This is part of our Cardinal Way project on promoting civil discussions and was written in response to “Democratic hecklers drown out Republican candidates at Buena Vista’s Labor Day speech-making.”
For an opposing point of view, see “What really happened in Buena Vista: A Republican perspective” by John Massoud.
You can participate by answering some questions on this questionnaire.
On Labor Day, I stood in the back of the pavilion in Buena Vista, the same place where Virginians have gathered for decades to mark the unofficial start of campaign season in the commonwealth. Year after year, the ritual feels familiar: the local parade, handshakes exchanged along Main Street and the fiery lineup of speeches meant to set the tone for the months ahead.
But this year, even before the first words were spoken, something felt different.
I turned to a friend beside me and half-joked that maybe the Republican ticket had skipped the event entirely. Across the rows of picnic tables, entire sections sat empty on the Republican side of the room. On the Democratic side, supporters wedged together, sharing chairs and leaning against walls for space. Then stage doors opened, and we realized the absence wasn’t the Republican ticket; it was the Republican base.
From the very start, Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears looked her constituents in the eye and chose dishonesty. To explain away the glaring absence of her base, she reached for the same tired falsehood that’s been used for years: that Democrats had been “bused in.” Imagine waking up early, marching in the parade, bringing your children, showing up for your community — only to have your own lieutenant governor dismiss you as an outsider, as if you didn’t belong.
Then came the moment that should have made headlines. Sears, standing at the microphone, took an incident of racism — a vile sign displayed outside a recent school board meeting — and weaponized it. Over and over, she screamed, “Where was Abigail?” Here is the truth: Abigail Spanberger and Democrats across Virginia immediately condemned that sign for what it was — racism, plain and simple. Sears knew that. She lied anyway. And if an elected official is willing to lie so brazenly about something as serious as racism — to twist it for applause and a few more campaign dollars — then what won’t they lie about?
At one point, Sears went further, calling the Virginians in that room “unpatriotic.” The response was immediate, instinctive — a chant that rang out through the pavilion: “USA! USA! USA!” Tell me, what’s more disrespectful — a community demanding honesty from its leaders, or a leader mocking her own constituents for sport?
It didn’t stop there or with Sears. Later, State Senator Chris Head used his time at the microphone not to offer ideas or vision but to shout down retired women and teachers who quietly held up signs protesting cuts to school funding. Women who had given decades of their lives to our classrooms — shouted at by an elected official, for daring to say their schools deserve better.
Why are we, as Virginians, expected to tolerate that kind of behavior from the people who are supposed to serve us? Why is it acceptable for them to demand quiet obedience from the very communities they’ve neglected?
The story of Labor Day in Buena Vista wasn’t about “heckling.” It was about working people, on a holiday celebrating working people, who have had enough. Enough of the lies. Enough of being ignored. Enough of elected officials who bow down obediently to their party leaders every time they are told to. We’ve grown numb, in the MAGA era, to politicians abandoning and ridiculing the very people they claim to serve — to the steady erosion of decency under the weight of cheap theatrics and culture-war applause lines. But normalization doesn’t make it acceptable.
From the Revolution to abolition, from suffrage to civil rights, progress in America has always been driven by people who refused to sit quietly while their dignity and their future were bargained away. Rural Virginians understand this better than most. We work harder. We expect less. And far too often, we get even less than that in return.
What happened yesterday spoke to something deeper than a single moment of frustration. Rural communities like mine have been used for years — as backdrops for photo ops, as talking points in speeches, as stages for political theater — but rarely as partners in building solutions. People here know it. They’ve lived it. And they’re tired of being told to sit down, be quiet and wait their turn while little ever changes.
Labor Day in Buena Vista made one thing clear: the emotion in that pavilion wasn’t chaos — it was clarity. People here know when they’re being lied to, and they’re done being props in the GOP’s theater.
Joy Powers is a Democratic candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates in District 51, which covers parts of Bedford, Campbell and Pittsylvania counties.