Opinion: Democrats let Biden down. McAuliffe — and democracy — paid the price.

By Dana Milbank
Columnist
Yesterday at 12:47 a.m. EDT

Democrats: Wake up!

And for those who consider themselves lower-d democrats: This is your wake-up call, too.

Democrats in Congress had months to prove that they could legislate, to demonstrate that a government of the people, by the people and for the people could still function despite the creeping authoritarianism, the daily assaults on truth and the conspiracy-minded paranoia.

They let President Biden down. They let the country down. And on Tuesday night, Terry McAuliffe paid the price.

Virginia voters decided not to return him for a second nonconsecutive term as governor, instead electing Republican businessman Glenn Youngkin, who ran a Trump-inspired campaign of disinformation, conspiracy theories and race-baiting. It wasn’t terribly close. Republicans were leading the lieutenant governor and attorney general races, too, and were within sight of a majority in the House of Delegates.

[Opinion by Karen Tumulty | Virginia proves it: Democrats are slipping with the voters who gave them victory in 2020]

There’s no sugarcoating this loss for Democrats in a state Biden won by 10 percentage points a year ago. But if there’s anything positive in this defeat, it’s that Democrats are hearing this alarm with enough time to mend their ways. If they don’t, Tuesday’s loss will be as nothing compared to the shellacking Democrats will receive a year from now.

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Opinion by Dana Milbank
Dana Milbank is an opinion columnist for The Washington Post. He sketches the foolish, the fallacious and the felonious in politics. Twitter https://twitter.com/Milbank