Another important election in Virginia has been decided by the Leftist urban centers of that State. The closely watched congressional redistricting referendum was approved by a narrow margin of the popular vote, 51.5% voting Yes vs 48.5% voting No. However, the county vote was anything but narrow: Only 38 counties approved the plan while 95 counties rejected it, making for a margin of 28.6% of counties in favor vs 71.4% against (numbers via NBC News).

Republican Party operatives, ever clueless it seems, were trying to spin this injustice against the rural counties positively:

‘”This basically says, ‘Hey, Republican Party, we’re not dead yet,'” said Brian Kirwin, a Republican strategist based in Virginia. “Reports of our demise have been exaggerated”’ (Jane Timm, ‘Virginia voters approve Democrats’ redistricting plan, giving the party a midterm election boost,’ nbcnews.com).

Hmm. Republicans lose another key election in Virginia, but they should rejoice over that and proclaim, ‘We’re not dead yet.’ With leadership like this, it’s becoming clearer why the conservatives have been getting trounced in Virginia lately.

As we have noted before, the current political system in Virginia is profoundly unfair to the conservative rural counties. They have effectively been disenfranchised by it, making them subservient to their urban brethren (and we use that word loosely, as many of the urbanites are not native Virginians, but rather Yankee carpetbaggers and foreigners from further afield).

If the conservative counties of Virginia want to survive with any of their non-Leftist, Southern culture intact, they will have to change tactics; they will have to become revivalists. They have plenty of good examples from the past to follow in forming a plan for their political future. What happened in Texas with her independence effort is particularly instructive.

The citizens of Texas, like the citizens of Virginia once, were content with the decentralized political system that they were used to in Mexico, but that would soon change under a different regime:

‘The first Anglo-American land grantees—Stephen F. Austin’s “Old Three Hundred”—began settling Texas in 1821. These sturdy settlers hailed mainly from the Trans-Appalachian South: Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama, Tennessee, and Missouri. The vast majority of pioneers who joined them in subsequent years also hailed from the South—as many as 20,000 by the early 1830s. At first these settlers found the Mexican Republic amiable to the expectations of federalism, republicanism, and self-government they brought from their Southern homeland. Sadly, they soon found themselves objects of the government’s displeasure.

‘The shrewd and opportunistic politician Antonio López de Santa Anna was elected president of Mexico in 1833 under the Federal Constitution of 1824, ostensibly as a supporter of federalism. However, the next year he revealed his centralist and authoritarian designs when, with the help of allies, he dissolved Congress, annulled liberal reforms, and assumed dictatorial powers. He then convened an assembly congenial to his political goals. This assembly produced the Siete Leyes (Seven Laws), which abolished the federal republic and established a unitary state. The previously existing states were reorganized into departments, which were directly controlled by the central government in Mexico City’ (Miles Foltermann, ‘Here Lie Your Brethren,’ abbevilleinstitute.org).

Conservative Virginians are now in similar circumstances to the old Texans: Their long-cherished principles of local self-determination, gun ownership, traditional marriage, etc., are being eviscerated by the State government. The Texans then, like the Virginians now, tried to remedy things through the normal political channels of the times, but soon found that nothing beneficial would come of it and chose a different course – secession from Mexico:

‘Initially, many Texians fought to restore the 1824 Constitution, with its federalist and republican principles. However, upon enduring Santa Anna’s severity firsthand, they concluded that Texas must pursue permanent separation from Mexico. On March 1, 1836, Texian delegates convened at Washington-on-the-Brazos, where they drew up a statement of grievances against Mexico to be “submitted to an impartial world.”

‘The delegates detailed how, in a short time, the distant Mexican government had devolved into a military despotism, trampled the welfare of its own people, and turned into an instrument of oppression. Some of the gravest charges against the Mexican government were its domination of the national church “to promote the temporal interests of its human functionaries rather than the glory of the true and living God;” the attempted confiscation of arms “essential for our defence, the rightful property of freemen, and formidable only to tyrannical Governments;” and its tolerance and promotion of “arbitrary acts of oppression and tyranny” by military commandants.

‘Much like their ancestors who stood against Great Britain, Southerners in the vanguard of the Texas independence movement declared their intent to cast off an imperious regime that threatened their liberty, families, and hearths. Receiving no redress, the Texians were forced to the “melancholy conclusion” that self-preservation required permanent political severance:

‘“We, therefore, the delegates with plenary powers of the people of Texas, in solemn convention assembled, appealing to a candid world for the necessities of our condition, do hereby resolve and declare, that our political connection with the Mexican nation has forever ended, and that the people of Texas do now constitute a free, Sovereign, and independent republic, and are fully invested with all the rights and attributes which properly belong to independent nations; and, conscious of the rectitude of our intentions, we fearlessly and confidently commit the issue to the decision of the Supreme arbiter of the destinies of nations”’ (Ibid.).

Despite a public school education, most people probably know how things ended for Texas: Setbacks and terrible ordeals like the slaughter at the Alamo notwithstanding, the Texans were able to win independence for themselves from a power-hungry Mexican regime.

The question facing Virginia’s conservative counties is whether or not they will follow the example of the Texans (and of their own ancestors). If they want a decent future for themselves and for their descendants, if they want to honor the achievements of their forefathers, they have to stop being so dog-gone passive, stop playing by the rigged rules of the political game set by the Leftists, and start charting their own path back toward political sanity and away from the lunacy of the urban-dominated State government in Richmond.

We say to them directly: Don’t just read the history of 1776, 1861, or 1836 and sigh with regret; band together and make history. Add another year of distinction to the history of the United States – the year that conservative rural Virginians took back control of their own culture, their own government, from the urban counties that despise them.

Fight for the re-enfranchisement of the rural counties, for their equal dignity and power in Statewide elections. Fight for ancient liberties like the right to bear arms without onerous State regulation. Fight for a Christian culture that honors marriage, protects human life in the womb, and recognizes the sexes as God made them.

You will not be fighting merely for yourselves. Your example will reverberate throughout the South, throughout all the States of the union, throughout all the West – giving hope to all those who are being abused by overreaching, overbearing governments.

By operating according to the status quo, you will surrender your future. We have seen this scenario play out in other States that once voted Republican/conservative but not any longer – California, Colorado, Oregon, etc.

What will it be, red county Virginians? A return to the valor of Washington and Lee, Stonewall Jackson and J.E.B. Stuart? Or a capitulation to the new normal of Tim Kaine and Terry McAuliffe, of Ralph Northam and Abigail Spanberger? For your own honor, and for the honor of the rest of Dixie, we hope you will resist.

This does not mean a resort to arms; a reordering of the political system can be done peacefully, through referenda, boycotts, etc. But this certainly does mean that nothing good will happen by deluding yourselves with the thought that ‘We’ll get ‘em in the next election,’ with the right candidates, social media memes, and all the rest of it.