Virginia GOP Gubernatorial Hopeful Suggests Capitol Insurrection Was Justified Because of COVID Restrictions

Virginia was long a Republican state. Those days, however are over. In recent years, the state has gone red to purple to blue. That doesn’t mean, though, that Republicans can’t win in the commonwealth.

Democratic governor Ralph Northam will be seeking reelection in 2022. Amanda Chase, a Republican state Rep. hopes to be the one to unseat him. That may be harder for Chase to do so now after comments she made about the January 6th insurrection.

Chase, who Salon considers the favorite in the looming Republican primary, made the comments during an interview with Sky News. A British reporter asked, “They’re looking in on America and wondering what on earth is going on here?”

The lawmaker, who describes herself as “Trump in heels,” replied:

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“America wants freedom. They are tired of an overreaching federal government and state government telling us what we can and cannot do in the form of mandates. I don’t think that’s representative of our republic and people. What we’re seeing is a level of frustration like we’ve never seen in America, and here in Virginia, because people are concerned that we are getting away from a representative republic and are headed towards socialism and communism, in which the government makes all these decisions for us.”

“Is that what was happening at the Capitol Building,” the reporter asked. “Is that what it was all about?”

“Absolutely. Absolutely,” Chase replied. “I think the big concern is that we’re losing our republic. It’s been around for 400 years. We the people want to make sure to preserve our republic.”

Chase was facing  censure on Tuesday, but the vote was delayed after she said her mother-in-law recently had open heart surgery.

Todd Neikirk

Todd Neikirk is a New Jersey based politics and technology writer. His work has been featured in psfk.com, foxsports.com and hillreporter.com. He enjoys sports, politics, comic books and spending time at the shore with his family.