupted on both sides, including Antifa. The media chose to ignore the
violence on the Left. Nevertheless, Stewart has sparred valiantly against
this bias many times, especially on CNN. Check out his victory
lap on the segment, too.

Stewart’s opponents played the “alt-right”  and the race card up until Primary Day, and
Stewart carried the nomination. Yes, it was close, but Pastor E. W. Jackson
taking 12% of the vote, too. Pastor Jackson’s views are as conservative as
Stewart’s, so one can surmise that they will gravitate toward Stewart in the
general election.

The attacks from the media, left and right, against Corey
Stewart sound a lot like Trump Derangement Syndrome. One Fox Newscaster
at the outset described him as the guy who wanted to protect the Confederate
statues throughout Virginia. Does this make Stewart that controversial? In
2017, Democrat Ralph Northam stopped campaigning against the removal of the
statues, and even Ed Gillespie talked about preserving Virginia’s heritage.

Stewart is not a blackguard but the vanguard candidate which
Virginia Republicans need to support. The state has gone from purple to blue
since since the mid-2000s. From the DC Swamp to the biased left-wing media,
plus mass migration, Virginia is not the ruby-red paradise it used to be.

Instead of rejecting the GOP Establishment playbook of
focusing on general income issues and running an “inclusive” campaign, Virginia’s
“conservative” political class needs to confront the hard-left policies
implemented by the growing Democratic cohort. Illegal immigration is ruining
the Old Dominion, and a new class of Republicans like Stewart are tackling the
issue head-on.

Is that a political playbook for failure?

Stewart’s primary victory includes precincts in Northern
Virginia, which had been dragging the state down. He has voiced the concerns of
middle-income families have been feeling the economic pinch. He champions the small
businesses are competing with illegal aliens–both workers and employers!– who
don’t play by the rules. He openly embraces President Trump’s record and
rhetoric. Like the President, Stewart is a fighter who will wage a “vicious
campaign” to brand Tim Kaine as a corporate stiff, a Hillarybot who will sell
the country to the lowest bidder. At this victory party, Stewart chanted with
stalwarts “Lock Her Up!”

The Establishment backed Freitas because he was not Corey, with
a storied military career and the backing of diverse interest groups. He still
lost, though, since Stewart had a strong political machine from his chairmanship
on Trump campaign in 2016 and his failed gubernatorial bid the next year. But
for some fake polls which suggested that he didn’t have a chance, Stewart would
have been the nominee.  He lost that race
by only 1% point. He won the US Senate primary by the same margin. Poetic
justice, perhaps.

Or not. The anti-Trump GOP establishment (The Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol,
former Virginia Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling, among others) would rather
lose than back their candidate. Should their arrogant diffidence worry the
Stewart campaign or the GOP’s chances to defeat Tim Kaine? The same Beltway
Bevy of newsstand conservatives rejected Trump—and he’s our President. Previous
statewide candidates ignored illegal immigration (Cuccinnelli) or stayed away
from the President (Ed Gillespie), and they lost. Who cares what “yesterday’s
men” have to say?

Republican voters have rejected
the corporatist, globalist Bush-Boehner brand of Republicanism. They
want Trumplicanism, an America First political party which looks out for the
little guy, the suburban family, the working-class blue-collar man, and the
minority voters who want to enjoy the American Dream as Americans. Stewart
supports those values, and Virginians should support, or prepare for the Old
Dominion to become the Democratic Domination.