Keeping Campaign Promises: A New GOP Tradition Thanks to Trump?

Many candidates will offer up anything to get elected, then rarely feel obligated to deliver later. That’s a nigh-universal truth people from all political bents can get behind. Then Donald Trump took the White House and actually tried – often successfully – to keep his word, and it may well become a new GOP tradition. There was novelty in Trump keeping his campaign promises, but if the goings on in Virginia are any indication, this next batch of Republicans plan to make a habit of it.

A Promise Made

Glenn Youngkin made the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT) a central issue to his campaign for governor of Virginia, and he singled out Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) specifically for holding woke ideology as a higher priority than the well-being of the students. But then he won. As Liberty Nation’s Tim Donner explained the day Youngkin was sworn in, some doubted either his ability or desire – or both – to deliver.

So far, there’s good news for the worriers. On his first day in office, Youngkin signed 11 executive actions, including orders that removes CRT from schools, gives students the choice of whether to wear masks, and calls for an investigation into the sexual assault at LCPS, which he feels was handled incorrectly after the district transferred a “nonbinary” boy convicted of raping a female student to another school – where yet another girl was then allegedly attacked.

He also named two women with histories of fighting critical race theory to top posts in the Virginia Department of Education. “It’s a new day in Virginia,” the governor said in a statement Saturday, Jan. 15, “but the work is only the beginning.” Time will tell whether he will indeed “work just like we promised,” but he’s certainly off to a good start.

Just hours after being sworn in, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, who ran on fighting for kids’ rights and a return to law and order, announced investigations into Loudoun County Public Schools and the state’s parole board. “One of the reasons Virginians get so fed up with the government is the lack of transparency – and that’s a big issue here,” he wrote in his statement. “The Virginia Parole Board broke the law when they let out murderers, rapists, and cop killers early on their sentences without notifying the victims. Loudoun County Public Schools covered up a sexual assault on school grounds for political gain, leading to an additional assault of a young girl.”

Miyares also informed about 30 staff members they were no longer employed by the attorney general’s office, including a couple from the Office of Civil Rights. Though such a “cleaning house” turnover is hardly rare after a change in leadership, when taken together with the other actions, it shows he hit the ground running just as hard as Youngkin.

The New Normal?

LIberty Nation Senior Political Analyst Tim Donner recently described Donald Trump as “a man who delivers on huge promises, with an actual record undeniably superior to that of his feckless successor.” Though Biden’s failure has been spectacular so far, his administration is more reminiscent of the old establishment way of doing things – he’s the quintessential untrustworthy politician. But while Trump stood “contrary to any politician most of us have ever witnessed,” two fiery Republicans in Virginia certainly appear to be following in the former president’s footsteps. With the 2022 midterm “red wave” that seems all but inevitable, Younkin and Miyares bring the feeling of foreshadowing. Are they simply isolated examples, or harbingers of what is to come?

~Read more from James Fite.