A few words on the redistricting wars

Let's begin by saying this: Republicans do not believe in democracy. It is a dead letter. It no longer gives them or guarantees them the power that they feel is theirs by right. A party which began to preserve the Union and democracy, which prosecuted a bloody and ruinous war to that end, has now done a total turn around to side with the forces which it long-ago opposed.

But this is nothing any of you don't know. I laugh when Republicans—especially Black Republican—haughtily intone that Democrats were the party of the Ku Klux Klan. Yes, Democrats were. Because Southern Democrats never accepted their defeat in the Civil War. But after the national party became, well, not fascist, the establishment Southern Democrats sloughed off their loyalty, preferring racism over anything else. And the GOP, which had already been moving in an authoritarian direction, saw an opportunity and swooped in, the party of Union becoming the party of Confederacy, while Democrats—the party of Confederacy and Southern appeasement—became the party of a more perfect Union.

But today I want to give you a reflection on What This All Means™.

We have a Supreme Court majority which is ideologically wedded to destroying the civil rights legislative monuments of the 1960s. This majority sees the traducing of white male power as anathema to American values. For them, any accomodation which limits white male power is cause for the exercise of extreme measures to roll back those losses. Why do the Black Clarence Thomas and the white female Amy Coney Barrett acquiesce? Thomas is both corrupt personally and benefits from being a lapdog for white supremacy. And Coney Barrett is one of a legion of white women who see their role as supporting white supremacist patriarchy. This patriarchy could not survive without the likes of Thomas and Barrett. People like them gild the lily.

The Court's decision in gutting Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act has engendered a mad rush to redistrict and eliminate Black electoral representation in the South. This was after the redistricting in Texas in 2025 which set off countermeasures from states like California and Virginia. This is a new front in our Cold Second Civil War. And just like the first, it presages nothing good.

Democracy is not only about laws or constitutions. It's about a shared reality, a shared set of concepts. American politics have always been contentious. The post-Depression "liberal consensus" was honored often more in the breach. Its last great hurrah was the forcing of Richard Nixon's resignation. And that was its death knell. Republicans, already shearing off any of its liberal members, saw this as a Democratic coup d'etat, and triggered the destructive politics we see now. Bill Clinton's impeachment was only a taste of Republican revenge. The Republican Party was set on turning the United States into a one-party state, where elections, much as in Russia, were mere window dressing for authoritarian rule.

In Donald Trump they found their perfect vehicle. As I say often, Trumpism is not the cause, but the manifestation of a disease long in gestation. All the poisons which have lurked in the mud have hatched out. Republican no longer even pretend to put on a pleasing face. Raw power is all that concerns them.

And thus we are here in the Gerrymandering Wars. Some sanity is breaking out; South Carolina's Senate defeated a redistricting bill, after Senator Lindsey Graham warned that spreading GOP votes out so thinly would backfire in this political environment, where some polls show Democrats with a fifteen point lead in the generic ballot for the House. And good souls like Marc Elias continue to fight and win in court.

But I would be lying if I didn't look upon all this with ill ease. Yes, Democratic states can gerrymander to an extent which would deny Republicans any national power for decades. But a bitter and resentful minority is not something which a polity can long tolerate. Nothing is eternal. Evil will not be kept down by force—military or political—forever. Democratic moves to counter Republican moves serve only to kick the can down the road, with no endgame which reconciles opposites to again believe in a common narrative.

A common narrative. We have lost that. The Cold War served to tamp down ethnic grievances in the old Eastern Bloc. But less remarked upon is that it served the same function in the US. Civil rights for Black Americans came about in part because America couldn't preach about freedom and democracy abroad while millions were second-class citizens at home. But it turned out that the majority of white America was perfectly fine with that arrangement. And once civil rights were enacted into law, white America turned from the party it held responsible for the perceived loss of its privilege.

Tit-for-tat gerrymanders are necessary at this political moment. But don't think that this is a sustainable strategy. At some point something has to give. And it's a binary choice. A peaceful accommodation in which all people in this Commonwealth can enjoy the fruits of liberty. Or another violent eruption. This is where we are.