Ralph Northam Is Just A Small Piece Of The Shift In Race Politics In The Trump Era
The Virginia governor is a man on an island, and people in both parties are calling for him to step down. But how the parties have handled race in the Trump era is very different.
The clock seems to be ticking for Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam.
The highest reaches of the Democratic Party inside and outside the state have said he should resign over a racist photo on his medical school yearbook page from 1984. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, presidential candidates and, perhaps most important, both of Virginia's senators and its longest-serving black representative all said Northam should step aside.
Northam didn't help himself Saturday with a news conference in which he compounded matters. He denied he was in the photo — after first apologizing for it Friday — and then said he had used shoe polish to darken his face to look like Michael Jackson for a dance party in the 1980s.
He had learned to moonwalk, he said. What do
