Election-denier, Jan. 6 attendee, Trump loyalist — these are all phrases to describe the current Republican Congressional candidate, John McGuire, in the district which encapsulates the University. Disturbingly, these phrases and the standards they connote have become something of a trend for Republican candidates in the University’s district, similarly defining our current Congressional Representative Bob Good. The qualities Good and McGuire hold — absolute loyalty to one political figure and a lack of support for the sanctity of elections — fail to meet even the lowest benchmark for what we ought to demand in our Republican political representatives. Such inadequate representation must not continue unabated.
Despite the University’s presence and its progressive bent, our Virginia 5th Congressional District has typically been won by whichever Republican, often a staunch conservative, achieved victory in the Republican primary. Indeed, so one-sided and assured is Republican victory that the poll site 538 does not list any polls for the upcoming general Congressional election. By virtue of the staunchly Republican nature of our district and the consequent consistently low competition in our district’s elections, incompetent candidates are able to betray even the lowest expected standard for representation with the knowledge that their election is all but a surety. In doing so, the political makeup of our district catalyzes electing inadequate and dangerous representatives.
Election acceptance is a precondition for the republican process in our country — when fair results of elections are denied, the system as a whole is delegitimized at its core. As such, political representatives in our district and others should meet the standard of supporting elections — a standard that our current and outgoing representative Good fails to attain. Rep. Good prevailed in his 2020 Congressional primary bid against an open-minded Republican who criticized QAnon and supported the fair process of elections.
By contrast, Good voted to overturn the 2020 Presidential election, using unsupported claims of election fraud to defend his position. Good attempted to portray election denialism as a way of protecting election integrity when in fact he was disabling it. Actions by representatives like Good which actively undermine our elections and consequently our republican political system exemplify the representative inadequacy which we should not permit in our candidates.
Good is not the only embodiment in Charlottesville of this broader inadequacy — his likely successor McGuire also believes in election denialism. Moreover, McGuire fails to exemplify the other standard that we ought to hold for our representatives, of not maintaining absolute loyalty to any one political figure. Absolute loyalty has been used in the Republican party recently to sow a cult of personality around former President Donald Trump and reshape the party to his whims. Through this dictatorial principle of absolute loyalty, the desires of constituents are contradicted and central pillars of our democracy are contravened. Good’s primary loss to McGuire exemplifies the absolute loyalty in the Republican party — his failure to be absolutely loyal to former President Trump by endorsing Ron DeSantis in the Republican presidential primary demonstrates how one moment of disloyalty results in likely unemployment. In contrast, John McGuire accedes to Trump’s demands for absolute loyalty in a way that is unbecoming of political representatives and neglects the desires of constituents.
Some would argue that these set preconditions should not be held — that candidates should follow their constituents absolutely no matter the policy. For example, if a majority of voters in the Virginia 5th believed that the 2020 election was stolen, then Rep. Good ought to have objected to the election results. Nevertheless, the features of election denialism and absolute loyalty are intrinsic threats to the prerequisites of the electoral process of representation — amplifying trust in the electoral system and the ability to mold views rather than demand absolute loyalty are both needed before the political system to ensure adequate representation continues unabated.
The tendencies of our current and likely incoming Congressional representatives to reiterate the staunchly conservative qualities of election denialism and absolute loyalty alienate moderate voters in the University’s district and beyond. Though a majority of students at our University identify as liberal, a significant number consider themselves to be middle-of-the-road overall, leaving them open to political and voting persuasion by either side of the political aisle. As young voters, University students offer the potential to be long-term followers whose consistent support can aid the party for the most extensive time. The poor qualities encapsulated by these candidacies alienate them from moderates opposed to election denialism and absolute loyalty who could otherwise engage continually in support for the Republican political side.
This Tuesday, we as University students will go to vote, many of us for the first time. And as we enter into the polling booths, there is a decision for us to make — do substandard Congressional candidates in Charlottesville and across the nation deserve our vote whilst delegitimizing the voting system? This November and in future elections, we should support candidates who uphold the principles of our political process. And we should rally against those who denigrate the political framework that many of us are about to cast our first ballot in.
Wylie Brunman is a senior associate opinion editor who writes about politics for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at opinion@cavalierdaily.com.
The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of The Cavalier Daily. Columns represent the views of the author alone.
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