DECONSTRUCT MATT LEWIS'S LATEST COLUMN AND SPOT THE REPUBLICAN CON

Matt Lewis, who's a Trump-averse right-winger, predicts what might happen if Terry McAuliffe loses the Virginia governor's race:

For Democrats ... a [Glenn] Youngkin victory would have a chilling effect, making moderate Democrats in Congress even less likely to support any part of Biden’s agenda that seems overly ambitious.

Really? Centrists in Congress will back away from expanding the social safety net if Democrats lose a governor's race primarily focused on culture-war issues?

Lewis goes on to assert that the culture war is precisely what this election is about. He says culture-war issues are

turning suburban voters against McAuliffe and the Democratic party. In Virginia, this battle has played out largely under the rubric of “education,” with the sub-issues being critical race theory (CRT) and trans-inclusive policies (allowing transgender students to use the bathroom or locker room that matches their gender identity at school).

Lewis spends many paragraphs outlining the GOP's narrative on these issues, ultimately concluding:

But in a world where being a white, cisgendered Christian middle-class suburbanite all but automatically renders you a colonizer and a predator, you can either accept your new status happily or join the side that is fighting back.

In this scenario, being liberal is an esoteric nicety that we can no longer afford. Once upon a time, it was said that a conservative was a liberal who has been mugged. Today, a conservative is a liberal who has been canceled (or fears the prospect of it). The left is coming for us all, now, including people who think of themselves as “allies.”

(Remember, this is coming from someone who is allegedly a moderate conservative.)

The question Lewis never answer is: Why would a race that the GOP has made all about trans inclusion and the teaching of America's racial history intimidate Democrats who want to provide paid family leave and an expansion of Medicare, assuming the race is won by the Republican candidate?

But that's the whole point of the culture wars: Republicans push cultural issues to the foreground of campaigns, and when it works, they declare that the public opposes ... Democratic efforts to expand the social safety net. Because blocking an expansion the social safety net is what the right-wing billionaires who fund the culture-war panics really want.

Thanks, Matt. It took a little deconstruction, but the Republican con is now very easy to spot.