A scandal-plagued power couple: Ralph Northam advising AG-elect Jay Jones in Virginia
Jay Jones made history this week as the first person to be elected attorney general of Virginia after fantasizing about murdering a political opponent’s children and urinating on Republicans’ graves. So it makes sense that Jones would seek the counsel of another Virginia politician who knows what it takes to overcome a scandal involving moral depravity. (Step 1: Refuse to step down. Step 2: Be a Democrat.)
Jones announced Thursday that former Gov. Ralph Northam (D., Va.) was among the “distinguished and experienced leaders” who would serve as co-chairs of his “Standing Up for Virginians” transition team. Northam is best known for surviving a racism scandal that prompted widespread, bipartisan calls for his resignation.
In February 2019, barely a year after he was sworn in as governor, a Washington Free Beacon alumnus stumbled upon Northam’s page in the Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook. The page included a photo of a man in a Ku Klux Klan outfit standing next to a man wearing blackface. Northam’s initial response was not especially competent or compelling. After apologizing for his “decision … to appear” in the “clearly racist and offensive” photograph, he held a press conference and denied appearing in the photo. Northam then acknowledged having “darkened [his] face” with shoe polish “as part of a Michael Jackson costume,” and nearly demonstrated his dance moves before his wife intervened.
Subsequent reporting uncovered Northam’s yearbook page from the Virginia Military Institute, which listed one of his nicknames as “Coonman,” an antiquated racial slur. The governor admitted that some people did refer to him as “Coonman,” but claimed he didn’t know why. Northam’s Democratic colleagues in Virginia were nearly unanimously in demanding his resignation. These calls were echoed by major national figures and groups, including Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, the Democratic Governors Association, the NAACP, Planned Parenthood, and every candidate running in the 2020 Democratic primary.
Nevertheless, he persisted. Northam refused to step down, and eventually, Democrats gave up. Their enthusiasm waned when Northam’s would-be successor, Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax (D., Va.), was credibly accused of sexual assault by several women. Attorney General Mark Herring (D., Va.) was third in line for the governorship, but he also admitted to wearing blackface at a college party in 1980. If all of them resigned, the speaker of the House of Delegates—a Republican—would become governor. So the Democrats just pretended like it never happened.
Then COVID-19 happened. Then George Floyd. Northam embraced the prevailing wokeness of the time, stressing the importance of “inclusion,” and applauding the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond. His former critics flip-flopped without shame. They started appearing with Northam in public and praising his leadership. Then-president Joe Biden, who said Northam should resign because he had “lost all moral authority,” commended the governor at a rally in 2021. Pete Buttigieg, who denounced the “terrible” yearbook photo and demanded Northam’s resignation in 2019, said he was “honored” to appear with the governor at a press conference two years later. The Washington Post editorial board, which had also called on Northam to resign, celebrated his “hard-earned” comeback and “genuine humility.”
It’s clear what sort of guidance Northam could offer Jones in 2025, though they certainly deserve each other. Last month, when leaked text messages revealed Jones’s enthusiasm for murdering Republicans and their children, Democrats rallied around the candidate and refused to call for his withdrawal from the race. Jones fantasized about giving his Republican colleague, former Virginia house speaker Todd Gilbert, “two bullets to the head.” He hoped Gilbert’s “evil” wife and children, whom he denounced as “little fascists,” would die as well, and that he could go to his political opponents’ “funerals to piss on their graves.”
Jones already followed the Northam playbook by refusing to step down and being a Democrat. There’s no telling what this remarkable duo of depraved politicians might accomplish next.
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