Glenn Youngkin’s brass-knuckled conservatism

The man who campaigned in a fleece vest has apparently traded it in for a Kevlar. Youngkin hasn’t just taken the mask fetishists to court; he’s established a tip line so parents can report woke teachers to the government. He’s banned the instruction of critical race theory, opened an investigation into the clown-car Loudoun County school board, and replaced the state’s “equity” office with an emphasis on opportunity and protecting the unborn, then appointed as its head a former Heritage Foundation exec.

He’s blazed through left-wing shibboleths with surprising speed — and progressives have noticed. Recently, at a grocery store in Northern Virginia, Youngkin was accosted by a shopper for not wearing a mask. “You’re in Alexandria!” the woman shouted. “Read the room, buddy!” (Given that “reading the room” in Alexandria means double-masking outdoors while walking a rodent-sized dog that’s also double-masked, I think Youngkin’s optics are going to be okay.)

Youngkin is no Nelson Rockefeller, no creature from the Carlyle Group sent to wreak havoc on the estate tax and exactly nothing else. The Virginia governor is, in fact, a herald of the new post-Trump conservatism. This conservatism doesn’t need Trump per se. It doesn’t buy into some of the seedier conspiracy theories and vanity projects of his presidency. But it is determined to fight this institutional war with every stone it can grab. That means lawsuits and executive orders, concerns about torts and legislative primacy respectively be damned.