A screen cap of a Jay Jones political advertisement. National Review.
The Democratic candidate for the position of Attorney General of Virginia has been hit with a major scandal after texts where he threatened violence against Republicans resurfaced. National Review. Jay Jones sent the texts back in 2022 before he was a politician to a Republican House Delegate, Carrie Coyner. The texts, which came in the aftermath of the death of Democrat Joe Johnson, decried the fact that Johnson was getting bipartisan support. Jones also said that if he was in a room with Republican House Speaker Todd Gilbert, Pol Pot and Hitler, he would shoot Gilbert twice. Coyner called Jones to get him to clarify his remarks but he doubled down, saying that he wished Jennifer Gilbert's children would die and that Todd and Jennifer Gilbert were "breeding little fascists". The texts are old, but are an example of an October surprise for the 2025 race. Jones has faced bipartisan condemnation for his words and has apologized for him, but has not so far dropped out of the race as Republican critics are demanding.
My Comment:
You would have thought that the Democrats would have vetted their candidates as this political scandal should have been caught. I guess not, and this scandal may very well flip what was an extremely tight race for Virginia's Attorney General race into a Republican hold. It could even lead to the Republicans keeping the Virginia Governor's mansion, though that race has a more definite Democratic Lead.
It comes at a time when most folks are extremely concerned about violence coming from the Democratic Party. After the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the last thing the Democrats need is one of their candidates calling for political violence against a Republican.
But it's the comments about the Gilbert's children which is really over the line. I'm not exactly sure how old their children are, but even if they were adults it's absurd to want to see someone's children killed for political reasons. His reasoning is insane, he thought that if they did die it might change the minds of the Gilberts politically. Even if that did happen, it's an obscene thing to wish for and it's one that I think will greatly damage Jay Jones and his election campaign.
It's also not something you can really dismiss as dark humor. Folks have been making the "Hitler, Pol Pot, and some other guy" joke for ages and if that was all this was, I'd say it was mostly a non-story. But you can't really dismiss this in the same way as only the most edgy people make jokes about kids dying and even then, folks do it on anonymous message boards, not with their names attached to it. Given that Jones said this to a member of Virginia's congress, and doubled down on it when pressed, it's almost certainly fair to say that he does indeed want Republican children to die.
That's not something the voters should forgive in this or any political climate. And again, it shocks me that the Democrats put him up as their candidate. Either they didn't vet him and this scandal blindsided them, which is the charitable reading, or they knew about it and didn't' care. Which has some pretty bad implications for the state of the Virginia Democrats. I would hope that they simply didn't vet him, the Democrats have failed at doing so in the past in Virginia, most notably with the Ralph Northam blackface scandal.
What is more disturbing is that the Democrats aren't calling for Jones to drop out. Given that the election is this November, I understand why, a slim chance of Jones winning despite the scandal is better than a zero chance of him winning if he drops out. But that's such a blatant realpolitik reasoning that I don't think the voters will forgive them for that. Like I said, Jones had a decent chance of losing the race regardless, this wasn't his only scandal, but the Democrats should have just raised the white flag on this one.
Either way, this seems like another example of just how deranged the Democrats have gotten. I shouldn't be surprised by this after the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Far too many folks on the left celebrated that assassination and wish for further violence. But even given that context, I am shocked that Jones said what he said and hasn't been kicked out of the race yet.
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