Advance Evening News
This evening, the editor on takeaways from Tuesday's election results; & a collaborative program between UMW, Germanna, and local school divisions aims to alleviate the teacher shortage.
FROM THE EDITOR: The Nation Should Turn its Eye to Stafford County, Virginia
By Martin Davis
Virginia Dems showed the nation what it takes to win when government is not working for the people. Tearing it down and pointing the finger aren’t the answer. Creating solutions, is.
Read the full story
Collaborative Program Aims to Address Teacher Shortage in Special Education
By Adele Uphaus
The University of Mary Washington, Germanna Community College, & local public school divisions developed the program, which will graduate its first cohort this spring.
Read the full story
Resources for Giving and Getting Help this Holiday Season
We updated the list today and will republish it regularly. Please let us know if any information is incorrect or if you are hosting a drive that is not included!
Local Obituaries
To view local obituaries or to send a note to family and loved ones, please visit the link that follows.
Support Award-winning, Locally Focused Journalism
The FXBG Advance cuts through the talking points to deliver both incisive and informative news about the issues, people, and organizations that daily affect your life. And we do it in a multi-partisan format that has no equal in this region. Over the past year, our reporting was:
First to break the story of Stafford Board of Supervisors dismissing a citizen library board member for “misconduct,” without informing the citizen or explaining what the person allegedly did wrong.
First to explain falling water levels in the Rappahannock Canal.
First to detail controversial traffic numbers submitted by Stafford staff on the Buc-ee’s project
Our media group also offers the most-extensive election coverage in the region and regular columnists like:
And our newsroom is led by the most-experienced and most-awarded journalists in the region — Adele Uphaus (Managing Editor and multiple VPA award-winner) and Martin Davis (Editor-in-Chief, 2022 Opinion Writer of the Year in Virginia and more than 25 years reporting from around the country and the world).
For just $8 a month, you can help support top-flight journalism that puts people over policies.
Your contributions 100% support our journalists.
Help us as we continue to grow!
This article is published under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. It can be distributed for noncommercial purposes and must include the following: “Published with permission by FXBG Advance.”
If this epistle convinces me of nothing else, it convinces me that Mr Davis is a Democrat. In the truest sense of the world.
I admit freely I am not. I caucus with the Democrats, because to me, there are no other realistic options. I will not waste my vote on a 3rd party candidate until ranked choice voting is available. And any Republican who has chosen to remain with that party for the last 10 years is automatically disqualified in my opinion of ever being worthy of a position of trust.
Though that certainly does not mean that I was okay when MacAuliffe woke up one morning and decided the SCV could no longer have the symbol of their choosing on their license plate because it offended him (and he found such a position to be politically popular). Nor when City Leaders in places like Charlottesville and Richmond chose to remove historical statuary - which was their right - but then not only removed it - but had it destroyed. No better than Conquistadors and Jesuits destroying the artwork of Mayans, Incans, and Aztecs because it was not their art.
As someone who believes to his core in civil liberties, including free speech and freedom of expression - I found such actions close to being as imperial and arrogant as many being done by Republicans.
I'm conservative in other ways too. Which, believe it or not, once used to be considered core ideals of many Republicans. I am concerned regarding the national debt, believe in paying as you go with the exception of investments such as infrastructure, peer reviewed science being the basis of policy rather religious beliefs, want to see a return on investment for monies spent, and believe in capitalism - as long as it's honest and open.
So even if "Republicans" do not see it, because of how their party has been perverted to such a degree over the last few decades, and particularly the last 10 years - I am well aware that my association with the Democratic party which will now likely last until the end of my days - is a marriage of convenience rather than blind love.
C'est la vie.
So it is maybe because of that mindset that I can read this letter with, if not amusement, at least bemusement. Mr Davis is nothing if not consistent.
He sees a reaffirmation of what he already believes. Maybe we all do. Do I? I dunno. Maybe. After all, I'm human too, though I suspect there are many who would argue the point.
But anyway, here's how I see it.
The conclusion that the election results were due to "federal government ineptness and Donald Trump’s indifference to federal workers and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program beneficiaries was central to what happened Tuesday night in Virginia."
Something given as an axiom. But should it be? I disagree on several levels with this statement from which the rest of the article develops.
The federal government is not inept. It is being deliberately and systematically destroyed by Republicans. And they are succeeding. This is not a new or whimsical action of one malicious old man - but rather something that has been funded, supported, and argued for - really as long as there has been a union.
A movement which gained steam in reaction to the New Deal, and then went on steroids when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was enacted. White flight to the suburbs, Nixon's Southern Strategy, Reagan's trickle-down economics, angry little anti-American Newt Gingrich's Contract Against America, increasing media influence for oligarchs led by Fox, conservative religious impacts on policy and civil liberties, corporations gaining all of the benefits of being a citizen with few of the responsibilities, Wall Street bailouts, wars for oil, etc. - this was a long time coming before Trump ever rode down an escalator.
The actions of the Republican party today are merely the end game, not the beginning.
I mention that background not to denigrate that which has happened over the last 10 months, but to provide it context. It did not happen in a vacuum due to the ineptness of an otherwise perfectly competent Republican administration. And they are not indifferent to federal workers or those who receive SNAP benefits. There is open and obvious malicious intent there, which Mr Davis refuses to recognize or discuss.
The Republican destruction and abuse of the federal government with all of its protection IS the plan. As is the caste system which provides welfare based not upon need, but rather party affiliation.
Mr Davis asserts that Democrats won because they ignored all of that and just kept their head down and pretended nothing is wrong.
To me, nothing could be more wrong.
Have people who've never taken open political action in their lives started marching in the streets in protest over and over just to be doing it? These are not some idealistic college kids meeting with their friends for a weekend. But rather people who have spent their whole lives in service to their nation, community, neighbors, and families that are coming out because they are sickened by the horror and abuses they see.
Allies abandoned and threatened with theft. Neighbors and coworkers hounded and arrested by secret police with little regard for habeus corpus, civil liberties, or citizenship status. Science and information suppressed. Open and blatant favoritism and corruption. Free speech chilled. Tax policy changed hourly, not by law - but by whim.
With cities occupied, disaster relief denied, gulags created, killings performed, and wars started by royal prerogative.
And certainly on a state level, Republicans showed how not to run a gubernatorial campaign. A Republican candidate that couldn't be bothered to meet with the Chamber of Commerce? The wonder to me is that she got 4 out of 10 to vote for her, not that she lost.
Are there those who only voted because they got fired from their job in the government, they are losing SNAP benefits, or that Republicans have single handedly created a recession out of what was a robust though inflationary economy with little to show for it?
Certainly.
But let's also credit those who do value this nation's ideals who are seeing them destroyed. There are more than a few who didn't just vote for Josh Cole because he was a nice guy or a friendly neighbor who keeps his head down and minds his manners. They did it as a repudiation of those actions that they've seen above and showing up at the polls have been the only meaningful way they've had to express that repudiation.
To ignore such passion is an insult to those who have it.
So rather than say that the best way to go forward is pretend like none of that happened or matters; I would suggest somethings different.
Yes, be respectful and responsible to all voters - working for pragmatic and realistic solutions. But also recognize the current system isn't working.
Be working toward clear goals while accepting reality.
You want healthcare for all? Start with healthcare for all 1 year olds. Next time you have an opportunity make it for all 2 year olds. Then 4, then 8,.....
Recognize that policies that have widespread support need to be enacted nationwide through Constitutional Amendments. Guns safety laws. Reproductive rights. Policing standards. Term limits. Tax laws. Voting standards. Revisions of the Electoral College. Consumer Protections. Freedom of Information. Environment protections.
Our founders recognized a long time ago that we as a nation gained strength when we were one. The result has been our federal government. It is out of fear of being accountable to that strength that billionaires and corporations have worked so hard to destroy it through the Republican party. We need to recognize it, show its benefits, and build back better - recognizing it was the poor performance of that system which has allowed them the political power to tear it down.
It is only now, when they are succeeding, when people have recognized the value it has, which they now are losing. Some people like knowing when hurricanes are going to hit, or have reliable information on whether a product does or not cause birth defects in their children....
Support candidates who support such things. And have a vision beyond just keeping your head down and never saying what is true. I'd say it is that lack of honesty or clarity of purpose on Democrats part that has been as much as part of the problem as the money coming in from rich to maintain the status quo.
If you have no idea of where you want to go, its likely you'll not go anywhere. Or be led by someone who'll take you where you don't want to be, as is happening now.
Just a thought.