Jay Jones Is Unfit For Public Office
Jay Jones is erratic, reckless and unfit for public office. If Democrats want to denounce political violence, they’d better demand that this unhinged nut drop out of the race for Virginia Attorney General.
Count on it, they won’t.
In fact within 48 hours of Jones’ psycho text messages being revealed by National Review, Virginia Beach Democrats threw their full-throated support behind a man who clearly needs mental help, not elected office.
Shame on them.
Jones, 36, who abruptly quit before the end of his first term in the House of Delegates in 2021 just weeks after being elected to a second (and forcing Norfolk to pay for a special election to replace him), revealed himself in text messages to be the sort of unstable person who doesn’t want to defeat his political opponents at the ballot box. He’d prefer to put bullets in their heads.
In this case, “two bullets.” In the head of former House Speaker Todd Gilbert.
Oh, and he’d also like to see Republican children shot so their mothers could hold their dead bodies. After all, in Jones’ world, our children are “little fascists” not precious babies.
Sick, disgusting and alarming.
Read them for yourself:
To put this into perspective, this disturbing text chain happened because Jones became apoplectic in 2022 after Republicans honored the memory of Joe Johnson Jr., 90, a moderate Democrat from southwest Virginia. Jones was irate that House Speaker Gilbert eulogized Johnson, who’d spent a total of 27 years in the House and whose wife of 64 years had died just three weeks earlier.
Johnson was the sort of Democrat today’s Virginia left-wing radicals despise: He was a gentleman who didn’t see political opponents as enemies. It’s safe to say the late Joe Johnson never fantasized about killing children of Republicans to teach their parents a lesson.
Imagine being so triggered by your former colleagues saying nice things about a man who’d spent decades serving his Virginia that you want to kill them, “piss on their graves” and see their children dead.
This is twisted, sick, violent language. Inexcusable.
And Jones wants to be Virginia’s chief law enforcement officer?
Notice that when Jones was called out for his desire to see the Todd children dead, he replied that “yes” this is something he believes: That people only change their minds when they suffer.
Perhaps there’s hope for Jones, then, if he “suffers” a resounding loss in four weeks. Not that an electoral defeat could compare to the loss of a child.
In February of 2019, when Gov. Ralph Northam’s 1984 blackface/Klan yearbook picture became public, Democrats immediately chorused that he should resign from office over these 35 year old photos.
Of course if Northam had resigned, Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, a Democrat, would have taken his place. So standing on “principle” didn’t cost the party a thing.
Now, faced with violent, unhinged messages that Jay Jones ADMITS sending, these same politicians are either silent - Tim Kaine, where are you? - or feigning outrage while stopping short of dumping Jones from the ticket.
Warner, who seems to spend his entire working days on X had only this to say:
Stop soft-pedaling this, Senator. These nasty words weren’t simply “attributed” to Jones. He admitted those sick messages were his.
The Washington Post did its best to appear horrified, admitting that the Jones messages were hateful and “cast doubt on whether he has the temperament to become the state’s top law enforcement officer.”
Jones has a month to convince voters that his hateful rhetoric does not reflect on how he’d behave if elected as Attorney General.
Can you imagine what the WaPo editors would be writing if a WHITE Virginia Republican fantasized about shooting a black politician and his kids?
Audrey Fahlberg, the National Review reporter who broke the Jay Jones story, says she contacted Jones at 8:45 Friday morning for a comment. Crickets. The story went live at 1:09.
Hours later, this is the best Jones and his midwit advisors could concoct:
Hours after that non-apology, which attempted to shift blame to Trump, failed, out popped another statement. This one apologized to the Gilbert family and said that the text messages made the guy who wrote them sick to his stomach.
You’re sorry you got caught, Jones. Admit it.
It’s worth remembering that in 2021, when a Norfolk Police officer was outed for anonymously donating $25 to the Kyle Rittenhouse defense fund, Jay Jones was quick to weigh in. He showed no mercy.
“We have to get to the bottom of this reported conduct, which is utterly disgusting. If these allegations are true, Officer Kelly must resign from the Norfolk Police Department immediately. Should he not resign, he must be terminated. Kelly’s actions have broken the public’s trust and emboldened the worst elements in our society,” Jones said in a statement.
A police officer lost his job over 25 bucks at Jones’ urging, but candidate Jones wants Virginia voters to excuse his murderous text messages?
Attorney General Jason Miyares expressed revulsion over the Jones revelations and explained succinctly why this hate monger should never be entrusted with enforcing the laws of the commonwealth.
Jay Jones wished for the violent death of a political opponent and then fantasized about that opponent's children dying in their mother's arms. When confronted, he doubled down, saying that kind of grief and pain would be a good thing if it advanced his politics. And politics aside, one has to be coming from a dark place to advocate the murder of a colleague and their family.
This conduct is disqualifying.
As a former prosecutor and current Attorney General, I've sat with crying victims and grieving families. There is no sound more haunting than the cries of a parent who has lost a child. I've seen their pain, held their hands, and witnessed the devastation that violent crime leaves behind. Absolutely no one, least of all a candidate for Virginia's top law-enforcement office, should ever treat that pain as a political tool.
When people tell you who they are, you should believe them. We now know Jay Jones.
Writing in the National Review Charles C.W. Cooke warns that Jay Jones and his twisted texts must be taken seriously.
That guy in the political argument whose language gets a little overheated? He doesn’t particularly bother me. Jay Jones? He bothers me. Jones is a professional politician, and he was talking to one of his colleagues, about one of his colleagues. To suggest that it would be a good thing if that colleagues’ children were murdered in front of her is psychotic in and of itself. But to explain it? To say “Yes?” To say “I’ve told you this before”? To say “Only when people feel pain personally do they move on policy.” That’s an approach. It’s a philosophy. It’s a theory of political action.
More specifically, it’s a theory of political action that cannot coexist with the American constitutional order. “I hope your children are killed so that I can get my way on policy” is not an opinion; it’s a rejection of the social compact. There is simply no way that, having repeatedly expressed and defended such an idea, Jay Jones can serve as the attorney general of a U.S. state.
Here’s what should happen next: Democrat donors need to demand a refund of their Jones contributions and organizations like the Virginia Education Association and the two sheriffs who endorsed this loon need to retract their support.
It’s time - past time, actually - for the Republican National Committee to write a fat check of at least $15 million to Virginia’s Republican slate so they can go scorched earth on the ticket that supports violence and wants voters to “let their rage” fuel their votes.
