At this point, it is well-known that Corey Stewart is no stranger to preying upon the fears of voters. 10 Years ago, he played up the danger posed by undocumented immigrants in our county in order to win political favor and solidify his hold on our county board. He also pushed for a policy which allowed the police to stop and ask people for their papers.
In 2016, he became Donald Trump’s banner man in Virginia, but became so extreme that even Trump fired him from his campaign. He was willing to drum up fears Republican voters had about other Republicans.
In 2017, Corey went back to the well on his xenophobia, feeding the GOP narrative that undocumented immigrants were responsible for the rise of gangs such as MS-13. He then kicked it to the next level by cloaking himself in the Confederate Flag and claiming that defending Confederate Monuments is protecting “our heritage” (he’s from Minnesota.) Most notably, though he became especially known for going down to Charlottesville and aligning himself with Jason Kessler. And yes, he defended Trump’s comments that there was blame on both sides after the Unite The Right Hate Rally claimed 3 lives.
This year, not content with losing twice in a row, Stewart decided that he wanted to run a “ruthless campaign” for U.S. Senate against Senator Tim Kaine. Yes, the same Corey Stewart who aligns himself with anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, Wisconsin Republican House candidate Paul Nehlen and Roy Moore decided to run for U.S. Senate. He got blown out, of course, and lost 2-to-1 in our county, where he was used to winning countywide.
Does that stop him from fearmongering, though? Not a chance.
Last Tuesday, Corey called forth the most extreme right-wing elements of our community to rally against the Equal Rights Amendment. Frank Principi — one of the only 2 Democrats we currently have on our county board — proposed a resolution that simply stated that our county supports the ratification of the ERA, and that we urge our State House to ratify it. In response, Corey & his band of friends invoked the Family Foundation and their massive misinformation campaign to bring supporters from all around to drum up fear about the ERA.
As we know, the ERA is simply about encoding legal protection from discrimination based on sex into the U.S. Constitution. They made it about bathrooms, prisons, abortions and sports and said that it hurts women. Among the people Corey called to help with this smear campaign was Former State Delegate Bob Marshall, who was soundly defeated by Danica Roem last year.
At the end of the political theater show put on that night, the Republicans completely dodged voting on the ERA resolution by letting it die without a vote, and instead proposed a substitute resolution that simply affirmed that the board was “in support of equal rights.” All but one of the Republicans then voted to pass that watered down resolution, but not before lecturing all of us present for why the ERA would be terrible if ratified.
Here’s the thing to remember about Prince William Democrats, though — we fight back.
Last night, Indivisible NOVA West held it’s last meeting before the end of the year, and made the meeting all about the ERA and how we’re not giving up just because we have a bunch of regressive politicians on our county board.
Among the speakers to address the ongoing fight for the ERA was my state delegate Hala Ayala who is a chief co-sponsor of the ERA resolution which will be taken up in Richmond next year. She spoke to how this has been a decades-long fight, and how we’re not going to let a setback like last Tuesday hold us back.
At the end of the meeting, candidates running for local office in 2019 were invited to address the group and pitch who we are and why we’re running. After what we’ve been seeing over the years from the county board dominated by Corey Stewart and his allies, it obviously isn’t hard to see why we’d be running to unseat all of them.
Take a scroll up top to the picture used for this diary. That’s the board we currently have. Now take a look at the above picture. Which set of folks reflect the diversity of Virginia’s first and largest minority-majority county? Help us make a change!