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Fox News co-host Kayleigh McEnany rightly sounded the alarm this week, telling viewers that this scandal “does not end until we demand a higher standard” from those who seek to be the commonwealth’s top law enforcement official. Conservatives watching the clip saw an unmistakable pattern: violent rhetoric and moral failure cannot be shrugged off when someone wants to be attorney general.
The story itself is shocking: text messages from 2022 surfaced in which Jay Jones allegedly fantasized about shooting then–House Speaker Todd Gilbert and invoked dictators like Hitler and Pol Pot while even implying harm to Gilbert’s children. This is not partisan theater — these are private words that reveal a mindset unfit for the solemn duty of enforcing the law.
Reaction has been swift and bipartisan because the content is indefensible; Republican leaders and conservative commentators have demanded he step aside, and even national figures have piled on as Virginians watch early voting under way. The outrage is real and strategic — Republicans are using Jones’s own words to expose a larger truth about the radicalizing elements in the modern Democratic coalition.
Jones did issue an apology, but he has not bowed out of the race, choosing instead to try to survive politically while his own messages are replayed over and over on the airwaves. That kind of half-measure apology — coming only after the story broke — rings hollow to anyone who believes in personal responsibility and accountability.
The GOP response has been disciplined and muscular, with ad buys already hitting the air to remind voters what these texts contained and why character matters for an attorney general. Conservatives should celebrate that our side is not ceding the narrative: when Democrats protect their own despite such behavior, voters need to know the stakes.
Worse still is the limp response from many in Jones’s own party, who condemned the rhetoric but stopped short of demanding he leave the ticket — a cowardly shrug that tells voters the left tolerates extreme behavior so long as it serves electoral goals. If Democrats won’t police their candidates, then the voters must, and Republicans must keep pressing until the people’s standard is met.
This moment is about more than one man’s bad judgment; it’s about the future tone of American politics and whether we will tolerate calls to violence from those who aspire to power. Patriots and conservatives should demand better, hold the line for decency, and ensure that the people who prosecute our laws are men and women of unimpeachable character — because liberty and order depend on it.
