What Can We Learn from the Election Results?

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So, what are the big takeaways from yesterday's big elections? It's time for The Line of Fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Michael Brown is the director of the Coalition of Conscience and president of Fire School of Ministry. Get into The Line of Fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH. That's 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. So there's a lot to reflect on, a lot to unpack after yesterday's elections. You don't only think of elections in the odd number years. We've got 2020 presidential election, 2024 presidential again in 2022, the midterm elections, et cetera. But there are elections that take place on these years and you do get a sense of what's coming next and how things could look for midterm elections and even projecting beyond that. There's a lot to learn and some really important trends and some trends that to me are encouraging because they're not so much political, they're grassroots. Welcome friends to The Line of Fire broadcast. Michael Brown delighted to be with you 866-348-7884.

That's the number to call. If you want to comment on the elections, if you want to comment on the direction of the nation, if you want to comment on what's happening with parents and schools and curriculum, is this a matter of parents wanting to hold on to racist views and not allow their kids to be exposed to the truth? Is this a matter of parents saying we're not going to be laying guilt trips and recreating things or rewriting things or refashioning things so as to make our children feel guilty about who they are, et cetera. So a lot to talk through.

Again, you can weigh in 866-348-7884. Massive shift in Virginia, massive shift in Virginia. Many felt it could be coming. Some in recent polls indicated it could be going in this direction. Remember that the governor of Virginia, past governor Northam, won his election by what, about 12 points? And then President Biden took Virginia by 10 points. And Virginia has shifted solidly blue recently. Well, you're talking about a major shift, not just Glenn Youngkin winning as governor, but a Republican attorney general and a Republican lieutenant governor who also happens to be a black woman, the first black woman elected to a statewide office in Virginia.

And then you have the House turn from blue to red. All of this happened in a state that President Biden took by 10%. Now, remember, I am not primarily a political commentator. I am not a conservative talking head. I'm a minister of the gospel.

I am Bible based in my thinking. So ultimately, when we unpack these things, we want to do our best to get a larger spiritual and moral and cultural perspective and not just political. But in the midst of this, we're going to talk a lot of politics, but always doing our best to get a Kingdom perspective. If you live in Virginia, if you live in New Jersey, where right now incumbent Democrat Governor Phil Murphy, look, he's slightly ahead, but seven ten thousand votes haven't seen the most recent of his Republican challenger. But this was supposed to be a blowout. This was supposed to be a walk in the park. President Biden took Virginia by 16%. This wasn't supposed to be close at all. And what do you make of Minneapolis, where George Floyd was tragically killed by a police officer?

People in Minneapolis said, no, we don't want to defund the police and go with some other system. Isn't that interesting? What do we learn from all this eight, six, six, three, four truth? While things were still in progress and many of the stations were nowhere near announcing a winner in Virginia, some of the conservative websites were already announcing young kids victory. But I want you to see this clip. This is Rachel Maddow talking to Professor Larry Sabato about where things were going. This was, like I said, well before MSNBC or CNN and these stations, New York Times called a victory for Glenn Youngkin in Virginia.

Look at this. What do you think the story is here tonight thus far? The story is I'm not going to call it a blowout because we don't have the final final numbers, but I will tell you somebody high up in McCollough's camp who was there with McCollough put it this way to me about an hour ago. It's a bloodbath.

Yeah, so Town Hall tweeted that out. It's a bloodbath. And then Breitbart picked up on this. So these are major conservative websites picked up on it and major headline in red. It's a bloodbath. Yeah, very shocking view outcome for the Democrats.

What does it mean though? You all, this is a referendum on Trump. No, this had nothing to do with Trump. This was not a referendum on Trump.

I was teaching a class last night and about end time eschatology and biblical views and things like that. And of course the Virginia elections, the results were just starting to come in as the class was ending. And obviously you begin to see, Hey, this could be a big night for the Republicans in, in Virginia. And this is going to send a message to the nation. And one of my colleagues had someone sent him a note, time for you to get back on the Trump train.

This has nothing. This was not about Donald Trump. Now the Democrats campaigned as if it was about Trump. When president Obama, former president Obama came in and spoke on behalf of Terry McAuliffe, that's where he was pointing.

And we've got to get rid of this, this old and the way things were with, with Trump. And then president Biden repeatedly when he came in to campaign reference Trump, reference Trump, reference Trump. And we know that one reason Trump was swept out of office was voting against Trump, that many Americans hated him and many Americans were very much against him. So it wasn't so much that they loved Joe Biden or were confident in Joe Biden as much as they hated Donald Trump and wanted to get rid of him at any cost. So that's how governor Terry McAuliffe, former governor Terry McAuliffe campaigned largely against Trump as well as against his candidate. However, this was not what this was about. And everyone recognizes that Glenn Youngkin and his campaign separated themselves from Trump. Yes, he received Trump's endorsement, but he didn't campaign together.

He didn't bring them in for major events. And he said, this is about Virginia. This is about the people of Virginia.

This is about what's best for our state here. So here is a political neophyte. This is not a referendum on Trump. In many ways, it was a referendum on Biden.

Why? Because most Americans polled three quarters don't feel good about the direction of the country. And president Biden's numbers are tanking. The disastrous was withdrawal from Afghanistan. Ongoing questions about the handling of COVID, which we were told back in July is all but finished. The economy out of control.

Other issues. Look, your average American, they go to the gas station and they pump gas. What's happened to gas prices? They go to the grocery store.

What's happened to grocery prices? They're having problems with jobs and things like that. That matters to people. That was a major issue here. This is not a referendum on Trump. This was in many ways a referendum on Biden. But there are other issues, major issues, important issues of national concern we're going to get to in a moment. So as things are starting to unfold on CNN, Jake Tapper is speaking with their election expert who's going through the maps and analyzing where things are at.

Just it's very curious. Jake Tapper's reaction that later on he explains, yeah, people aren't happy with the way the country's going and so on. And he was, you know, giving I've seen clips more balanced reporting. But his his reaction here is fascinating. Check out this clip here.

Just about everywhere. Terry McAuliffe is underperforming Joe Biden. So you say, OK, that's not fair. That's a presidential year. Is he underperforming Ralph Northam?

I began the night saying he can. Ralph Northam won by eight, nine points. The incumbent Democratic incumbent governor. So Terry McAuliffe can underperform him as long as he doesn't underperform him by a ton.

This is your live vote right now. Where are there counties where McAuliffe is underperforming Northam by more than. Oh, my God. By more than 10 points, he is underperforming, including some of the suburbs up here.

Oh, my God. That was the Jake Tapper comment. It said Northman won by 12 points.

It was eight or nine points. But that that I just found that very interesting. Just in other words, that reaction, it would seem to be there was sympathy for McAuliffe or desire for McAuliffe to look at how badly. So either way, either way, it was shocking enough to take Tapper that his response was, oh, my God. Now, I wrote an article, started writing before midnight and then waited a little after midnight just to see if anything had shifted in New Jersey. And it was neck and neck at that point.

It still is. But it looks like a victory for incumbent Murphy. But either way, it's a wake up call. It's a shocker here.

If you've got a football team and you are the best in your division, you're playing the worst in your division, say in college, and you're expected to win like forty nine to nothing and in double overtime, you pull out a 16, 13 victory or something like that. That's a wake up call. That's what's happened in in New Jersey. But I said there are three main things that the most obvious takeaways from the Virginia elections. First was that this was not a referendum on Donald Trump.

All right. This was not a referendum on Donald Trump. You can read the article, the most obvious lessons from the Virginia elections on Stream.org or our website, AskDrBrown.org or wherever you read my articles. The first thing was not a referendum on Trump. Second, it was a referendum on Biden. And third, the culture wars are real and parents are saying enough is enough. Now, please understand this. Terry McAuliffe had a lead of as much as 10 percent, barely a few months back.

All right. Polling doesn't go so far back in this campaign here, but. Wasn't that long ago, 10 percent and then solid five, six percent lead solid and then begins to go down rapidly. And then Youngkin comes up rapidly.

Of course, the two are going to happen at the same time. And then a Fox News poll a few days ago had Youngkin winning by eight percent. Well, that was way too high. Others had it still a tossup, but Youngkin comes out two, three percent ahead at the end.

That's a substantial victory. So what happened? Well, there are two main issues. The the Loudoun County schools and as far as I understand, a fairly liberal county, the school system there and the aggressive pushing of the transgender agenda so that the boy identifies as girls use the girls bathroom. But that opens the door to a sexual predator, to to a boy going in dressed in a skirt who then rapes a girl in the girls bathroom. And when the father brings that up at a school board meeting, the school board denies any knowledge of anything happening like that. Even though just a few weeks earlier, a private communication had gone out explaining what had happened, allegations. Now the boy is actually convicted. He's found guilty of this crime.

And not only that, but he was just sent over to another school without being reported where he raped someone else. So you have this happening and the parental outrage over it. Then the government says, oh, we need to look at the parents. Maybe they're domestic terrorists.

Yeah. And then the radical agenda being taught in some of the schools that you have a six year old girl coming home and saying to her, Mom, Mommy, am I evil because I'm white? The parents said enough is enough. And they push back. They push back. This is something happening across the country. We've told you for years, friends, that those who have very different values and ideas will overplay their hand. It's happening in front of their eyes, in front of our eyes. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural and spiritual revolution here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks friends for joining us on the line of fire.

866-348-7884. If you want to weigh in on the elections, let me make this very clear. My hope for change in America is not based on Republican victories.

It's certainly not based on Democrat victories. That's not where my hope lies. My hope does not lie in a candidate.

All right. If I had my druthers in terms of who would run for Republicans next time around, I would rather a candidate strong, but not as divisive as President Trump. So if it was, if it was a Ron DeSantis or someone else, great. But even so, whoever it would be, if the policies remain the same, I would vote Republican versus Democrat in a heartbeat based on policies. But even then on my list of, of how to see change come to America.

All right. If someone sat down with me and said, okay, what are your priorities? If you're going to list priorities from your perspective of what's most important to see change come to America, positive change, moral, cultural change for America to be more whole and healthy, morally, culturally.

And then downstream from that, of course, economically and other things would happen. I'd put at the top of the list, first would be repentance in the church. I would put prayer and fasting. I would, I would put us, many things having to do with us getting our own houses in order and then a massive wave of fresh evangelism and making new disciples. I would have them serving the hurting and the needy and getting involved every way that we can in the educational system.

I have a list of a bunch of different things standing for, for righteousness and justice based on scripture. I would, I would have all those things and then voting. Voting is definitely important. It's definitely important.

If you don't vote, then others will vote in candidates of their choice and, and policies will go in ways that will impact our lives and impact our kids and impact our freedoms. So in a democratic republic like America, of course voting is important, but to me it's down the list. It's, it's not the top of the list and, and, and who gets in the White House, who gets in Congress, who gets in as governor, those, those things are important.

We're seeing now from state to state how states have handled COVID, how states are responding to various other crises. We do see big differences from state to state as I've traveled and ministered in different states, sometimes like you're in different countries. All that matters, but it's really secondary to the health of the body. It's really secondary to our living out our lives as the people of God. So it's not either or. Either we get completely uninvolved politically and we pray and fast and love the Lord and worship and, and, and share the gospel but never get involved in culture, or we just get consumed with elections and, and voting issues and, and what's happening in each state and each legislator.

It's not either or. It's priorities. It's first things first. We're not a country that has a believing population of born again population of 0.00001%. That believing population is not going to affect the nation as a whole until it grows and grows and grows. But in America, when we have such a substantial part of the population, 25, 30% that could be genuinely born again, that the key thing is for us to get healthy, us to get strong, us to get vibrant, us to get our house in order, us to deal with our blind spots, us to deal with our sins, us to walk in unity one with another for the common good, and then we have our influence in all these other ways at the same time. Does that make sense? And that's always going to be my emphasis and that's why you're listening to me now share these things rather than other political commentary.

You may take that in as well, but you know what you're coming here to get. All right, so what about what's happening in the schools? This is something not just that's an issue in Virginia, but across the country. And there are states that are banning critical race theory being taught in schools. Others would say critical race theory is not being taught in middle school or high school, let alone elementary school. This is advanced philosophical legal ideological thought that's being taught in college and even mainly in grad school.

Understood, understood. But it is curricula informed by critical race theory curriculum through the lens of critical race theory. Now, for some CRT is a good word, even for some Christians.

For others, it's a bad word. The question is, what's the actual issue about? Why were parents so upset?

Why was there this pushback? Again, I'm looking at headlines on one website, Real Clear Politics. Dems in need of reckoning after misjudging nation's mood. Three takeaways from Virginia and New Jersey. Tuesday shows voters will reward Trump's dangerous juices negative. After shocking election upsets, Dems will learn nothing. Republicans schooled the left in Virginia. Kids can handle America's racist history.

Why can't adults? So, you know, there's this back and forth view. Is this racism and people playing into racism? Is that they don't want racism taught?

Which way does it go? Looking at other headlines at Youngkin headquarters, a hat tip to a harnessed parent anger. Okay, so listen to what Joy Reid has to say. I wrote an editorial differing with Fox News's Juan Williams about this same issue. But listen to what Joy Reid has to say.

And then I want to share my perspective here. There are some some variables that are moving in the right direction at this point. And the exit polls showed that, which was interesting, that the coronavirus or that the virus was a very low salience to many voters. It was education, which is code for white parents don't like the idea of teaching about race. And I mean, unfortunately, race is just the most palpable tool in the toolkit used to be of the Democratic Party back in the day when they were Dixiecrats and now of the Republican Party. It just is powerful.

All right. So that was Joy Reid interacting with Rachel Maddow and MSNBC. And she, as a black woman, is saying, look, this is just race and race has become the issue because parents don't want their kids talk about race, obviously white parents primarily. And this just being used as a tool. Now, from my viewpoint, she's using it as a tool. From my viewpoint, she's using it as a divisive tool when she's misunderstanding what the issue is.

Now, I've been interacting with a colleague who's who's a black educational leader and we've been going back and forth on this. And I'm convinced that everybody has blind spots. Right. I have blind spots. You have blind spots, which is why we get before the Lord and humble ourselves. We're not wise in our own eyes versus I've quoted to myself over and again in Hebrew, Al-Tahicha, Chamba, Einecha, don't be wise in your own eyes.

Right. Fear the Lord, depart from evil, and this will bring health and healing to your very bones and being. So I try to get low and listen, get before the Lord, listen to those who differ with me and then challenge them to hear me as well. So we need to expose one another's blind spots.

And I invite you to call in if you think I've got a blind spot and what I'm about to say. I am sure that there are white parents who are racist and there are black parents who are racist and there are Asian parents who are racist and Hispanic parents who are racist and Jewish parents who are racist and Native American parents who are racist and just go through all the different ethnicities and races and colors and backgrounds. And I'm sure there's racism among all of us. I don't accept the newer definition of racism that you can only be a racist if you are in power. I understand it as it's historically been understood to demonize and caricature others who are not of your own race. So I'm sure racism still exists. But from everything I see and from everything I understand and from white Christian parents with whom I've interacted, the issue is not they don't want race to be taught in their schools.

Rather, they don't want everything to be a matter of race and they don't want things taught that give an imbalanced perspective about America. So look, there was a time in American history, even in recent American history, where black Americans were looked at as inferior, that they were inferior human beings. It was under the law.

It is shameful and horrific, but it's a fact. So it was not just liberating slaves. Okay, that's a massive step in the right direction. And it's not just taking steps to equal the playing field. So you try to have equal opportunity for everyone in various aspects of Civil Rights Act in 64 and things like that.

That's all positive. But there were views of blacks inherently being inferior, Africans inherently being inferior. Some looked at it as a spiritual thing, that they were cursed, others as a biological thing, but that is a fact. And there were Christians in our history and leaders and political leaders and common man in America, many of them felt that way.

That's the reality. It's a sinful, terrible aspect of our past and something that by and large overwhelmingly we have left behind a good time ago. You don't fix that, though, by now making whites inherently evil that if you are white, then by nature you are evil or by nature you are a dominator or by nature you will always try to take over and be a supremacist and simply by your white skin that there is some collective guilt on you, either for segregation or for slavery or for other things like that. That's what parents don't want taught in schools. Look, there was history taught. I remember the little that I learned about Native Americans, American Indians when I was in elementary school, and so just getting your first history lessons, they did bad things and we fought against them. I am quite sure I did not get a balanced view of that. On the other hand, there's a way to teach history where America is like the worst country on the planet, the worst nation ever, and parents are reacting against the swing of the pendulum the other way, whereas the right thing to do is teach truth.

The amazing things of our history, the beautiful things of our history, the wonderful accomplishments of America and the terrible things in our history and the bad accomplishments of America. Let it be taught that let not everything be an issue about race and let not everything be, now you get the new guilty part. It used to be the blacks, now it's the whites, next day somebody else.

That is what I believe parents are reacting against. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks friends for joining us today on the line of fire as we reflect on yesterday's major election results.

866-34-TRUTH. I have an honest and simple question. For those who say, ah, the results in Virginia just shows us how the race card is being used and you get parents, white parents all upset about race issues and that's why they voted for Glenn Youngkin, which to me is a racist position. To me to make that statement so broadly is a racist statement. But for those who truly believe that, and maybe you know some white folks who are racist, just as I know black folks who are racist and white folks who are racist and whoever I, you know, if you know enough people, you're going to know somebody's got biases in the wrong direction. Although I've not worked with a believer, I can think of in decades and decades and decades that ever behind closed doors or in any other setting expressed anything that would be considered racist.

Certainly never worked closely with anyone who's had that attitude. But in any case, how do you explain the election of Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears? Not just a woman, but a black woman. How'd she win and a Republican?

The first black woman to hold a statewide office in Virginia. So if Glenn Youngkin was carried in by a wave of white racism, then why was it that these same people voted in a black woman as Lieutenant Governor? Friends, if you focus on race in schools from the wrong perspective, then you're missing what happened here. A lot of this has to do with overreach. A lot of this has to do with schools going so far and leaving parents out. And when parents overwhelmingly tell the school board we're not happy, it's like, hey, this is why we're doing it.

This is why we're doing it. Look, what massively influenced the shift against Terry McAuliffe and for Glenn Youngkin? It was a clip from a debate where Terry McAuliffe said that parents have no business telling schools what children should be learning. That they got no place doing that. Now, McAuliffe claims he was taken out of context. When you listen to the whole thing, overall, he's saying what he's saying.

And when he was governor, he did institute things that would teach certain classes through the lens of CRT. And to me, in the worst possible lens, you could say there's a healthy lens of trying to analyze things in terms of sociologically and how things work out demographically in society through the lens of race and looking through history and perceiving things like that. There can be a healthy exercise in doing it and an unhealthy exercise. I'm emphasizing the unhealthy aspects of that. And that's what many Americans are reacting against. And look, I'm seeing black civil rights leaders who have issues with CRT as the way it's working its way, its influence is being felt in schools. So this is a much wider issue.

But a lot of it had to do with control. I mean, parents, look, a lot of parents found out what their kids were learning because of COVID. Like, what? My kid's learning this? You're teaching this? And before this class, they've got to give preferred gender pronouns and that, what?

So there's a lot of stuff going on and parents are unhappy with that. And that's what part of this pushback is all about. And to the extent that others don't see it here, here, look, look, when, when, when I had my biggest issues with President Trump during the Republican primaries in 2016, when I vocally strongly opposed him and I always said, if it came to Trump versus Hillary, that I would reevaluate my position and ended up voting for him. As you know, I voted for him twice, 2016, 2020. But in, in my days of having my biggest issues with Trump, and I had my long list of them and many of them remain issues that I've had to this day, I never thought that he was an anti-Semite and I never thought that he was a racist. For sure, he knew how to push buttons to mobilize certain people and to get a certain following.

You can only believe him and he was the man. But as I analyze things, it wasn't about race. It wasn't about race. As one black civil rights leader who was a Trump supporter said, he basically offends who he will. It's, it's, it's about loyalty to him. So the, the, the fact of the matter is that my view was that to, to make support of Trump a matter of white supremacy was to miss the point.

It was to miss the point. Did he have white supremacists who followed him? Yes. Did President Biden, excuse me, President Obama have black supremacists who followed him? Yes.

So the fact that you have radicals and extremists that are following you doesn't prove anything unless you are catering to them or unless you are going for policies that support them or feeding into their rhetoric. I know this is a big subject. You don't want to get lost here. All right. And you can, you can differ with me. This, the least concern I have is if we have a difference about some of the nuances here about who Donald Trump really was, is and was, because that's not my issue. I'm not preaching him. I'm not living for him.

I'm preaching Jesus and living for Jesus. All right. That being said, to the extent that Democrats and those on the left see the issues, what's taking place in the schools and see it as it's mainly race based and white parents don't want their kids to know the truth about the racial history of America. They are missing the point of what's happening and they are missing the point of why parents are so upset because remember these parents are also very upset over what's happening with radical transgender ideology and the endangering of their children because of the opening the doors to heterosexual predators and then the confusion that comes on their children and the unfair pressure that's being put and on and on. So if, you know, I saw one major article on CNN that Democrats misjudged the mood of the nation. I'm thinking, what's there to misjudge? People are not happy with the way things are going.

Okay. So they, they voted out Trump, they voted in Biden. Now they don't like what they're getting. They're not happy and thrilled about that. And just as things break down and, and you know, you know, just again, the man on the street, what matters to you?

Just practical life, how things are filtering down to me and how they're filtering down to my family. And although the leftist mayoral candidate, Michelle Wu, won in Boston, making her the first Asian American woman to hold an office like that in that state. So it's, it's very major election. She was more progressive than the woman that she was running against, another person of color, but the woman that she was running against. So progressive did win here and certain male racist progressives won. But overall, America does not want to go the way of the radical left any more than it wants to go the way of the radical right. And America historically or for many years has tended to, to lean center right, still have the conservative referendum. We shall see where things go in the future. But that's one of the issues.

And to me it's like misjudging the mood. Things should have been very clear and the parental outrage very clear. Interesting clip after CNN finally declared Glenn Youngkin the winner. Then Jake Tapper announces it and interacts with Dana Bash.

Check this out. CNN is projecting that Republican Glenn Youngkin has been elected governor of Virginia, defeating Democrat Terry McAuliffe Youngkin, pulling off a critical victory for his party in the highest stakes election of the night. This is the first time Republicans have won an election for Virginia's top office in 12 years. Again, CNN projecting Glenn Youngkin has been elected governor of Virginia and Dana Bash. This is the announcement that Joe Biden will not be happy to hear. And it also shows how incredibly divided this country is. Incredibly divided. Joe Biden isn't happy to hear because he and other very high profile Democrats went to try to help Terry McAuliffe. They, Terry McAuliffe tried to nationalize this race by bringing in help from national Democrats while Glenn Youngkin made it incredibly Virginia focused. He said, this is about me. This is about the people in Virginia. That gave him the added benefit of being able to say, no, Mr. Former President Donald Trump, you can't come here.

I don't want you to come here. So that strategy worked for him. But I think that what you saw in Glenn Youngkin is going to be for sure the playbook that Republicans are going to try to emulate going forward in 2022 and then also in 2024. The question is whether it is possible to emulate because he is a very unique person. He's never been in public office before.

And I saw him on the stump. He was really and is a very good candidate. We're glad to hear her appreciating the candidacy, the run of Glenn Youngkin. And may God bless him and help him to do what's best for his state. That should be our prayer for every governor. May God bless them and help them to do what's best for their state before the Lord, for sure. No matter who they are, that's our desire, right?

God will help them to do what's best for the people of their state. But again, this was not a referendum on Trump. And as much as the Democrats tried to make it that case, he's out of the picture. He's making statements and he is doing some rallies and things like that. But he's not front and center every day.

You can't keep bashing him. And the reality is, hey, for me, when I leave the radio show today, I have to stop and get gas. Yeah. So I'll be looking at gas prices.

And then virtually almost every day, several days a week on the way home, I stop at the grocery store because we eat so much fresh foods and vegetables and things like that and pick up stuff for myself and for Nancy. So you see what prices are, you know, and this just the real world in which we live. And the issue of of control. Look, there's a lot of pushback about the vaccine mandates. I'm not an anti-vaxxer.

You know that. But a lot of pushback against that. A lot of concern. A couple dozen plus firehouses in New York City have closed because people are taking sick leave or retiring early because they don't want to get vaccinated.

There's a shortage of ambulances. Trash is piling up. People are having issues with government control. Many flights were canceled on Southwest Airlines because behind the scenes, pilots were saying we don't accept the vaccine mandate. Other employees were saying that.

So there's there's a pushback on all these different fronts. But I want to shift gears in a moment and and hear from Winsome Sears, the first black woman elected to statewide office in Virginia. And she had some interesting things to say in her speech. In fact, let's just put up the picture of the new lieutenant governor Winsome Sears. This is on her Twitter feed.

There she is with her. Well, as some kind of rifle, Marines know how to use guns. And I won't ever support a red flag law.

The Second Amendment says shall not be infringed. So she's a gun enthusiast and a former Marine. Yeah. So unique in terms of her own background. And she she got in. She was voted in as well. Obviously, white supremacy was driving the vote in Virginia.

You would not have the first black woman serving as lieutenant governor. We'll be right back. It's The Line of Fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker and theologian, Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural and spiritual revolution. Get into The Line of Fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Friends, I remain committed to hear from people, interact with people who differ with me. Later tonight, scheduled to interact with a rabbi. I have a Zoom call with him, an Orthodox Jewish rabbi. First time that we'll speak at any length. We've interacted a little bit by email.

I'm eager to interact with him. I'm committed to continue to interact with people who differ with me. That includes believers who have different perspectives.

That includes people that are outside of our sphere of faith and have different perspectives. So I remain committed to that. And I remain committed to taking seriously challenges where people see or claim I have a blind spot or I'm misunderstanding something or I'm not treating a subject fairly. Not just going to write you off. Even if initially as a debater, my first response is you say this and I differ.

Let me tell you why I differ. I'll also reflect unless it's clear to me that that what's being said is completely bogus and completely out of line. I'll reflect. I'll step back. I'll think about it. All right. I want to encourage you to do the same. Especially if we're believers, fellow believers in Jesus, we need each other.

I was talking to gentlemen that heads up our media team that helps us with a lot of social media and analytics and things like that. And he's a dual citizen, American and Israeli. But he's lived most all of his life in Israel. And we were talking about people being woke in Israel. Now there is pro-abortion, pro-LGBTQ activism in Israel is very strong. And then you have the very, very religious who are on the exact opposite side. But he's generally speaking like a lot of the woke issues in America.

They're not issues in Israel because they're dealing with Hamas and these other people that want to kill them. So let's realize as fellow followers of Jesus that what unites us is infinitely greater than what divides us. If we're true believers, if we're going to be together forever with the Lord, if he, our God, whose standards are infinitely higher than us, if he considers us part of the same family, then we've got to learn to get along. And that means having differences. That means even saying, I think you're wrong on this.

I think you're wrong on this. But do we agree on these fundamentals? And can we work to bring people to the Lord and pray for God's purposes? Yes, we can. We must.

We must. That was one of my big problems with President Trump. I love so many of his policy decisions and was with him and the stance that he took in his courage.

But his very character was so divisive, that divisiveness was felt right within the body and united we stand divided we fall. That remains the truth. That being said, that ties in with this clip from the victory speech of the new lieutenant governor of Virginia, Winsome Sears.

Hear what she had to say. Right. So, again, it doesn't mean that everything is equal. It doesn't mean that there is no legacy from the past that still affects things today. It doesn't mean that we don't have problems to address.

But let's address them together. Look, the day in which we live, everything has been made into an issue of race. When daily life in many, many ways is often not about race whatsoever. And it's not an issue. It's not an ongoing issue. It's not a pressing issue. Where it is an issue, let's address it together.

But I'm calling you my brothers and sisters, whatever your ethnic background, racial background is, if you are in the Lord, then you are my brother, you are my sister, and I need you and you need me. Rather than fighting against each other, let's learn from each other. And that's what I seek to do with my relations. Those who challenge me, we'll go at it. Trust me, we'll go at it. But it's to sharpen each other.

It's to grow together in the Lord. All right. Let me just take you into an article. This is from one of the writers in Real Clear Politics. All right. And he lists this was written by Carl M. Cannon for Real Clear Politics. Seven reasons Democrats lost Virginia.

All right. So his first, reason number one, McAuliffe's previous tenure in office wasn't an advantage. So in Virginia, you can't run two consecutive terms as governor. So you can be governor, then step down, then run again. So I'm not fully aware of the successes or failures of McAuliffe's previous tenure. But according to this article, that was no big advantage. It's not like he was the most amazing governor there.

That's the first thing. Second, reason number two, Terry McAuliffe rarely said why he wanted to be governor again. Okay. What was his motivation? What was behind it? Again, not being there in Virginia, not being behind the scenes, watching a lot of campaign footage and things like that. I can't comment on that either.

I wasn't focused enough. But these could well be factors. Reason number three, it's the parents stupid.

Ah, it's the parents stupid. This is a national issue. This is not going away.

This is something real and we have been saying for many years would be coming, the pushback. He writes on September 29th, the day when the Real Clear Politics polling average showed McAuliffe leading with 46.9% support to Youngkin's 43.4, the candidate squared off in a debate. That night, Youngkin made two points that resonated with many voters with school aged children.

The first was a broad pandemic era complaint. What we've seen over the course of the past 20 months is school systems refusing to engage with parents. To this rate, this claim Youngkin invoked an issue usually associated with cultural conservatives, a bill Governor McAuliffe vetoed that would have given parents more agency over sexually explicit books in school libraries.

People say it's race, race, race. A lot of this was having to do with sexual issues. He said, I believe parents should be in charge of their kids' education. McAuliffe took the bait and then some. He began his rebuttal by scoffing at Youngkin for being clueless because he'd never held elective office. I'm not going to let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decisions, McAuliffe added. That would have been sustainable, possibly even deaf, but for some reason he punctuated that thought with these 12 faithful words.

I don't think parents should be telling schools what they should teach. Boom. Boom.

That was played over and over and over and over. And it was initially in the context of sexually explicit books. When, when Juan Williams was, was outraged that Toni Morrison's book about slavery in America, that there was a desire not to ban it actually the way it was presented, but for parents to be notified before it was read is because of the sexual content of the book. By all means, teach the truth about slavery, but because the sexual content in the book notify parents first.

Okay. Point number four, as the race tightened, McAuliffe doubled down on his approach to education. So rather than realizing he blew it, he tried to justify his position even more. Reason five, for his part, Youngkin threaded the needle nicely on Trump.

This is what we've said. He did not allow this to be about Trump. All right. So when this race began last summer, Glenn Youngkin was unknown in Virginia politics. Those who did know his name remembered him as a high school basketball star in the Tidewater area whose father played hoops at Duke. Youngkin himself played collegially, et cetera, et cetera.

All right. Youngkin was able to self-fund the Republican primary campaign in which he dispatched with not one, but two Trump disciples. But he managed to do so without alienating the former president. So he didn't push Trump away. I want nothing to do with you.

You're a pariah. And he didn't say, man, I'm going to ride in on your coattails. Get me elected. So again, an important strategy. Reason number six, Virginia gubernatorial elections are traditionally tough for the party in the White House. So that could be true again. The shift was dramatic. That's what has gotten people's attention. And number seven, something was afoot Tuesday night, not just in the Virginia governor's race and not just in Virginia.

Ah, yes, something more was going on. He asked the question, is President Biden a disappointment to voters? A drag on down ticket Democrat, perhaps, excuse me, a drag on down ticket Democrats, perhaps.

But that seems too tidy an explanation. It's true that after a healthy honeymoon with voters, Biden's job approval rating has plummeted amid continued spikes in violent crime, the debacle in Afghanistan cast at the border, the continuing coronavirus pandemic, inflation and food and energy prices and economic uncertainty propelled by a novel problem. Employers can't find enough workers to fill the jobs they have. And though it's also true that Republicans are giddy this morning about finishing what they started come next year's midterms, one plausible conclusion from Tuesday's vote is that a majority of voters want Biden to be the president he promised to be. He was the moderate who defeated a slew of presidential contenders to his left, the one who vowed to work for all Americans, not just those who supported him.

He and House Speaker Pelosi somehow find themselves under the thumb of the left wing of their own party. That's another point that I made in my article. If you haven't read it, sub-extreme.org or our own website, AskDrBrown.org, the obvious lessons that we can learn from the elections is that America, by and large, is not willing to swing to the radical left. Even the idea of defunding the police and polling I've seen has often indicated that in poorer areas and in black areas, that the voting is much higher not wanting to defund the police because often people there, they're already victims of having a couple strikes against them because of the system in which they were brought into. But now on top of that, defunding the police means more crime and more damage to them and their families. So even Minneapolis, the city where George Floyd was killed by a policeman, even there, the people said, no, no, we don't want the new program. We don't want to defund the police. This is what's happening, but it's what's happening for good reason. Now let's us lead the way and show the world how it should be done.