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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026

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Del. Elliott Pritt, a Republican member of the [West Virginia] House of Delegates, has been charged with enticing a minor after an investigation found that he communicated with a girl through Roblox and Snapchat.

Pritt, 36, is a public school teacher who represents the 50th District in Fayette County. He served as assistant majority leader prior to his arrest. (...)

The complaint said that Pritt began communicating with the girl when she was in eighth grade in 2024 through the online game Roblox then later on Snapchat. (...)

Pritt also sent sexually explicit photos of himself and requested that the girl send nude photos of herself through Snapchat. (...)

The complaint said that Pritt later initiated a physical relationship with the minor and requested that she meet him in his classroom at Oak Hill High School to engage in sexual activity at least five to ten times.

The comments on Reddit are gloatingly pointing out that Pritt is neither trans or otherwise LGBT, nor a drag queen, but a father of four married to a woman, and, of course, a Republican.

What is interesting is that Pritt was initially elected as a Democrat in 2022, switched to the Republican Party in 2023, and was re-elected in 2024 as a Republican. Someone commenting on his recent arrest on Reddit described him as "the same asshole that switched parties and platforms after getting elected", apparently not realizing that, for the Democrats, this was, in retrospect, a most beneficial move.

One thing that is unclear is that he "requested that she meet him in his classroom at Oak Hill High School to engage in sexual activity at least five to ten times". People on Reddit are reading this as saying that they met up and had sex five to ten times, but it could also be interpreted as saying that he was just pushy about meeting up, but that they didn't actually meet up. Am I being autistic with this reading or what? Not that asking an eighth-grader for sex and her refusing is any better than having sex with her.

Public school teachers being creepwads towards their adolescent students is a page five story during a slow news cycle. What makes this case unusual is being a state legislator... but state legislators are pretty much random people who are crazy and have a drive to get elected to something.

I was thinking the other day about the ignorance of legislators, but then who really has the time to take two months off of work in late winter to do legislating work, in addition to running for election? I suppose the schedule around here was made for agriculture workers?

In Texas it's spring. All of these people are business owners, and all of them are insane.