Virginia Democrats were united. If President Trump was going to be at Jamestown to Commemorate 400 years of Democracy, they weren’t.
But that was then. Now, as Emily Litella said, “Never mind.”
In one of the greatest climb downs in modern political memory, Virginia Democrats have gone from “send him back” to ‘guess we’ll go anyway.’
NBC 12 had a solid wrap up of the reversal, and the boycott that wasn’t.
“Leadership of the Virginia House and Senate Democratic Caucuses released a statement Friday that said, ‘We will not be attending any part of the commemorative session where Donald Trump is in attendance. The current President does not represent the values that we would celebrate at the 400th anniversary of the oldest democratic body in the western world.'”
“”We offer just three words of advice to the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation: ‘Send Him Back.’”
But then things changed, apparently.
A spokesperson for the Senate Democratic Caucus clarified that Friday’s statement “is not a boycott of the event by the whole Caucus.”
“Senators Locke and Saslaw will not be attending the portion of the commemoration that President Trump is included in but it is up to each individual member to make a decision about what they’d like to be involved in,” NBC 12 reports. “I expect that several members will participate in all or parts of the events for the commemoration.”
That’s quite a ways removed from a Virginia Democrats tweet responding to House Majority Leader Todd Gilbert.
“Time to start tracking the House and Senate Democrat Boycott,” Gilbert tweeted.
“You’re damn right it is,” they replied.
Not to be outdone, Gov. Ralph Northam, who once called Trump a ‘narcissistic maniac,’ stopped short of rescinding his invitation to the President.
Northam, who has been attempting to recover from his own scandal involving racist photos and an admitted instance of wearing blackface, instead said that he would not attend the event with President Trump.
Never mind the fact that as Governor, he would not attend a session of the General Assembly, regardless of his feelings about the President.
Others, like Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax, took his own ‘principled’ stand, saying he would attend the event. Some things, he said, are bigger than the President.
Never mind the fact that as the presiding officer of the Senate of Virginia he was obliged to be there as part of his job description.
Organizers report that some two dozen House Democrats had said they were attending as of last check.