This weekend, amidst the snow storm that (at least around these parts) was much ado about nothing, my adopted home inaugurated a new Governor, Republican Glenn Youngkin, one of those “business” guys certain people like so much, because success in one area inevitably guarantees success in another, right?

As one would expect, the inaugural address included all the right platitudes about looking out for everyone, regardless of political stripe, et cetera et cetera:

No matter who you voted for, I pledge to be your advocate, your voice, your governor.

Sounds nice, doesn’t it? Of course it does. But it’s kinda bullshit.

Let’s look at a couple of his first-day actions:

Executive Order #1 is all about ending the use of “inherently divisive concepts, including critical race theory” (emphasis mine); which, as anybody paying any kind of attention at all, is an obvious sop to racist white people so they don’t have to feel bad when history class talks about how white people used to own black people around here.

“Critical Race Theory,” by definition, is an academic theory that came around in the 1980s in law school circles as a way to examine how racism has influenced the evolution of US law, and how through that influence, racism might be being perpetuated due to those legal and bureaucratic constructs. Simply put, laws are written by people, and people are imperfect and come with inherent biases, and those biases, including racist elements, can influence the system.

It’s the kind of thing that career academics in post-graduate education use as a framework for researching institutions and systems. It’s not a thing that’s taught in elementary school social studies classes. It has, however, has become a term that conservative activists found works well to appeal to the emotions of suburban white people who’ve been told that it means that K-thru-12 curriculum teach that all white people are oppressors and thus make white people feel bad.

The order even quotes MLK on his birthday, deploying the ““will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” line, which, according to Republicans is the only thing he ever said, and it makes him one of them. They’re wrong.

This appeal to white people’s hurt feelings is what really won him the election (along with the fact that Terry McAuliffe ran a crap campaign overall), and so it’s the cornerstone of his education policy; never mind that it’s all mostly bullshit. In states like this one, though, it’s concerning because textbooks legitimately used to frame the Civil War era in “Lost Cause” rhetoric and speak to the “feeling of strong affection” between slaves and their owners, and honestly, that’s not a thing we should be regressing to.

More immediately concerning, however, is Executive Order #2, which ends Virginia’s mask mandate in schools, which, in this current age of highly-transmissible Omicron, is highly irresponsible, and the logic cited in the document is highly suspect, quoting the kind of research one finds in fringe YouTube videos.

This, friends, isn’t going to end well. The numbers are not good, and if we stop enforcing even the limited countermeasures we had in place, it’s only going to get worse.

But once again, it salves the feelings of a certain flavor of Virginian, and that, apparently, is all that matters to Governor Youngkin.

Gonna be a long four years.