Cal Thomas: Winsome in Virginia

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Today is Thursday, September 8th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Paul Butler.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. Up next, commentator Cal Thomas on his recent discussion with Virginia’s Lt. Governor, Winsome Sears.

CAL THOMAS, COMMENTATOR: The definition of winsome is “sweetly or innocently charming: winning, engaging.”

The Lt. Governor of Virginia, Winsome Sears, is all of these, but she is also tough and has convictions on issues that matter to her and that she thinks should matter to Virginians and the nation.

As President Biden recently commemorated “Slave Remembrance Day,” Sears told me during an interview in her office, “If you want to live in the past, go ahead, just don’t drag me back with you.”

Sears is a former Marine and Jamaican immigrant. She says her father arrived in America with $1.75 in his pocket. But she is now the second most powerful office holder in the state and the first female Lt. Governor. Sears can charm when necessary, but her boldness in discussing controversial issues reveals a backbone other Republicans should emulate.

I ask Sears why the media seem to ignore or mischaracterize Black conservatives like her. “In order for [Democrats] to continue to win,” she says, “they need to get 80-90 percent of the Black vote. That’s why they are so full of hatred when conservatives like me, or libertarians, don’t think the way they do…We don’t really care. The slaves did not die in the fields to be beholden to the Democrat Party. They wanted their freedom…their families to be reunited…and their children to get a good education.”

Sears says she is mystified over how “the Democrat Party became synonymous with Black people. [Democrats] were the ones who were keeping us from achieving. Then there’s this other thing that is happening with black women not having their babies. And they call me a white supremacist for saying we want more black babies. Democrats have to make up their minds.”

Strong opinions.

Sears says she believes Donald Trump won more of the black vote than other Republican presidential candidates because he delivered on jobs for minorities and “black entrepreneurship increased to about 400 percent of where it had been.” She also notes Trump’s dedication of funding to Historical Black Colleges and Universities.

I ask her about what some have referred to as “Christian Nationalism.” Sears, who is up-front about her Christian faith, responds: “I think what we have to be careful about as Christians is that no one is on the throne except Christ…We know that God can use anyone. He even used a donkey to speak to Balaam to tell him he was going down the wrong path. So, if He can use a jackass, He can use anybody.”

How would she measure success? “What the world considers success, I don’t. I have come to believe it the way the Lord defines it. Were you obedient?” She recalls the Biblical stories when “they killed the prophets… All He wants to know is did you obey me?”

Yet, she is amazed at her own accomplishments: “Winsome wasn’t born here. It’s not her country, not her culture and yet there she is – second in command in the former capital of the confederacy. The KKK must be turning over in their graves.”

Only in Virginia…and America.

I’m Cal Thomas.

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