On August 28, 1963, John Lewis stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and spoke before the crowd that gathered for the March on Washington. He spoke passionately to issues of his day, asking, “Where is our party? Where is the political party that will make it unnecessary to march on Washington? Where is the political party that will make it unnecessary to march in the streets of Birmingham? Where is the political party that will protect the citizens of Albany, Georgia?”

His words still ring true today. Especially in Virginia. 

Democrats in the Commonwealth are quick to call out their Republican opponents for their moral shortcomings. And the bigotry of the Virginia Republican Party is easy to see. Look no further than the people they have nominated for office: Rep. Bob Goode, who has pushed Q-Anon conspiracy theories; State Senator Amanda Chase, who openly supported insurrectionists and has praised white supremacists; and Corey Stewart, who practically danced down the campaign trail surrounded by skinheads and Confederate Flags.

The latest, and one of the most transparently bigoted acts of the party, comes in the form of an email from state GOP Chairman, Fmr. Delegate Richard Anderson. In the email, Anderson takes aim at Occoquan District Supervisor Kenny Boddye who won an election against Anderson’s wife in 2019. Anderson questions Boddye’s moral standings, saying that he is a” congenital liar”. But his attacks do not end there. Anderson goes on to attack Boddye for not owning land, having not raised any children, and only being married for a short period of time.

Anderson’s comments are blatantly classist and racist. It is a perfect reflection of the current state of the Virginia GOP.

But when Democrats in Virginia call out Republican bigotry, all that any rational person can hear is hypocrisy, deflection, and sanctimony.

Virginia Democrats stand idly by with racists like Governor Ralph Northam who has admitted to doing blackface and Senator Chap Petersen who has said that schools were better when they were segregated. In their ranks in the Virginia Senate, they have not only welcomed a registered sex offender, but they have given him a leadership role. 

For another example of the Democratic Party’s hypocrisy, look no further than the subject of the GOP Chairman’s email–Supervisor Kenny Boddye. A prime exhibit of Democratic hypocrisy at its finest, Boddye has turned his back on his constituents and the Black and brown communities of Prince William County. If Anderson’s attack had started and ended with his reference to Boddye as a “congenital liar”, then that would be a well-deserved critique and apt description of Boddye. Since his election, Boddye has failed to live up to campaign promises. He ran on a platform that included criminal justice reform, yet he, along with three out of four of his Democratic colleagues, voted to bring a racist police chief into the county. Further, he promised to preserve the Rural Crescent, and much to the dismay of Republican and Democratic voters, he has failed to do so.

Where is our party?

Democrats will tell you that our party is their party, but where is the proof? They’ll tell you that the proof is in their policies, but what did it take to get those policies? Ask yourself, what did it take for Virginia Democrats to finally pass an ounce of police reform? It took an eruption of energy on a national scale, an aggressive reckoning with institutionalized racism. And the reform we’ve gotten is still minimal.

Our party does not exist.

Faced with two well-qualified Black women running for the Commonwealth’s executive seat, the Democratic Party is primed to pick former Governor Terry McAuliffe, whose term was underwhelming at best. With a choice between a Black woman who will drive us into the future and a white man who will work to pass regressive policies and drive us backward, Democrats are ready to choose the white man.

Democrats often praise Black women as “the backbone of the party”. They lift up Stacey Abrams as the gold standard for Democrats, but when a Black woman wants to run for the same seat as a white man (who objectively had less experience before his own gubernatorial candidacy) they tell them to wait for their turn. 

The two parties would like to paint a picture that they contrast each other, but that is not the case. As long as the Democratic establishment continues to accept racists, sexual predators, and those who turn their backs on the communities that elect them, at its core, it will be no better than the Republican Party.