Ad Watch, Job Numbers, and the Politics of Consent
IN THE NEWS:
Broadcast TV ads once held such a significant place in American politics that candidates would raise millions of dollars to flood the airwaves in an effort to get elected. Now a significant chunk of that is moving online.
Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin is taking credit for record job growth in Virginia. That's despite what he calls "inflationary headwinds from Washington."
Ask Susanna Gibson about consent. She's got a lot of thoughts because last year a Republican operative shared nonconsensual images of her that upended her campaign for the House of Delegates. Now she's working with a bipartisan coalition to do something about it, and she says draft legislation now circulating among lawmakers would have given her some protection.
Episode Transcript
Michael Pope
I'm Michael Pope.
Lauren Burke
I'm Lauren Burke.
Michael Pope
This is Pod Virginia, a podcast that's looking forward to the debates this week between incumbent Senator Tim Kaine and Republican challenger Hung Cao.
Lauren Burke
Are we looking forward to that debate?
Michael Pope
Well, the debate is happening, so I guess we're looking forward. We're also looking forward to the birthday of a Pod Virginia super fan, Danica Roem. We'll get to that later in the show. First, let's get to the news on the airwaves. Broadcast TV ads once held such a significant place in American politics that candidates would raise millions of dollars to flood the airwaves in an effort to get elected. Now, a significant chunk of that is moving online. David Ramadan is a former Republican Delegate who is now at the Schar School at George Mason University.
David Ramadan
Digital ads are not only necessary for campaigns, because that's where people are getting their news from, but digital ads are essential, in my opinion, for any campaign to spread their message.
Lauren Burke
But there might not be as much difference between a broadcast ad and a digital ad as you might think. Democratic strategist Ben Trevor says a huge percentage of streaming ads appear on Smart TVs.
Evan Trevor
If you're airing an ad on YouTube, because someone's using the YouTube app on their Smart TV, it's appearing in their living room on their 80 inch TV. It's the same way that a television ad would. That's why most media companies are moving towards a screen-neutral approach.
Michael Pope
The content of those ads might be screen-neutral, but the prices are not. Broadcast advertising remains significantly more expensive than streaming ads. Potentially changing the way campaigns decide to allocate resources in the future. Lauren, this is a fascinating changing dynamic here in our political environment. For so long, these campaigns would need to raise a ton of money to be on network television. If you want to be on the air for college football, you've got to be on network television. If you want to be on the air for the CBS Evening News, you've got to be on network television. That's changing now. In the environment that we're in, everybody's streaming something, and those streaming ads are significantly cheaper than broadcast ads. That's changing the dynamics of how all this is going to work in the future.
Lauren Burke
Some of that is probably because you can measure what your viewership is on broadcast TV. Particularly if you run an ad up against Judge Judy while she's on at about the three o'clock hour in NoVA, I think it's a little bit more difficult to figure out on digital. I think with the money being raised now in these campaigns, particularly for the House of Delegates, which has gone up huge. These House of Delegate races are extremely expensive. It seems to me that there's enough money to buy any ad you want. Particularly for any race that is considered a swing or a competitive race in Virginia. Certainly the congressional districts in the second and the seventh. The fifth and the seventh both have media markets that are expensive. Interestingly, you get a different audience on digital compared to a more traditional, older audience on broadcast. I think it matters what audience you're trying to target. Remembering that older voters are dialed in and have much disposable income. There are a lot of things that people think about when they look at ads.
Michael Pope
One of the things that you have to think about when you buy broadcast time is advertising to a bunch of people who can't vote for your candidate. Where I live in the DMV, if you buy a broadcast TV ad, there are a significant number of people who live in Maryland or DC who are going to see that ad. If you've got a hot Northern Virginia race, for example, the seventh congressional district, and you buy broadcast TV ads in Northern Virginia, there's going to be a lot of wasted money there with people who don't even have your candidate on their ballot.
Lauren Burke
Yeah, that's right. Everyone says, that the targeting ability is a lot better for digital because of Facebook and the ability to target specific people, ages and subject matter, etc. Facebook is always bothering you to know exactly where your location is. There's a reason for that, but I think it comes down to trying to pinpoint specific people. But seriously, when we watch a candidate raise over a half billion dollars to run for president in less than 45 or 50 days, what does that tell you and all these records that are being broken that Act Blue keeps talking about? Certainly, the DNC and DCCC are announcing fundraising records every cycle. It seems to me there's enough money to buy ads. I know that everybody's text messages are going off, the mail is coming in, and the emails are for more money. But, man, there's a lot of money out there for this ad spending.
Michael Pope
Yes, there certainly is a lot of money out there. I'd actually direct the attention of our listeners to VPAP.org, which is following campaign spending on political ads. They've got a whole section of VPAP now that is devoted to tracking how this money is being spent. For this election cycle, the top race is the seventh Congressional District. If you total up all of the political ads that were purchased on broadcast, Google, and Facebook, then total them all up; there has been $6 million spent in the seventh congressional district. More than $5 million was spent in the second congressional district down in Hampton Roads. Followed by $2.5 million for the Senate race and just under $1 million for the presidential race. The Presidential number would be a lot higher if Virginia was a battleground state, but it's not, so you get less than a million dollars. But yeah, $6 million has already been spent in the seventh congressional district, and we are just getting started. That number is going to get a lot higher. Lots of money is sloshing around the system. I'm curious to hear from our listeners if you've seen any political ads that strike you as being interesting or particularly well done. Or maybe the maybe the opposite. Maybe you've seen some ads that stink, and you think they're horrible. Send us the ads on social media because I'm hoping to do a podcast pretty soon where we get the experts together to react to the political ads. Do you have any political ads that you've seen in this election cycle, Lauren? Are there any ads that strike you as particularly well done or particularly horrible?
Lauren Burke
Well, Vice President Harris just ran an ad on immigration that was quite interesting. It was certainly attempting to look as though she's really tough on immigration. Standing around cops and talking about border security, that type of thing. This came out on September 26 or September 27. That was interesting.
Michael Pope
Immigration is clearly one of the top issues. I think Democrats are trying to steal the issue here. If the Harris campaign can get through to voters to say, look, we had this bipartisan bill with Senator Lankford, who is a Republican senator. We were working with him, and then here Trump came and screwed it up because he didn't want to solve the issue. He wants to campaign on it. If that actually gets through to voters, then the Democrats have the potential to steal that issue.
Lauren Burke
Exactly. It'll be interesting to see how far they want to go with that. Obviously, the way that former President Donald Trump talks about immigration is extremely different. The point the ad wanted to make for the Vice President is that she actually has a concrete policy solution, as opposed to just a sort of rhetoric.
Michael Pope
Let's move on to our next story. It's the economy, stupid. Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin is taking credit for the record job growth in Virginia. That's despite what he calls inflationary headwinds from Washington. John Provo, at Virginia Tech's Center for Economic and Community Engagement, says jobs and inflation are important metrics, but he says wages are also an important number to consider.
John Provo
Overall in the economy, wage growth has not slowed as fast as inflation seems to be slowing. I think that it's not just a two-part question; it's at least a three-part question.
Lauren Burke
Aside from the dynamics of how regional economies work. J. Miles Coleman, at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, says there is also an important political dynamic.
J. Miles Coleman
A perfect example was back in the 1980s when the economy was really growing under Ronald Reagan. It was the Democrats who would win the governor's races in that decade, and that's something they could kind of pay to their kind of credit.
Michael Pope
Yeah. Chuck Robb and Doug Wilder, in the 1980s, there were a lot of democratic Virginia governors. They were kind of floating on what some people would consider the Reagan economy. When I spoke to J. Miles Coleman, he said that if the situation were reversed and Virginia had a Democratic governor and a Republican president, both parties would probably be trying to take credit for jobs and attack their rivals over inflation. This is a bipartisan way of looking at the economy. Let's take credit for stuff that we like and attack our enemy for stuff that we don't like.
Lauren Burke
I feel if you're in the office when some of the Good happens. You should take credit for it, even if you actually didn't do anything. Clearly all of this good economic news is Joe Biden. He has a record number with regard to job growth. The 15.7 million jobs created number is unprecedented. I do think whoever's in the office at a time sort of gets to play this game of saying, Yeah, I was in the office when this good thing happened, so I can take credit for it. I don't mind that. But, of course, the Republicans are rich sometimes when, certainly, the Democrats passed these major economic bills. Which they did during the COVID crisis, there were several. When Biden got into office, he had several recovery bills that the Republicans all voted against. Some Governor decided I'm going to take credit for that. It's crazy. But generally speaking, I don't mind it when people take credit for what happens on their watch.
Michael Pope
But Youngkin is trying to do something different, which is threading the needle here. He's trying to take credit for the jobs. He actually bears some responsibility for job growth in Virginia. So, check there. The governor actually did a great thing with job growth. However, he's also trying to attack Biden for inflationary headwinds from Washington. He's trying to have it both ways here.
Lauren Burke
Well, that's the story of politics, isn't it? He's trying to have it both ways when he denounces Mark Robinson, who's running for governor in North Carolina, and then continues to back Donald Trump, who's running for the presidency of the United States. What is the difference between these two people, except one is actually a convicted felon, and the other isn't. But it's the same sort of thing. You can never figure it out; there is no consistency with this version of the Republican Party. Because we have the MAGA Republicans, and then we have the old-school Republicans, who are still hanging on. But they aren't really saying anything about the MAGA Republicans. It's happening in front of them, and they are allowing the party to be destroyed in front of their eyes without denouncing the worst parts of it.
Michael Pope
One thing that's helping Democrats right now is vibes. People are always talking about the vibes election. One thing that Republicans can benefit from here is nostalgia about a pre-pandemic era. Trump is always talking about making America great again. I think a lot of voters interpret that as Make America 2019 again. In other words, voting for Trump will roll back the clock to a pre-pandemic era when life was better. I had more money in my pocket, and stuff cost less.
Lauren Burke
I don't know about that. If you look at the stats, Joe Biden's economic numbers are just really off the chain. That's something that cannot be denied. Now we're getting other numbers like this crime number that came out last week, where violent crime is down. It's amazing when you think about it. Suppose you're trying to run on the idea that we've got to change to another party who is in charge at the White House. You've got to make all these arguments that everything is terrible, and that's exactly what former President Trump is doing. It doesn't matter what the factual stats are. They have to make up the idea that everything is terrible. Trying to convince people and scare people to vote in the other direction.
Michael Pope
The actual economic numbers have more nuance than that. Let's move to our next story. Non-consensual, intimate images. Ask Susanna Gibson about consent; she's got a lot of thoughts because last year, a Republican operative shared non-consensual images of her that upended her campaign for the House of Delegates. Now, she's working with a bipartisan coalition to do something about it. She says draft legislation is now circulating among lawmakers that would have given her some protection.
Susanna Gibson
It certainly would have helped me, but more importantly, it's going to help women across the country.
Lauren Burke
Republican Delegate Carrie Coyner of Chesterfield, is part of the coalition together.
Carrie Coyner
We will create safer communities where our children can thrive free from the fear of image-based sexual abuse.
Michael Pope
Democratic Delegate Karrie Delaney of Fairfax County says federal prosecutors have their hands full. States need to be able to step in and do more to solve the problem.
Karrie Delaney
Effective state laws will allow district and Commonwealth Attorneys to join on the front lines of the fight against image-based sexual violence. By empowering state prosecutors with the tools they need, we can provide justice.
Michael Pope
Justice could end up being up to five years in prison or a $5,000 fee if convicted of this newly created felony that this legislation would create. Lauren, this is a topic you and I have talked about on this podcast several times, including when we had Susanna Gibson as on as a guest twice. It's interesting that this Republican operative has gotten off scot-free. This Republican operative went on the dark web to find images of Susanna Gibson and then shared them with the Washington Post. Under this legislation, it seems that a Republican operative would be guilty of a felony.
Lauren Burke
Yeah, I doubt anybody will find out who the Republican operative was from the Washington Post. I can't imagine the Washington Post revealing who their sources are in that type of situation.
Michael Pope
Ture. I would 100% agree with that. But who else did this Republican operative share that information with? Is there a paper trail outside of the Washington Post where you could determine that an individual was sharing non-consensual intimate images?
Lauren Burke
Well, actually, these were consensual, intimate images.
Michael Pope
No, actually, I don't think that's the case. If you think about the Susanna Gibson case, the images were taken by a third party at a different time. Important fact here, Susanna Gibson never posted anything; she streamed something. At some point, someone took images of the streaming, without her consent. Then shared them. It's one thing to create intimate images. It's another thing to distribute intimate images without the consent of the person who's in the images. It's the distribution of the images without the consent of the person who's in them that is at the center of this felony.
Lauren Burke
Here's the thing: the behavior in the images was consensual. Of course, it was between her and her husband. The two of them decided to consensually distribute or stream onto some website for people to see. Right? For people to see that in an environment where almost anyone could see that. The needle you're threading is there because someone recorded that stream and sent it to a third party. That's what we're talking about. Were it not for the consensual activity of the streaming and the consensual activity in the video, none of this would be known. Then we have to ask a question: what responsibility do the actors in the video have at this moment?
Michael Pope
Or we could also ask the question, what responsibility does the person who is distributing the images? What responsibility does that person have?
Lauren Burke
Well, sure, but none of that would happen if it were not for the decision of the person who's making that somewhat public.
Michael Pope
Correct, we have to see. I am curious about how the Courts of Justice committee will handle this. Because the Courts of Justice committee is notorious for digging into the legal issues. I'm curious to see how they will receive this particular piece of legislation.
Lauren Burke
We live in a society where everybody's putting all their business up on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and medical info. I've seen people put what I'd consider to be personal medical information online and on social media. You're telling me that if a third party duplicates that image that you put out there publicly; now that's a crime?
Michael Pope
We'll have to see, like I said, how the members of the Virginia House Courts of Justice Committee and the Senate Courts of Justice Committee receive this legislation from Republican Delegate Carrie Coyner and Democratic Delegate, Karrie Delaney. Keep an eye out for that in 2025. My guess is we're not done talking about this. We'll be talking about this in the future. Let's take a break; when we come back, we'll play a round of trivia where we'll ask you about a famous designer who recently purchased a house on Richmond's Monument Avenue. We'll also head over to the water cooler, where we're going to talk about Richmond politics and a challenge to single-family zoning. Okay, let's play a round of trivia. Last week, we asked you about the famous designer who recently purchased a home on Richmond's Monument Avenue.
Lauren Burke
The answer is Christian Siriano. And we have some winners.
Michael Pope
Shawn Weneta said Christian Siriano bought the house for his mother, so does it really count?
Lauren Burke
Good point Shawn Weneta. I'd like to say that your prize is a house on Monument Avenue, but we don't have that in the budget. Instead, we'll add a statue of you to Monument Avenue.
Michael Pope
Yeah, Monument Avenue has some blank spaces on it right now.
Lauren Burke
What's our question for next week?
Michael Pope
Here's a question for next week: which Virginia election saw bumper stickers supporting, quote, Barry and Harry?
Lauren Burke
If you think you know the answer, share it with us on social media. You might even win a prize.
Michael Pope
We might even put a statue of you up on Monument Avenue. Let's head over to the water cooler. Lauren, what's the latest you're hearing around the water cooler?
Lauren Burke
The latest from the water cooler is the press release on September 27 by Delegate Michael Jones, who is backing Michelle Mosby for mayor of Richmond. He put out a press release saying that there was someone in the race; he didn't specify who. Who has ties to MAGA Republicans and is getting donations from the right. He said that they should disavow those donations and those financial ties, but he didn't specify who it was. It's a bit of a weekend political mystery. A lot of people might guess who it is. But, without knowing that, and without actually talking to Delegate Jones. I'll get into that at another water cooler if he specifies exactly which candidate. We have five candidates running for Richmond mayor. It was an interesting week in which we saw one of them, Harrison Roday, get some interesting endorsements: the Crusade for Voters and some other organizations that nobody would have guessed that he'd get. At any rate, the Richmond mayor's race is getting more interesting. Of course, as we get to Election Day, which is 36 days away, I thought it was interesting because it goes into the question of if somebody donates money to you, does that mean you agree with that person's political views? We've seen it before where donations have been sent back or have come in, and people have said, well, wait a minute. Just because I got this donation from this person doesn't mean I agree with everything they're doing. This was a pretty pointed press release. It got a lot of attention and was quite interesting.
Michael Pope
You bring up the Harrison Roday endorsement from the Richmond Crusade for Voters. Lauren, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. The Richmond Crusade has this long and storied history of being very strategic about increasing Black political influence and sometimes taking ways to get there that might not be immediately apparent. Sometimes they take action that has some people scratching their heads. The last election cycle, where we had an open race for mayor, I believe the Richmond Crusade endorsed Joe Morrissey. Now they're endorsing this white guy from Henrico. What did you make of that?
Lauren Burke
Last time there was a mayor's race, they endorsed Kim Gray, a Black woman. What everybody thought was that they'd endorse somebody Black. They got out there and explained that they had a detailed process, a lengthy process, that was explained by Chuck Richardson. They held a press conference on September 24 outside of Chuck Richardson's house. He's been around in Richmond politics for a very long time. He was on the city council. They explained why they wanted Roday. People feel like Roday has detailed policy explanations for certain things and that he articulates them really well. He certainly does it at a lot of the forums. Tram Nguyen from New Virginia Majority, was there as well. He explained why she liked Roday. It wasn't just the Crusade. He has the endorsement of the Virginia Education Association, Mom's Demand Action. That's not anything to sneeze at for a guy who's never run before. Realizing that when you look at the candidates in this race, with the exception of two candidates that have been on the council. You have three candidates who have not held elected office. I don't know about the mayor. I'm not sure that's a hard prerequisite. We have a governor right now who's never held elected office. It's interesting; Roday is an interesting candidate. There are five good candidates there. People sit down, they get a feel for somebody, and they endorse. The Crusade is no different in terms of coming to a certain conclusion. Maybe there was something they didn't hear from other candidates. But Chuck Richardson did make the point that look, there are several really good candidates in the race. I certainly agree with that. What about you, Michael? What have you heard about the water cooler?
Michael Pope
Well, the big news out of Arlington is that the Circuit Court has cited in favor of people who are challenging the missing middle. This is the controversial zoning proposal in Arlington that got rid of single-family-only zoning. Arlington is already saying they are going to appeal. Get ready for a very long and protracted legal fight. But for now, Arlington can no longer issue new development proposals under the missing middle. That's dead for now, or at least on hold for now. The judge in this case is actually a retired Fairfax judge. Oftentime is the case with these kinds of lawsuits, the Arlington judges, have personal ties to all the elected officials; they brought in this retired Fairfax Judge, David Schell. He was the judge, and on Friday, he ruled with the people who were challenging the missing-middle. Saying Arlington had not done the due diligence to figure out what the impacts of all of this were going to be on traffic, stormwater, and tree canopies. Arlington didn't do their due diligence in terms of figuring out what the impact of the missing middle was going to be. For now, that controversial effort to go to single-family zoning in Arlington is on hold indefinitely. Because of the ruling of Judge David Schell. An interesting side note: Alexandria did a similar thing: getting single-family-only zoning. Their version is called zoning for housing. There is a similar legal challenge to zoning for housing in Alexandria. Lauren, guess who the judge is in that case is the same judge, retired Fairfax Judge David Schell. Schell is also the judge in the Alexandria case. On the horizon, we might have a ruling in the Alexandria case that could be similar to the Arlington ruling, where they put on hold this zoning change. I reached out to the mayor of Alexandria to see what he had to say about that if this; if he felt the city was still confident in their legal footing. He said we remain confident in both the policy alignment and the legality of what the city adopted. I think the mayor is holding out hope in public that Judge Schell will side with the city and not the people challenging zoning for housing. It looks like this effort in Alexandria and Arlington, also in Charlottesville, who did something similar. It looks like this effort to get rid of single-family zoning is problematic. It might be on hold in all these jurisdictions that adopted it.
Lauren Burke
That looks like it's going to be a while. We're going to have a slightly different city council soon. That'll be interesting too. That has nothing to do with the judge's ruling. Wow. We'll see what happens. Because the missing middle was so discussed during what I guess you could consider the primary phase of the city council races in Arlington and Alexandria. Is that accurate for me to say that?
Michael Pope
As a matter of fact, it was a big issue last year in Arlington. Where they had two vacancies on the Arlington County Board, you may remember this was also aligned with the rollout of ranked-choice voting in Arlington. It's interesting because if you go back and look at the election returns under the old-fashioned version of voting, which sometimes is called first past the post voting. In other words, the person with the most votes wins the under the old fashioned system, where all you needed was the most number of votes. Then, the people opposing the missing middle would have won both seats. But the ranked-choice voting created the system where you've got the factions, and they did all this mathematical thing that essentially made sure both the factions had representation. Under this revised version of voting, both factions ended up winning; one of the winning candidates opposed the missing middle, and one of the candidates supported the missing middle. That was hotly debated in the primary last year. This year, things are a little different. There's only one seat on the Arlington County Board; you don't have ranked choice voting playing too much of an influence there. Plus, if you think about the Democratic primary that happened in Alexandria, all six Democrats support zoning for housing. The new mayor voted for zoning for housing, so the New City Council is all on board with zoning for housing. None of those people opposed zoning for housing. Now, there are non-Democrats on the ballot in Alexandria who might actually end up benefiting from this court decision because it sort of puts wind in their sails if the courts strike down the Alexandria version of getting rid of single-family-only zoning. In fact, all three of the non-Democrats on the ballot in Alexandria are in opposition to zoning for housing. It's a hot legal issue. It's also a hot political issue.
Lauren Burke
It really is. To me, the issue last time, last round, that's all anyone talked about. We'll see where it goes next.
Michael Pope
We will see. Let's go ahead and open up that Pod Virginia mailbag. Lauren, what are our listeners talking about?
Lauren Burke
We are hearing some feedback about our discussion on bike lanes.
Michael Pope
Earlier in this podcast, we heard from John Provo at Virginia Tech. He chimed in on social media about our discussion of bike lanes last week, saying this quote: the roads of Alexandria, established in 1749, were built for cars. Did I hear that right? Says John Provo. Lauren, what do you make of this argument that, you know the roads belong to cars.
Lauren Burke
I guess it depends on how far you want to go back. Who does John think roads are for?
Michael Pope
Well, if you say they're built for cars, that overlooks the long history of roads being around, long before the automobile. You could make the case that roads were built for horses. We live in a changing environment where, at one time, roads were built for and were the exclusive domain of horses. At a certain point, we said automobiles also play a role; automobiles should also have space on our roads. We had a changing perception in the early 1900s of what roads were for and who had access to them. I think we're kind of going through a similar transition now, where people are looking at the roads and saying, do we want to devote all of this to single occupancy vehicles? Or do we want to devote some of this roadway to bike lanes? Do we want to devote some of this roadway to bus lanes that you can't drive in, that are just for busses?
Lauren Burke
We definitely see a lot of cities trying to build more pedestrian space. Where literally there are no cars at all, or even actually bikes, just people walking. You see a lot of that built into some new developments. I saw, I think near Del Rey, I saw something where it was a walkable section, and clearly not designed for a car to go down. But it was stores on the left and right. It's funny, Washington, DC, built in the middle of the city center a few years back, where there's just this walkable section and a bunch of stores, a bunch of fancy stores. I think that's something that is getting a lot more popular.
Michael Pope
Definitely, people have a changing perception of what roads are about and what should be on them. Stay tuned to Pod Virginia because I am positive we'll be talking about this in the future. We also got feedback about my use of the phrase Jim Crow zoning. One listener posted this quote, no matter if it's true, calling it Jim Crow, zoning is the most off-putting political speak; telling 60% of Americans and Virginians they are complicit in Jim Crow is not so smart, bad messaging. The listener might be true that. It might be accurate that it's bad messaging. But it's undoubtedly true that the origins of zoning and single-family-only zoning have their roots in the Jim Crow era. Specifically to prevent Black people from owning property in neighborhoods like Delray. The neighborhood you were just talking about, Lauren, last year on November 30, 2023, I wrote a front-page article for the Alexandria Gazette. With the big front-page headline, this was the headline in the Alexandria Gazette: Alexandria ditches Jim Crow zoning. The subhead was unanimous. City Council eliminates single-family-only housing. The lead of it was members of the Alexandria City Council saying goodbye to a relic of the Jim Crow era that was created as a way to sideline and marginalize Black residents: single-family-only zoning. A pair of initiatives, known as zoning-for-housing and housing-for-all, were unanimously approved in a late-night vote earlier this week after an intense debate that prompted one opponent to suggest that members of the city council should be spanked. There was a quote from Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson, who said, quote I've never seen a generational divide in the input quite like this one. The age of people advocating on this was pretty determinant of which side of the issue they were on. This issue of Jim Crow zoning is a language that I used in our podcast last year. It's a language that I developed last year when I was doing research into the history of zoning. It's true that saying people are complicit in Jim Crow zoning. We've had this discussion before, in a different kind of way. Listeners may remember when we talked about privilege walks, so Youngkin and the Youngkin education people were pushing back on this idea of doing privilege walks, where you have children take a step forward if they are in a privileged class and take a step backward if they are in an underprivileged class. To give people a physical proximity of what privilege actually looks like and create an area where you could see privilege at a distance. A lot of people were offended by that. A lot of people don't like being told that they are a beneficiary of privilege. That's what we're talking about with single-family-only housing. You don't have to be white, by the way, to own a single home in a single-family-only zone. There are all kinds of people who might not be white who are benefiting from Jim Crow zoning. This zoning has its roots in the Jim Crow era for the purpose of segregation. The history is important; it should not be overlooked. Maybe this listener thinks it's bad messaging. Maybe it is bad messaging, but it's important to point out the history of what we're talking about.
Lauren Burke
Well, a lot of people are uncomfortable talking about race in general. In our country, a lot of this is not taught. It's probably the first time that that listener was listening to anybody talking about Jim Crow zoning. The odds of that being taught in any high school is probably zero and in a lot of colleges. It kind of reminds me the other night of a discussion that happened on CNN with Frank Luntz, the pollster, and Tara Setmayer, who is a Black female strategist, typically leaning left. They were talking about the whole issue of what the Republicans are doing nationally with immigration in Haiti, and what former President Trump said and what his running mate, JD Vance has said. Then we had the racist comments of Congressman Clay Higgins of Louisiana and all of that. It was interesting because Frank Luntz was trying to stop Setmayer from even talking about the issue of race more than getting into what the strategics are behind what the national Republicans are doing. Frankly, I think people are so uncomfortable with the issue of race, which is why I think former President Trump wants to make it a part of the discussion because it's divisive. He knows it makes people uncomfortable, and he uses it as a fear tactic. Just as a general thing, we are always on different pages in the United States when it comes to history. Unless you are independently going out and finding out the facts yourself. You typically are not told this information. That gets us into what our governor would say are divisive concepts that should not be taught in school. It's an interesting problem when you bring up history, and people resist the mention of it, just the mere mention of it.
Michael Pope
It's a divisive concept. I like the fact that it's a divisive concept. I kind of lean into the divisive concepts because I think they're important. Especially if you talk about the Jim Crow history. Jim Crow is such a horrible chapter of our history. A lot of people will tell you they want to know about it. You often hear people say we need to teach all of history, the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. But then you start talking about the Jim Crow era, and they're like, hey, hold on a second here. You're saying that I am privileged because of something that happened 100 years ago? I don't know about that.
Lauren Burke
Yeah. Well, when we talk about real estate, there are a lot of racial issues regarding real estate. Redlining is where everybody lives, and you see it in the present day. There's absolutely no denying it, and the connection to that history. It's a very interesting thing. What people want to resist is factual information.
Michael Pope
Let's celebrate some birthdays.
Lauren Burke
This week, today. Monday, September 30, is the birthday of Senator Danica Roem.
Michael Pope
Thursday, October 3, is the birthday of Delegate Marty Martinez of Loudon.
Lauren Burke
Love it. Happy birthday, Marty and Danica. That's it for this episode of Pod Virginia
