Virginia Way The Democracy And Power After 2016

For four hundred years, Virginia's politicians have preached a "Virginia Way" of honor, gentility and democracy. In reality, this ideology bred a corrupt political class, a runaway electricity company, a university that reflected the values of donors and a school system that suffered from cronyism. This Virginia Way prevented rather than promoted the success of its stated democratic ideals. Readers from the right, left and middle will learn much about how their government operates and understand Virginia in a whole new way. Author Jeff Thomas explodes the myth of the Virginia Way with an insightful portrait of the people, politics and power that run the Commonwealth.

Throughout the early years of the 20th century, Virginia was viewed as a Republican state. Citizens in the Commonwealth had not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964. In 2000, the GOP had just won the governor’s race, held both U.S. Senate seats, and had majorities in both the House of Delegates and the State Senate. By 2020, all of that had been reversed. During that period, Democrats won four of five governors contests, elected two US senators, and voted for Democratic presidential candidates in every year since 2008. In 2019, the House of Delegates, where Republicans maintained a 68-32 supermajority in 2011, flipped to Democratic control. With it, the state became a Democratic trifecta, where the party controlled all of the state’s levers of power. Bellwether tells the story of how this happened from someone who was “in the room at the time.” David Toscano began his service in the House in 2006 and became the Democratic Leader of the body in 2011. He examines the special nature of Virginia politics, the demographic changes that underpin much of its shifting political fortunes, and the policies and personalities at the center of the state’s dynamics for the last two decades.

Histories of Virginia have traditionally traced the same significant but narrow lines, overlooking whole swathes of human experience crucial to an understanding of the commonwealth. With Virginians and Their Histories, Brent Tarter presents a fresh, new interpretive narrative that incorporates the experiences of all residents of Virginia from the earliest times to the first decades of the twenty-first century, affording readers the most comprehensive and wide-ranging account of Virginia’s story. Tarter draws on primary resources for every decade of the Old Dominion's English-language history, as well as a wealth of recent scholarship that illuminates in new ways how demographic changes, economic growth, social and cultural changes, and religious sensibilities and gender relationships have affected the manner in which Virginians have lived. Virginians and Their Histories interweaves the experiences of Virginians of different racial and ethnic backgrounds and classes, representing a variety of eras and regions, to understand what they separately and jointly created, and how they responded to economic, political, and social changes on a national and even global level. That large context is essential for properly understanding the influences of Virginians on, and the responses of Virginians to, the constantly changing world in which they have lived. This groundbreaking work of scholarship—generously illustrated and engagingly written—will become the definitive account for general readers and all students of Virginia’s diverse and vibrant history.

Gaslight is the story of an epic, six-year battle between one of the country's most powerful energy companies and the everyday people who stood in the path of its massive fossil gas pipeline. On one side, an archetypal Goliath: a corporation that commands billions of dollars and unparalleled influence over state politicians and federal government agencies alike. On the other, a diverse band of Davids: lawyers and farmers, conservationists and conservatives, innkeepers and lobbyists, scientists, and nurses. Their struggle took them all the way to the Supreme Court, but their larger fight was in the court of public opinion. Would the nation swallow the industry's narrative that gas was "a bridge fuel" to a clean, green future? Or would the public recognize it as a methane bomb, capable of not only wrecking local communities but imperiling the planet? Vivid and suspenseful, Gaslight is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the urgent stakes of the energy choices we face today.

This book underscores the importance of moving beyond lip service or hollow platitudes to mobilize and expand the capacity of social justice movements to foster policy change and incubate new programs at the local, state, and federal levels. In the wake of global protests spurred by acts of police brutality in the United States, present-day problematic policing and racial injustice in Black and Brown communities surged to the forefront of political discourse in recent years. Institutionalized backlash politics, which emerged during the post-Civil Rights era, perpetuated and further exacerbated generations-long racial disparities and stymied systemic change. This edited volume describes pilot programs and community-based initiatives that show promise as tools for equity and racial justice in Black and Brown communities. This book will be of great value to scholars and academics interested in racism, justice, community development and social work. The chapters in this book were originally published in the Journal of Community Practice.

The modern political landscape of Virginia bears little resemblance to the past. The commonwealth is a nationally influential swing state alongside stalwarts like Florida or Ohio. But with increased power comes greater scrutiny--and corruption. Governor Bob McDonnell received a jail sentence on federal corruption charges, later vacated by the U.S. Supreme Court. Corporate influence on the state legislature and other leaders resulted in numerous ethics violations. Scandal erupted at the prestigious University of Virginia when the school ousted its president amid political drama and intrigue. Author Jeff Thomas reveals the intersection of money, power and politics and the corrosive effect on government in a new era.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Comprehensive, enlightening, and terrifyingly timely.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice) WINNER OF THE GOLDSMITH BOOK PRIZE • SHORTLISTED FOR THE LIONEL GELBER PRIZE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • Time • Foreign Affairs • WBUR • Paste Donald Trump’s presidency has raised a question that many of us never thought we’d be asking: Is our democracy in danger? Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have spent more than twenty years studying the breakdown of democracies in Europe and Latin America, and they believe the answer is yes. Democracy no longer ends with a bang—in a revolution or military coup—but with a whimper: the slow, steady weakening of critical institutions, such as the judiciary and the press, and the gradual erosion of long-standing political norms. The good news is that there are several exit ramps on the road to authoritarianism. The bad news is that, by electing Trump, we have already passed the first one. Drawing on decades of research and a wide range of historical and global examples, from 1930s Europe to contemporary Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela, to the American South during Jim Crow, Levitsky and Ziblatt show how democracies die—and how ours can be saved. Praise for How Democracies Die “What we desperately need is a sober, dispassionate look at the current state of affairs. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, two of the most respected scholars in the field of democracy studies, offer just that.”—The Washington Post “Where Levitsky and Ziblatt make their mark is in weaving together political science and historical analysis of both domestic and international democratic crises; in doing so, they expand the conversation beyond Trump and before him, to other countries and to the deep structure of American democracy and politics.”—Ezra Klein, Vox “If you only read one book for the rest of the year, read How Democracies Die. . . .This is not a book for just Democrats or Republicans. It is a book for all Americans. It is nonpartisan. It is fact based. It is deeply rooted in history. . . . The best commentary on our politics, no contest.”—Michael Morrell, former Acting Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (via Twitter) “A smart and deeply informed book about the ways in which democracy is being undermined in dozens of countries around the world, and in ways that are perfectly legal.”—Fareed Zakaria, CNN

Although US history is marred by institutionalized racism and sexism, postracial and postfeminist attitudes drive our polarized politics. Violence against people of color, transgender and gay people, and women soar upon the backdrop of Donald Trump, Tea Party affiliates, alt-right members like Richard Spencer, and right-wing political commentators like Milo Yiannopoulos who defend their racist and sexist commentary through legalistic claims of freedom of speech. While more institutions recognize the volatility of these white men’s speech, few notice or have thoughtfully considered the role of white nationalist, alt-right, and conservative white women’s messages that organizationally preserve white supremacy. In Rebirthing a Nation: White Women, Identity Politics, and the Internet, author Wendy K. Z. Anderson details how white nationalist and alt-right women refine racist rhetoric and web design as a means of protection and simultaneous instantiation of white supremacy, which conservative political actors including Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, Kellyanne Conway, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and Ivanka Trump have amplified through transnational politics. By validating racial fears and political divisiveness through coded white identity politics, postfeminist and motherhood discourse functions as a colorblind, gilded cage. Rebirthing a Nation reveals how white nationalist women utilize colorblind racism within digital space, exposing how a postfeminist framework becomes fodder for conservative white women’s political speech to preserve institutional white supremacy.