Disfunctional

When now Democrat (regardless of what CCN says) VA Governor, Ralph Northam (you know, the guy who either dressed in blackface or in a KKK costume or didn't, he can't remember accurately) was running for governor, he characterized his GOP opponent, Ed Gillespie as a "racist" for a variety of nonsensical reasons (like being in the same political party as Donald Trump) that social justice warriors now define as "racism." Northam won, in large part because of that. There's a rumor that the Gillespie campaign knew about the blackface/KKK photo, but chose not to us it during the campaign. After all, it did happen 30 years ago and dredging up med school stuff is a low blow. The Dems would never do stuff like that—consider the Kavanaugh hearing as an example. Wait ... what!

Anyhow, it can be argued that after John McCain was accused by the Obama campaign of being unhinged and too old because he tried to assist as the economy melted down in 2008, or that Mitt Romney was accused by the 2012 Obama campaign of giving a woman cancer or pushing grandma off a cliff or keeping a file of woman job applicants (the horror!!), and neither GOP candidate (both gentlemen) chose to respond in kind (and lost), it's reasonable to posit that Gillespie did the same thing.

Whether or not the Gillespie campaign story is true isn't the point. Arguments can be made for and against using such dirt and in an election about policies and issues, it would NOT be used. But during the past few decades the Dems have had significant trouble winning elections when they are only about policies and issues, so they deal the dirt and generally get a pass. In fact, it's instructive to see the faux outrage directed at Donald Trump Jr. when he tried (and failed) to get dirt on Hillary Clinton from a (gasp!) Russian lawyer. The GOP is not allowed to look for dirt. Compare this to the across-the-board yawn when it was found that Hillary Clinton bought and paid for a phony salacious dossier on Donald Trump (all false) prepared in collusion with the Russians. The only standards are double standards.

Instapundit contributor Ed Driscoll comments:

“Democrats sure got it good,” John Nolte likes to say. If you’re on the left, you can tell then-President Obama to “Go for the throat,” and then pose afterwards as an objective Sunday morning talk show moderator. If you’re on the left, you can say the most racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic statements imaginable, and wind up with a sweet gig at NBC. Your “spiritual advisors” can utter racist statements, which are first praised as solemn truths and then airbrushed away when they become inconvenient gaffes.

As [Instapundit Founder,] Glenn [Reynolds] has written, Trump is “a symptom of how rottenly dysfunctional our sorry political class is. Take away Trump and they’re just as awful and destructive. He just brings their awfulness to the fore, where it’s no longer ignorable. Now they’re willing to play with fire, risking the future of the polity over little more than hurt feelings, in a way that would have been unthinkable not long ago.” He’s “not the cause of Washington’s decline. He’s a symptom, the wrecking ball that many Americans think was required.”

And Northam and the dirt that is taking him down is a symptom of "how rottenly dysfunctional our sorry political class is."