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The private text messages leaked from Democratic attorney general nominee Jay Jones are beyond disturbing — they reportedly include a 2022 message fantasizing about putting “two bullets to the head” of then-House Speaker Todd Gilbert and even invoked Adolf Hitler and Pol Pot while imagining violence against Gilbert’s family. Reading those words from a would-be top law enforcement official should make every Virginian sit up and ask how someone who writes like that can be trusted to uphold the law.
Jones has issued a public apology, saying he is “embarrassed” and takes responsibility, but an apology after the fact isn’t the same thing as real accountability or fitness for office. Virginians deserve more than a tepid mea culpa — they deserve leaders who don’t drool over political violence in private messages.
Worse, the rest of the Democratic ticket has been careful not to force a real reckoning; Abigail Spanberger condemned the language but stopped short of demanding Jones withdraw, offering instead that he must “fully take responsibility” while she pivots to calls for lowering partisan hatred. That half-measure is exactly the problem: when a party refuses to hold its own to account, it signals tolerance for extremism and lets dangerous behavior fester.
Republicans have rightly pounced, launching a seven-figure ad campaign to alert voters to the threat of electing someone who traded in violent fantasies and to defend the rule of law. Incumbent Attorney General Jason Miyares and GOP leaders have called Jones’s remarks disqualifying, and national figures have amplified the warning that this is not a private spat but a matter of public safety.
Even some on the left are unnerved — media personalities and former allies have publicly suggested Jones should stand down, while conservative commentators and outlets are demanding Spanberger and other Democrats stop circling the wagons and start demanding real consequences. This is what happens when a party refuses to police its own: it loses moral authority and hands the messaging advantage to those who still believe in order and decency.
The timing is not accidental — early voting is already underway in Virginia, and voters should treat these revelations as a critical piece of information about character and judgment. Democracy isn’t a game of forgiveness for the politically well-connected; it’s a test of whether citizens will defend civil society against those who flirt with its destruction.
Patriots shouldn’t be shy about calling for consequences. If Democrats won’t remove a nominee who wrote about murdering political opponents and their children, then voters must do the work at the ballot box to protect their communities, their families, and the peaceful civic order every American deserves.
