Youngkin criticized for supporting "election deniers."

But why shouldn't he?

Nearly every day, the Washington Post runs a piece attacking Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin. Typically, it attacks him for his opposition to teaching school children that America is incorrigibly racist. Or for upsetting transgender students by, for example, his opposition to allowing boys to compete against girls in athletics or to shower with them.

Yesterday, the Post varied its attack on the popular governor. It criticized him for supporting GOP gubernatorial candidates who subscribe to “the big lie.”

By “big lie,” the Post means the unsubstantiated view that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election, or would have won had the votes been tabulated honestly. The Post does not mean the unsubstantiated view that Trump colluded with Russia in the 2016 election — a view the Post peddled non-stop for a few years.

Youngkin is doing his best to help Republican candidates get elected governor. To this end, he’s supporting such candidates without regard to their position on the 2020 election. He campaigned in Georgia for Brian Kemp, who resisted pressure to swing the 2020 result Trump’s way. He is also scheduled to campaign in Arizona for Kari Lake, who apparently still clings to the view that Trump was the real winner in 2020.

The Post seems to think there’s something wrong with this. So do Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol, whom the paper quotes liberally.

But Youngkin’s support for candidates on both sides of the 2020 election issue is problematic only if one believes that this issue overrides everything else in a gubernatorial race — issues like taxes, crime, education, and all other matters that pertain to governing a state.

To me, that belief borders on the irrational.

Those who hold it might argue that denying the outcome of an election transcends everything else because such denial strikes a blow against something foundational in a democracy. I see little merit in this contention.

People have questioned the legitimacy of many election outcomes, with and without good cause. Democrats have done it at least as often as Republicans have. The questioners (or “deniers,” the term of choice when it’s Republicans who do it) are routinely dismissed by most people as sore losers and “our democracy” soldiers on.

To me, the left’s attacks on free speech are more threatening to democracy than claims about what happened in this or that election. I have no fear of living in a country where sore losers and some of their supporters deny losing. (If the sore loser incites a riot, that’s another matter, but the gubernatorial candidates Youngkin supports didn’t do that.) I do fear living in a country where free speech is routinely abridged, especially on college campuses where the free expression of ideas is of transcendent importance.

Governors have an important role to play in promoting free speech on college campuses. Governors like Youngkin and the Republicans he’s backing are far more likely to take on that important role than are their Democratic opponents.

“Election deniers” come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and ideologies. Stacey Abrams is one of them.

She never conceded defeat in her 2018 bid to be Georgia’s governor. She repeatedly refused to say Brian Kemp was the legitimate governor of Georgia. She repeatedly said she didn’t lose the election but, in fact, won it — despite having no grounds for that assertion.

Now that Democrats are using “election denial” as a talking point against Republicans, Abrams claims she never denied her defeat. Even the Washington Post isn’t buying it.

Abrams’ opponent this year (as in 2018) is Brian Kemp. He’s an “election affirmer,” having rejected Trump’s claim that he carried Georgia in 2020.

Are liberal Democrats backing Kemp to any noticeable degree? Of course not, nor should they. From a liberal point of view, Abrams is far preferable to Kemp because of her positions on matters of policy and because these positions are more important than the candidates’ take on a past election.

Governor Youngkin is acting with similar rationality when he backs GOP candidates for governor without regard to their view of what happened in the 2020 election. I understand why the Post, Liz Cheney, and Bill Kristol don’t like it, but there’s no reason why the rest of us should mind.