Democrats did not learn the lesson of their disastrous loss in Virginia: BATYA ...

If you're wondering if the Democrats learned the lesson of their disastrous shellacking in Virginia, the answer seems to be a resounding no.

Look no further than White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki's attempt to explain away Vice President Kamala Harris' tanking approval ratings.

'She is the first African American woman, woman of color, Indian American woman to serve in this job. Woman. I mean, so many firsts, right?' Psaki said on Wednesday. 'I do think there have been some attacks that are beyond because of her identity.'

Right?

Earlier this month, Republican newbie Glenn Youngkin ran away with the governorship of a state that voted for Joe Biden by 10 points, tearing what was assumed to be an assured victory from the hands of a former governor and mainstay of the Democratic Party, Terry McAuliffe.

Many in the media and the Democratic party blamed outright racism.

'This is about the fact that a good chunk of voters out there are OK with White supremacy. Let's call a thing a thing,' said MSNBC's Tiffany Cross. 'Actually, scratch that. They are more than OK.'

But that wasn't it and Democrats need to learn this lesson.

So, how did Youngkin really do it?

Education got a lot of media attention in the run up to the election; a quarter of voters named schools as their primary reason for turning out. But the most import issue was the economy.

Inflation is at a historic 6 percent; it's doubled gas prices and shot the grocery bills of American families into the stratospheric triple digits, and many middle- and working-class families are reeling from the rapid dwindling of their bank accounts.

Voters for both candidates named the economy as a top priority, but Youngkin won a resounding victory with those who are struggling; he got the votes of three quarters of Virginians who think the economy isn't doing well.

Youngkin ran away with fully 76 percent of white Americans without a college degree—a good proxy for who the economy is failing—as well as between 40 and 50 percent of Latino voters and even 14 percent of Black women, a historic number for a Republican.

In other words, the Virginia election at the end of the day was about class. It was about the class of people who the COVID economy has hurt and keeps hurting—working class Americans, small business owners, essential workers, and the downwardly mobile middle class.

These Americans, even those with liberal values, have started to see the Democratic Party as out of touch, no longer the party of the people but the party of the winners, of those whose bank accounts the COVID economy has swollen, whose homes are worth more and who have been able to borrow money at ridiculously low rates and invest, those working from home and saving money on commuting costs and dinners out, who couldn't travel for two years and now have cash on hand.

Even the question of education in Virginia was one of class. Of course, it was framed as a question of race by McAuliffe and his supporters in the party and the pundit class—as bigoted white voters not wanting the history of American race relations taught to their children. But the truth is more complex.

It was poor and working-class public school parents who were most impacted by the endless school closures of the pandemic, who couldn't afford the private schools that opened much sooner and who had the most incentive to vote for anyone promising to open the schools and give parents a say. 

And even the much-ballyhooed debate about critical race theory is not really about race. It's not about whether some esoteric Harvard Law School curriculum is or

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