SO I WENT BACK TO USA TODAY JUST TO TAKE A VICTORY LAP: Virginia Democrats Destroyed Themselves on Election Day.

After Terry McAuliffe’s stunning defeat by challenger Glenn Youngkin in Virginia’s gubernatorial race, conservative journalist Matt Walsh tweeted, in part: “I want to thank the Loudoun County school board. None of this would have been possible without you.” . . .

Normally, what happens in local school boards stays in local school boards. America’s public education tradition has been one of decentralized public education, with systems accountable to parents via locally elected school boards. But what happens when the school boards try to write parents out of the equation?

Virginia happens.

While parents are children’s primary educators and should have the greatest influence over kids’ education, Democrats’ activist base seems to think that kids should belong to the state, not their parents. When McAuliffe said during a debate, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach,” it confirmed a lot of people’s worst fears.

Had McAuliffe done the sensible thing and said that of course parents have a right to express an opinion on their kids’ education, the story would have died. But he said the opposite. Had Garland declined to take a public position on angry parents in local meetings, the story would have gotten far less attention.

But neither one could help himself. The Democrats have allowed their party’s messaging, and its signature policy moves, to be controlled by their activist fringes. . . .

But the schools stuff hits the hardest, because it attacks people’s kids. And in the end, it may not just be Virginia Democrats who self-destructed but the public schools themselves. New York City’s public schools are hemorrhaging students – losing 64,000 students since the 2019-20 school year – as parents move their kids to charter schools, private schools, home-schooling or out of the city altogether. And you can see similar trends around the nation.

Of course, some experts suggest (including McAuliffe himself) that the former Democratic governor was dragged down by President Joe Biden’s plummeting popularity. But it’s also the case that Biden’s out-of-touch ineffectuality looks worse against a background of lousy government at the local level.

My New York Post column, which drops in a few hours, looks at the next way the Democrats are going to screw themselves.