Maybe?

Combine three ingredients: 1. The anti-intellectualism we've been seeing in recent years from Trumpists. 2. Youngkin's deft crafting of a Toni Morrison book into an effective campaign issue about schools (or perhaps race?). 3. “Fahrenheit 451,” the book (and movie).

What do you get? Maybe?

 

First a few attack stunts on what far-right activists see as bad books. Especially the bad school books they don't want their kids to see. Eventually, just random books. Then Libraries. Book stores. Even the Little Libraries out on the street. 

 

Maybe it won't come to that. I hope not. But I remember  when I was a kid and rock 'n' roll records were being burned to protect children's ears. In 1966, John Lennon cracked a joke about fame, essentially offering that the Beatles had gotten to be more popular than Jesus. Well, some people got hot and set fire to piles of Beatles albums.

 

Still, sometimes good things do flow out of what seem like bad things, at the time. Like, what if Youngkin's win in Virginia emboldens a few Republican elected office holders, trying to find the nerve to push away from Trump? Hey, they've just seen Youngkin manage to do it. He walked a tightrope between avoiding Trump, while trying to energize the cult voters rather successfully. 

 

Then that sort of push-off move starts to catch on within Republican ranks as cool ... maybe that would be the start of a good thing?

 

-- Words and art by F.T. Rea

 

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