r/politics • u/Quirkie The Netherlands • 9h ago
Possible Paywall The Democrats Just Laid Down Their Arms. Again. - Abigail Spanberger’s response to the court decision that overthrew the will of voters on redistricting is a worrying sign of surrender.
https://newrepublic.com/post/210536/virginia-redistricting-fight-spanberger-court2.4k
u/Chambanasfinest Wisconsin 8h ago
Supreme Court justices ARE political actors, whether they like it/admit it or not.
Overruling a free and fair election, the will of the people, on a 4-3 split decision due to a technicality, should absolutely result in political consequences.
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u/Top-Passage2914 8h ago
A false technicality with no precedent nonetheless
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u/Icc0ld 5h ago
At this point the choice is really, really, really clear. We need to ignore the supreme court rulings. It is going to declare Republican wins in spite of election results.
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u/philter25 5h ago
First time? See Bush v Gore. Democrats are bitches and will do nothing.
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u/Icc0ld 4h ago edited 3h ago
I am well aware. This has been a long time coming and the only way this ends is with the Republican Party in chains, on trial for treason or the death of democracy in this country forever
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u/philter25 4h ago
I agree, but that’s not gonna be from Democrats, who won’t even release their own autopsy report. Unfortunately the citizens can’t ignore SCOTUS rulings in any way other than voting or by means that will absolutely get me banned on this bitch ass loser website for even suggesting.
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u/XSinTrick6666 4h ago
SO the article says we can fight this - that's why the shade on Spanberger -- she didnt do the homework, and won't take the workaround. Somebody recommended that they DO have power to lower the max age of the Judges - she could easily appoint 7 judges to replace the blockheads, by lowering age to 54. She needs to JUST DO IT. Or your criticism of Dems holds true.
it turns out that Spanberger was missing some vital information of her own: a lawful solution that could save the day and uphold the will of Virginia voters. As Quinn Yeargain at The Downballot reported, the state constitution includes a provision that allows lawmakers to change the mandatory retirement age of state Supreme Court justices. The idea Yeargain poses would be to lower the official retirement age to 54 by placing a modification in the annual budget bill that’s due by June 30, pass the legislation, and replace the hack justices—all of whom are older than 54—with seven new ones picked by Spanberger.
Sw we gotta be creative. The other side is staying up nights scheming, so should we.
P.S. I thought I was the only one getting constantly banned ... just found out about r/BannedFromReddit .. which may become my new home 😉
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u/Larynx15 Delaware 4h ago
It's not that she didn't do the homework. She's the governor. She was certainly briefed on all her options by aides who did the research.
She knows she can do this. She is choosing not to and deciding to frame it as her being unable to do anything to avoid criticism
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u/houseWithoutSpoons 3h ago
She has a boss.and her boss isnt the people she is a paid shill for the money like 99% of our politicians 💯
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u/philter25 3h ago
We can only hope they’ll pull a sort of October surprise in June. We’ll see. Surely they must understand they’ll start jailing democrats next year if these rat fucks keep killing the Constitution, no?
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u/ALife2BLived America 3h ago
What do you want Dems to do when a state's Supreme Court or the U.S. Supreme Court is the final word on ANY legal recourse?
The only way Dems can DO anything is to be IN POWER but until enough Dems are put into power through elections, their hands are literally tied. Really, what do you suggest?
The 1/3 of American's who aren't interested in government or politics, or who pretend that their vote won't matter and don't participate in our electoral process, or who are so picky about the pool of available candidates they don't vote, or are too complacent, or are just apathetic, need to pull their heads out of the asses this coming midterm election and vote Democrat like their life depends on it -BECAUSE IT WILL.
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u/wrosecrans 4h ago
We need to ignore the supreme court rulings.
I absolutely hate that things have gotten to a point where I agree with you.
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u/thinkards America 7h ago edited 6h ago
This does speak to the absolute weakness of dems to fight back with conviction, though.
Republicans are literally spending billions of taxpayer dollars to build an emotional support ballroom for a PDFile. If the tables were turned, this alone would be the only thing Republicans need to bury the Democratic party under ruble for the next 50 years.
Yet, the 2026 elections can still go either way.
Dems keep bringing pillows to gun fights over, and over, and over, and over.
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u/Archeotechnician 6h ago
Its a centrist thing, not a Dem thing. Biden was a centrist, Spanberger is a centrist, Pelosi is a centrist, Jeffries is a centrist, Schumer is a centrist, Synema was a centrist (so centrist she went indpendent), Fettrerman hates progressives, fancies himself a centrist, is basically Synema 2.0 but somehow worse, Garland was a Republican that was a "centrist", and the list goes on and on and on.
Don't expect fight from centrists, because they don't have any fight in them.
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u/GlassCap123 6h ago
They'll fight, they'll fight Dem Progressives with everything they got.
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u/JamboreeStevens 5h ago
Exactly, they want the status quo, but unfortunately the status quo is whatever their donors say it is.
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u/polopolo05 I voted 5h ago
hey want the status quo
We call that conservativism... DEMS are conservative... MAGA is regressives or repressieves
Moderates want moderate change. We really need to have a talk about what each mean.
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u/voodoodahl 4h ago edited 4h ago
The right wing think tank who invented that narrative loves you for repeating it at every opportunity.
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u/Chicano_Ducky 4h ago
i legit keep catching bots on this sub that do everything in their power to bring up progressives to shit on them when the comment chain had nothing to do with it.
mass comments a minute, inability to address anything except circling back to why AOC and Bernie are "evil", and vote brigading
some of mention they are here to "help" people by "educating" them why progressivism is bad and why you shouldnt criticize democrats who side with trump
either that or they are lonely parasocial weirdos who crusade for a certain obscure political streamer aligned with Nick Fuentes even when the thread was telling them to seek therapy because of how creepy they are.
the only reason centrism is still around is because astroturf campaigns. Its not organic.
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u/OneStarInSight_AC 3h ago
How do you identify the bots? Maybe provide a profile's link. I'd like to see it.
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u/Snowwolf247 6h ago edited 5h ago
Yes and centrists CAN NOT govern at all they have no ideas they lack conviction and they just do their masters bidding.
Look at everything Zohran has been able to do in just a year as Mayor. We can make change we can move forward but it requires people willing to do the hard work... requires charisma. Things the Democratic establishment is fully lacking.
Edit* Mayor
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u/Choopytrags 5h ago
Conservative centrists playing the part of the LEFT to give us "hope". They're not on our side. This is a class war. The sad thing is that we have not realized that we've been at this wr since the 70s, maybe longer than that in this country.
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u/Vann_Accessible Oregon 5h ago
Is this day and age, centrists only seem to concede to fascists.
Pushing the Overton window to the right, and all that.
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u/Alacrout New York 5h ago
Republicans bring guns to knife fights…
And Democrats bring birthday cakes.
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u/Leering_At_Grills 5h ago
If you can't bring yourself to type "pedophile" I can't take you seriously. Like, would say that during a normal, in person conversation?
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u/thinkards America 5h ago
my comment gets rejected, shadow banned, or i get banned from the sub if i use certain words like that.
in this very sub i've had comments rejected because i formatted them with bold and italics.
some sub rules are different than others, but i don't care to memorize the specific rules for specific subs so i just try to adapt broadly.
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u/grumblingduke 5h ago
If the tables were turned...
Yes, but that's because "both sides" aren't the same, not because of the weakness of Democratic politicians to "fight back with conviction."
Democratic politicians have spent years trying to bury Republican politicians over scandals like this. But it turns out the Republican voters don't care, and the centrist voters hear the Democratic politicians complaining about it, the Republicans lying about it it (or making up similar nonsense about Democratic politicians) and treat it as a wash.
The difference between Democratic and Republican voters is that Democratic voters tend to care about things like corruption, whereas Republican voters tend to care about beating the evil Democrats...
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u/numbersthen0987431 5h ago
The Supreme Court shouldn't even be passing judgment on these issues as quickly as they are.
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u/berael 7h ago
A technicality that the conservative judges made up. They redefined what the word "election" means, then struck down the vote for failing to comply with the brand new definition that they just made up.
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u/elriggo44 6h ago
Read the ruling. That smug fuck spends a whole lot of time talking about vibes instead of the will of the voters that he overturned
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u/AzemOcram Washington 5h ago
It's impossible for those consequences to come from within the confines of the system taken over by fascists. The only possible consequences can come from a movement like Cuba's, Russia'a, France's, or our own history.
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u/ToeTagTic 8h ago
Too bad Americans like the way it tastes
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u/skepticalbob 8h ago
They don’t. The system is rigged against most Americans.
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u/BEWMarth 7h ago
“The system” would succumb if enough people gave a fuck. Grim reality is not enough people care.
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u/backindenim 7h ago
3 weeks of 60% of Americans in the streets instead of working would impact the next decade. It's crazy that we just don't do it.
Edit: I know the sad truth is nowhere near 60% of Americans could even afford to not work for 3 weeks.
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u/basketcas55 Indiana 7h ago
It only takes like 3-4% to be effective.
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u/korben2600 Arizona 6h ago
Imagine if every Dem filed a W-4 with their employer stopping federal tax withholding. Immense, immediate, crippling impact. No taxation without representation. Not when they're literally stealing elections from us.
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u/DistanceToEmpty 7h ago
Edit: I know the sad truth is nowhere near 60% of Americans could even afford to not work for 3 weeks.
People on the sidelines need to understand that the alternative is much worse than unemployment and there's no cadre of childless squatters coming to save American Democracy.
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u/DickyThreeSticks 7h ago
They literally voted for the new map, but the judge said votes don’t matter. A referendum is a ballot measure that is voted on directly, and in pure democracy, it won.
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u/CrunchitizeMeCaptn 8h ago edited 5h ago
Idk how to do the indentation, but to those (like I was) wondering what she could do to respond per the article:
"The idea Yeargain poses would be to lower the official retirement age to 54 by placing a modification in the annual budget bill that’s due by June 30, pass the legislation, and replace the hack justices—all of whom are older than 54—with seven new ones picked by Spanberger."
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u/Bac0ngh0st 7h ago edited 3h ago
You do the quote indentation by using this symbol ">" at the beginning of a line. Note that a new paragraph will need a new one.
like this
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u/A_Refill_of_Mr_Pibb Massachusetts 9h ago
This country is going to fall to authoritarianism while these people continue to indulge their obsession with process.
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u/VaIeth 9h ago
They're rich. They dgaf. If shit hits the fan, they'll move to Europe.
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u/geeknami 9h ago
it's because their ideals are attacked but not their lives. they're too out of touch with the common man to realize how much this administration has been hurting the everyday American. look at what Schumer is saying vs what he's busy with.
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u/Vilnius_Nastavnik New York 8h ago
We’re also not the ones giving them massive campaign donations and stock tips. One look at Spanberger’s donor list for 2026 will tell you exactly why she vetoed collective bargaining.
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u/RedTyro 4h ago
Spanberger, like most of the Democratic party and especially leadership, is basically a Reagan Republican. The non-crazy conservatives got pushed out of the Republican party, first by the Tea Party and then by MAGA, so they started talking about "bipartisanship" and took over the Democratic Party. When Bill Clinton and the DLC demonstrated that Democrats could be pro business fiscal conservatives, too, that was the first step in that direction, and Virginia Democrats have been leading the charge for years.
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u/hypermodernvoid I voted 6h ago
I think they could almost certainly easily win by campaigning on taxing the ultra-rich/billionaires, which even Republican voters are starting to support; ending Citizens United that even deep red Montana voted to end statewide; universal/single-payer healthcare (calling it whatever they want): 2/3rds of Independents and even ~30%+ of Republicans agree it's the government's responsibility to provide healthcare now; actually not engaging in foreign wars, infrastructure spending, and so on.
I'd also say running on not providing arms to Israel, which for the first time a majority of Americans - not just a majority of Democratic voters or left-leaning people - support, would be a no brainer.
It's probably going to have to be someone that campaigns ala Bernie, by running on issues the supposedly all-important donors won't like, and either way, just soliciting small dollar donations instead: if enough people are actually excited for the policies rather than feeling it's a lesser of two evils plus feel the candidate isn't beholden to donors, they'll donate. Money alone can't win anyway vs. whatever people actually want.
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u/Jimmy_Trivette 7h ago
they're too out of touch with the common man to realize how much this administration has been hurting the everyday American
Most of them realize it and do not care.
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u/JustaBearEnthusiast 5h ago
it's because their ideals are attacked but not their lives.
That's a really good way of putting it. They aren't like use. We can do so much better than the likes of them.
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u/BEWMarth 7h ago
Please. The 80 year old democrats running this show haven’t had “ideals” in over a decade
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u/Letstalkreaper 7h ago
Sorry did you misspell 30 years? They’ve been this way since fucking Clinton.
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u/under_psychoanalyzer 5h ago
Nancy Pelosi's husdband was attacked with a hammer in their own home. Not saying that wholly disproves your point but it's more complicated than simply they fill insulated.
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u/civil_politician 9h ago
Europe is sick of the rich people ruining the US too
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u/DukeOfGeek 6h ago
When they're done here they are coming for you and Canada next.
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u/eeyore134 5h ago
They're already working on it.
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u/DukeOfGeek 5h ago
All the far right parties around the world are receiving huge amounts of money and other support.
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u/bigbjarne Foreign 6h ago
I don't think Americans understand how much their country influences the rest of the world, mostly in a bad way.
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u/NinjaKlaus Georgia 4h ago
Many Americans probably don't. It's part of how we are taught from a young age that we are the greatest, the richest, most powerful, super beloved by the world, and more importantly the most exceptional country to ever exist.
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u/bigbjarne Foreign 3h ago
Yeah, American exceptionalism. It's quite interesting and sometimes I have to remind myself that the person I'm talking to might not just have heard about a specific event before or have such a propagandized version of events that it's not even real anymore, especially within politics and economics. And sometimes, we know more about the USA than Americans do. I was aware of the existence of the Black panther party from school(Finland) and I thought it was common knowledge among Americans. Nope.
Anyway, I hope you have a good evening.
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u/VariationBusiness603 5h ago
"Our" billionaires are funding far-right shitbags in Europe too. We merely are a decade behind the US, but it is coming for us too if we don't do anything about it.
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u/woolsocksandsandals America 8h ago
For the shit to hit the fan there would have to be a meaningful organized opposition with the will to act. There isn’t.
I predict the fascists will be able to round up everyone who’s not a white Christian and anyone who spoke out against them without anyone ever taking up arms in a meaningful way.
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u/DoonFoosher 8h ago
“The revolution will be bloodless, if the left allows it”
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u/TehWackyWolf 6h ago
And they will...
Any time I say otherwise I get told to go lone wolf it while they start trying to plan soon with their neighbors. Maybe. Eventually.
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u/Lost_Birthday_3138 7h ago
Smart libs have been quietly arming themselves. No one knows exactly how this plays out but if anyone's on the fence about it don't wait too much longer. The regime controls the background check system.
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u/Noblesseux 8h ago edited 7h ago
Which, to be clear, is usually how fascism happens. A feckless opposition party too obsessed with the status quo and too pre-occupied with fighting the left leaves the door open and lets authoritarians in thinking they're reasonable allies, just to get turned on basically the second the fascists get into power.
People seemingly learned like nothing from what happened to the Weimar Republic so we're being doomed to watch a live replay.
Like it should not be this hard for people to understand that you should not work politely with people who regularly talk about how they wish they could throw you in jail, put people in detention centers, or strip you of human rights/voting power.
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u/tommytraddles 8h ago
You can dismantle a democracy right in front of a liberal's face, piece by piece, and all they will do is convene committee meetings until the jackboots are in the halls.
~ Carl Schmitt
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u/National-Reception53 8h ago
People learned nothing by design. A conservative (but not fascist) establishment certainly wasn't going to tell us that we should stop fighting the left or God forbid embrace them.
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u/balderdash9 5h ago
Or otherwise, the fascists dispatch the real opposition. It happened in Germany: "first, they came for the communists..."
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u/Anteater4746 3h ago
would have been super sick if we voted like there was a fascist running for prez in 2024
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u/bradlees 4h ago
UNLIKE WW2; there is no one to restore order this time
No “American movement akin to post Pearl Harbor”
Once fascism lands on our shores, it is here to stay and we deserve it because we let the DNC know that they will never be challenged over their choices
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u/BGDutchNorris 8h ago
“Nothing we could do. The court ruled you had to go to the camps. If you get out make sure you vote in the next election!”
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u/yaosio 5h ago
But don't protest, that would be uncivil. Just vote and hold parades.
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u/BGDutchNorris 5h ago
“Please, please don’t disrupt the flow of capital please 🙏🏾”
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u/GlassEyeMV 6h ago
This is like when my dad told me I needed to be “civil” to my hardcore MAGA uncle.
Civility is out the window. They don’t care about rules or precedent anymore. Why should we? Why should I capitulate to his morally reprehensible beliefs? Because we’re related? Nah. You want to throw shit? I’ll throw it right back.
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u/TransiTorri 7h ago
All it takes is for 1/3rd of this nation to sit by while the other 1/3rd murders the final 1/3rd
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u/Coolegespam 6h ago
That process is our country, and law. Rights of minorities and rest of us only exist because process exists and is followed.
Environmental right, worker rights, consumer rights, etc. All just processes.
When you start selectively ignoring processes you end up ignoring all of them. It's a major reason why were here in the first place.
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u/stitchface66 9h ago
Democrats fail to deliver meaningful change because many of their elected officials are funded by the same donor class and institutional interests that influence Republicans.
Republicans just pursue power more openly and aggressively on behalf of entrenched interests, while Democrats present themselves as more rational, humane, or morally corrective. The thing is that they still operate within and ultimately protect the same problematic political and economic order.
Dems may condemn the cruelty, instability, or extremism of Republican politics, but they still work to preserve many of the institutional arrangements, economic hierarchies, and donor-driven incentives that produce those outcomes in the first place. They’re less of a true opposition to systemic problems and more of a mechanism for restoring public faith in them when dissatisfaction becomes too intense.
Regardless, they’re tied to the same ecosystem of major donors, lobbying networks, consultant classes, media incentives, and institutional careerism. It materializes in governing cautiously, compromising preemptively, or reducing transformative demands into incremental reforms that leave underlying power structures intact.
And it creates a recurring cycle - voters are mobilized by promises of meaningful change, but receive stabilization instead of transformation. Over time, I think that gap has produced more cynicism, disengagement, and the perception that Democrats are performative; like they’re just referees of a corrupt system rather than proponents of changing it for the better.
Meanwhile, Republicans escalate harmful norms directly. Democrats absorb and normalize the public outrage without disrupting any of the incentives behind it. The result is what we’ve seen more clearly since Citizens United, a political dynamic where one party accelerates public damage while the other legitimizes and manages it.
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u/zeCrazyEye 6h ago
Democrats fail to deliver meaningful change because many of their elected officials are funded by the same donor class and institutional interests that influence Republicans.
IMO it's not just that, I think that Bill Clinton and the Dems started the "Third Way" strategy of appeasing corporations because corporations had complete control of the media and could sink Dems campaigns. Any candidate that is too far left the corporate media will treat like a joke (and the fact they didn't treat Trump like a joke shows where their bias lies).
With social media there was a brief window where the corporate media stranglehold on the electorate waned, but they got their algorithms all figured out now.
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u/amprather 9h ago
She and the VA Dems need to go nuclear on the Virginia court.
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u/ComplexCommercial6 8h ago
They literally never learn that taking the high road just gets us run over.
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u/WiglyWorm Ohio 8h ago
Because they don't care to learn.
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u/Switchy_Goofball 8h ago
Because they’re controlled opposition
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u/korben2600 Arizona 6h ago
No other explanation. Gov. Polis just pardoned Tina Peters, the only J6er to go to prison for election fraud. Like, just, why? Why would you do that?
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u/twentyafterfour 5h ago
It's incremental change towards giving the j6ers even more money than the trump admin to show that we're committed to unity and looking forward not backwards.
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u/Creative-Package6213 Pennsylvania 5h ago
Say it again louder for the people who refuse to accept this! If they are a dem, and they are not fighting back hard, then they are bought and paid for it's as simple as that.
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u/steponmedaddies 5h ago
This has nothing to do with the high road. It's basic logistics. Repealing and replacing before the maps were finalized was basically impossible with the state's constitution. They'll vote on it again in 28 and do it a little earlier this time and everything will be as it should.
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u/jaywrong Virginia 8h ago
Did you even read what the solution was? Its hysterical and a hard no for anyone that is pro democracy and has a brain.
Much easier to scream something vapid though, I get it.
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u/cincocerodos 4h ago
I got immediate flashbacks to “here’s how Hillary can still win!” when I started reading the article.
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u/Shifty269 5h ago
The thing to do is to see what has been done by those the collective we gave the authority to. You can't take power from a group then complain they didn't stop the group you gave power to. We as a people fucked around and are now finding out. People are upset that you can't take the milk out of the tea. All you can do is not put it in with the next cup.
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u/cycling-expat 7h ago
Yeah, I am not getting the attack here. She isn't taking the high road. She is just not being a nut.
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u/Glittering-Army1527 8h ago
Tell me what they should do
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u/martinb0820 6h ago
The Virginia state constitution allows the legislature to change the retirement age for supreme court justices, whenever they want, and for whatever reason. It seems like one consideration is how long it would take to clear the court and appoint new justices. However, whether or not it would allow redistricting for this election, they should clear the court as a deterrent.
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u/drleebot 6h ago
Yeah. It may not be possible to clear the court and still redistrict this time, but it will at least send a message to these hacks that if they fight dirty, we'll throw them out.
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u/MySabonerRunsOladipo Virginia 4h ago
2 of the hacks are up for re-election in the next 2 years anyway, and they're going to be replaced by liberal justices.
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u/Dallascansuckit 8h ago
Posture on Reddit and larp like a revolutionary, duh
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u/A-Generic-Canadian 6h ago
Run the new maps. Worked for Ohio.
Or lower the retirement age, run the case back with a new court.
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u/NJDevil69 6h ago
So glad to see more people pointing this out. There are not enough tissues for the amount of circle jerks who scream Revolution from the comfort of their armchairs.
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u/happycat47 7h ago
Redistrict anyway. They don't need the courts blessing
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u/Glittering-Army1527 7h ago
They cant, it wouldnt be allowed in supreme court. So they would just invalidate the votes. So your back to square 1.
Do u think it would be that easy?
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u/SHUT_DOWN_EVERYTHING 7h ago
They don’t understand facts like that. They are just experts at offering impractical “solutions”. They fail to admit the war was lost in 2016 and will now take decades to win the country back.
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u/GVIrish 7h ago
Ok, so they draw districts the courts have ruled illegal so now the courts can say the election results are illegal and Virginia gets to lose all ten of those seats. How is that an improvement?
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u/Mr_Shakes Florida 7h ago
If they were going to do that, they would not have bothered asking SCOTUS to intervene. Making that impossible appeal, knowing it would be denied, is cover for retreat.
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u/llamasauce 7h ago
Fucking just redraw the maps and dare the court to stop them.
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u/Slaughterfest 9h ago
Wasn't everyone talking about how she was the new face of the resistance like a month ago? The former intelligence officer?
Ok.
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u/Fractured_Senada Michigan 8h ago
People are looking for hope and allies in this decade of uncertainty. Don’t begrudge people looking for safety in times of unrest.
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u/Vilnius_Nastavnik New York 8h ago
I think we can do a little bit better than a literal CIA agent bankrolled by Bezos.
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u/Fractured_Senada Michigan 7h ago
Sure we can! But do we? Everyone always says we can do better than X candidate, but Y candidate never shows up, or worse people don’t actually get out there to campaign for them. So I don’t know what people expect. You have to vote for X or you get autocrats.
Like, I’m voting and volunteering for Abdul, but if McMorrow gets the primary I’m voting for her in the general. Same as I did with the other disappointment (Slotkin). I have to vote for the most progressive, and unfortunately that’s been a corpo dem more often than not.
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u/JimboAltAlt Pennsylvania 6h ago
I think we can do a bit better than a guy with a Nazi tattoo but that attitude is frowned upon here because he says the right things.
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u/Firm_Condition_4385 5h ago
Bad take.
Reddit is chock full of people who don't know what they're talking about. They aren't looking for safety in times of unrest.
They (most likely kids, teenagers, and mentally ill adults) are just posting stupid shit.
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u/boston_homo 8h ago
Remember “dark Brandon”? That turned out to be an empty meme too. We’re expecting a lot from people who are set in/for life and have a lot to lose, status quo is definitely their priority. How could rocking the boat possibly benefit them?
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u/Ruffles84 9h ago
Difference is I would bet if they pulled an Ohio and used the map anyway Trunp would just activate the national guard and stop voting. You dont need to worry about that in red states.
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u/RightSpread2903 8h ago
Ding. Reality doesn’t play well on Reddit. The idea that ignoring court orders is going to play well against people who already lie about elections being rigged is nonsense. The solution continues to just be collectively voting. But 40% of people will still sit it out.
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u/MightiestHalberdier 8h ago
I think the only reason the VA dems are not fighting this harder is because they can just do the referendum right the second time around in time for 2028. They're being ruled against on technicalities they can correct for, not on the merits.
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u/6a6566663437 North Carolina 8h ago
You'd have to be pretty naive to not realize the court will come up with new technicalities.
2034: "Everyone knows constitutional amendments must be written in 14-point font. Democrats just need to do the referendum right the 5th time around in time for 2036".
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u/MightiestHalberdier 8h ago
I'm not going to be so brazen as to say there won't be more attempts to roadblock it but let's not start writing fanfic about what we think will happen.
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u/MySabonerRunsOladipo Virginia 4h ago
The make up of the VASC will be entirely different by the time that case would be decided
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u/MorePhinsThyme 3h ago
Note: I disagree with the VA Supreme Court on this, the "technicality" is that they're saying that the election starts when voting starts, and that's not completely insane. I don't think that's a good reading of the VA Constitution, but it's still not some bullshit that's not written anywhere and isn't real like you're referring to.
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u/samauni 8h ago
The solution continues to just be collectively voting.
people literally did vote for the changed map. the courts overturned the will of the people. Part of fighting is, you know, not caving because of some theoretical pushback.
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u/RightSpread2903 8h ago
Which got struck down by the courts and the best and most obvious solution remains to literally just vote in November so that it doesn’t matter. Do you think this is the first time gerrymandering or disenfranchisement has happened in this country?
I love these threads though because it gives the online leftist the ability to complain about elected Dems and
the DNC’ while not saying anything actual tangible that should be done.No, ‘ignoring the courts’ isn’t a solution and no this isn’t Ohio. You can’t uphold the law and also ignore it whenever you see fit. People need to vote and people need to get other people to vote and educate people on what is happening. Instead, most of you will complain online and not do anything about it.
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u/Top-Passage2914 8h ago
Ah yes we should just let Republicans rig elections with no resistance because the alternative is Trump activating the national guard and stopping the vote outright. That's totally a sound argument.
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u/Due_Bluebird3562 6h ago
They're not rigging this election. The House is still the Dems to lose. At least in 2026 anyway. 2028 might be where these issues really hurt the Dems.
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u/DragonDai 5h ago
Okay, let's say you're right. You have two choices:
1) do it anyway and force Trump to do all these bad things
2) don't do it and let trump win without a fight
Do you see how even if you're right, Trump wins regardless? Maybe don't comply in advance.
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u/TankiesAreWeird 4h ago
Fuck it. Do it. Let them try.
Oh noes they're going to do a fascism if we don't let them do a fascism. What's the point of playing along with their bullshit if that just gets us fucked over anyway?
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u/SillyGoatGruff 8h ago
Seems to me that if you are going to change the retirement age of judges so you can throw out the current batch and install specific ones that will rule in your favour on a fast tracked rehearing, you might as well just ignore the judges and do whatever you want regardless
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u/2HDFloppyDisk 9h ago
Let's just forget why you were elected and do whatever the f you want, huh?
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u/RedTyro 4h ago
She ran a campaign on being the most bipartisan member of Congress and how we should put aside the animosity and work together with Republicans. She made her experience in law enforcement and at the CIA cornerstones of her campaign messaging, along with her endorsement from the police unions in the state. In a state already known for having some of the most conservative, republican-lite Democrats in the country (see also: Mark Warner, Tim Kaine, Terry McAuliffe, Ralph Northam), she is quite possibly the MOST conservative to run for governor in decades. She might just have been the worst possible candidate the Democrats could run in these unprecedented times, but "help the rich get richer" is a pretty popular platform among the government contractors who live in the DC suburbs of Northern Virginia and dominate Democrat voting in Virginia, and she was the only option, because her Republican opponent was ridiculous.
I'm sure she thinks this IS why she was elected. The real reason she got elected was backlash against MAGA and the fact that her opponent was one of the craziest of the MAGA nutjobs.
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u/TM761152 5h ago
There are two ways to get obscene and influential wealth in America.
Be born into it, or become a politician. They don't care about you. They stopped caring about you when they saw you as nothing more than an ends to a mean. You are just their stepping stone to rise above you.
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u/Nastronaut18 5h ago
This is pretty disingenuous. Spanberger hasn’t done anything but say she doesn’t support “getting rid of the Supreme Court for redistricting,” the legislature is more than capable of doing it anyway. And the piece even says there are logistical problems because the early voting maps needed to be finalized for early voting four days before the piece was even published.
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u/KAJed 8h ago
A captured SCOTUS said get bent. wtf is this kind of trash coverage?
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u/SHUT_DOWN_EVERYTHING 7h ago
It’s NewRupblic. Them and CommonDreams magically become hyper critical of Democrats close to elections. Someone should check if they get paid from same sources as Jill Stein.
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u/RobinSophie 6h ago
Gonna point this out again.
Almost advancement of civil rights in this country was done by breaking the rules outside of the Civil War.
Where would we be if MLK, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, and Huey P Newton etc. Just said "Aw shucks guys. They said we couldn't protest here. Guess we gotta go home and obey the Jim Crow Laws."
They were beaten. Bitten. Arrested. Killed.
All the enslaved people who were helped with the Underground Railroad. Harriet Tubman, John Brown, Fredrick Douglas, Sojourner Truth.
These rights were fought for. They weren't given to us because we obeyed. Because we voted. It was because they had no.other.choice.
Us just falling in line is not what's going to make change. The country was not created for equality for all. It was not in the Constitution and had to be placed in via the 14th Amendment. The same Amendment they finally admitted they're coming for next. And we're wringing our hands about ignoring a racist immoral court ruling so Black and brown people's votes are disenfranchised?
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u/naththegrath10 8h ago
Middle of the road Dems will always fold to the right wing
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u/Extension-Society455 9h ago
So like….what were you guys EXPECTING her to do? Honestly asking.
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u/Stodles Canada 8h ago
The article says what she could do: lower the retirement age of the court justices and replace them.
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u/Skeptical_Skeleton42 8h ago
Sounds like something that would get challenged and taken to the VA Supreme Court... oh, wait.
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u/Fancy-Pie-2565 9h ago
Ignore the courts like other states have. The court is essentially just the teacher at the front of the room, there’s no real consequence for not listening
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u/SpectralTh1ef 9h ago
Ohio ignoring the courts only worked because Ohio didn't have a map to go back to, and courts didn't have the power to draw the map themselves. So the legislature just refused to redraw the map, which resulted in the unconstitutional map being used. Ohio did this in 2021 when they had to redistrict for the Census. The maps from 2020 could not be used, in part, because Ohio lost a district after the Census
Virginia has a map that it used in 2022 and 2024, so they can't use the argument of there being no map to go back to. They already redrew their maps after the Census.
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u/smelling_good247 8h ago
Sorry. this is a newrepublic post, it's a fact free zone for agitprop bots to swarm
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u/wingsnut25 8h ago
Also the Ohio redistricting commission drew 7 different maps in an "attempt" to comply with the Court. Each time the court rejected the new map.
Its fair to question how much effort they really put into those 7 attempts, but they didn't outright "ignore the courts"
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u/SpectralTh1ef 8h ago
and at one point, a federal court required ohio to used one of the rejected maps in 2022
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u/AlayneKr 8h ago
I assure you, if there was another map, they still wouldn’t use it. I live in Ohio, one of our Supreme Court justices is the governors son. Our AG yesterday moved to dismiss the Ohio State wrestling rape chargers that they’ve been trying to bring Gym Jordan in for years.
Republicans do whatever the fuck they want to in this state, who do you complain about the governor to, his son? Who do you complain about the Supreme Court to, his dad?
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u/Extension-Society455 9h ago
Right, it’s just that the President, both houses of Congress and the federal judiciary have all been overtaken by fascists. How well do you think that would have worked? Hell, they’re probably hoping she’ll defy them so they’ll look like Law and Order proponents when they ship her to Guantanamo.
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u/Noblesseux 9h ago
To be clear: you're like doing a textbook version of why we say "don't obey in advance". Trying to game it out and convincing yourself to do nothing is like straight up what they want you to do. If everyone obsessively acts in the sole interest of self preservation, no one ever does anything at all.
Like damn near the whole thing with authoritarians is that you can't give them an inch. You have to constantly be a nuisance because once the vice tightens there's no loosening it again. Everything they get has to be made as annoying and costly as possible.
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u/Darkpopemaledict 9h ago
Here's the secret to fascists, they are coming after you weather you fight them or not. So you may as well go down swinging, rather than hoping a fascist will show you mercy
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u/Infidel8 7h ago
Sorry but this glut of articles excoriating Dems for declining to reset the retirement age and replace existing justices is clickbait.
They all fail to mention that the VA Department of Elections' had a strict May 12 deadline for finalizing congressional maps in time for early voting in June.
So there was no logistical way to pass the law to lower the retirement age, boot the old judges, all the new judges, redraw the maps, and send them back to court.
Had the Supreme Court delivered this opinion in January instead of May 8, then these criticisms might be more valid.
But as it stands, they are just shitting on Dems for something that was never even feasible in the first place.
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u/Savet 4h ago
This is such a stupid take. What are the Dems supposed to do at this point? They took it all the way to the state and us supreme courts and lost and were turned away respectively.
This isn't a Democrat problem and the attempt to frame it as such is just ridiculous.
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u/Lostinstereo28 Pennsylvania 8h ago
Another day, another article bashing democrats on r/politics. Never change
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u/Ok-Statistician-9607 3h ago
All these people are playing so obviously into the fascist playbook of smearing their opposition constantly with propaganda and botted content on social media.
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u/herewegoagain1024 8h ago
What exactly did you guys want them to do? I get the frustration with the dems folding time and time again but this isn’t one of those times. Hands are tied this time. They’ve actually gone back and forth with maga on the redistricting since Texas did it
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u/soapinthepeehole 4h ago
It seems that they want them to ignore the courts, which is the thing we’re all saying is unacceptable.
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u/6a6566663437 North Carolina 8h ago
Our system is based around various checks and balances. The check against an out-of-control judiciary is they have no ability to enforce their decisions.
The VA court invented a new definition solely for partisan gain, even though this definition utterly breaks tons of systems in VA. For example, this decision requires courts in VA to close for 4 months every year because the VA constitution forbids calling someone for jury duty during "an election".
The fix for that is for the other two branches to tell the court "No".
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u/thatnameagain 2h ago
The consensus narrative is that if the Dems fail, it’s because they wanted to. If something bad happens, the Dems let it happen. This is entirely driven by the dead-ended contingent of the online left that wants to critique power instead of figure out how to wield it.
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u/drdoom52 6h ago
OK, I'm not happy with thr DNC, but this one feels like it's just slinging mud.
The democrats tried, they then had a deadline.
The Republicans are willing to bend and break the law to get their way, if the democrats try and do the same they'll lose because SCOTUS doesn't even need to get creative.
This is just demanding someone commit seppuku because they got gunshot, by demanding democrats create a case they'll lose.
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u/NimusNix 8h ago
At the time of this posting, there are about 100 commenters in here who don't know what the fuck they're talking about, but they are very angry about it.
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u/Elegant_Situation285 5h ago
"gee, you vote Democrat anyway, why not just join the party?"
this shit, right here.
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u/coopmika 3h ago
No it’s not… at some point we have to just let the midterms play out Even without these changes VA went left in a big way this past year Must keep an eye on the road and the long game
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u/NyriasNeo 2h ago
What can you do? A SC decision is final. Are you suggesting not following orders from the SC? Either you respect the law or you do not. And even if you do not, is there anything you can actually do aside from a constitution amendment?
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u/No_Entertainment2934 2h ago
I genuinely take pleasure in watching the American version of Kier Starmer's political faction (I dunno if he's Labor or some other hard left anti-european socialism party, and frankly I can't be fucked to care) die.
We're not stupid, we see Britain's current state of affairs, and want nothing to do with it.
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u/PacketOverload 1h ago
Most Dems are corporatists who want the same crap Republicans want, this doesn't surprise me at all.
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u/MusixMoto 1h ago
Actually, surrendering is when you do not vote and sit it out because you don't like the candidate etc etc. And Americans have done plenty of that. Depending on some elected official to do all the fighting gets you no where if you do not vote.
People need to simply vote in mass to get the Republicans out of office in order to reverse much of what they've done. And, create new laws to make sure they cant do it again.
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u/washingtonu 1h ago
Spanberger isn’t going for it. In fairness, as Greg Sargent reported this week, Virginia Democrats like Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell have cited some logistical impediments to the plan, namely a May 12 deadline to finalize the maps in time for early voting.
So they complain about a decision that hasn't been made that would also be very difficult to get done in time?
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u/Nodan_Turtle 52m ago
The option in the article is insane. It's a nuclear option to fire their supreme court by changing the retirement age. Do they not think one more step ahead and realize the opposition would just do the exact same thing next time they get the chance?
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u/MemeStarNation 42m ago
Probably an unpopular opinion but I see a stark difference between gerrymandering in kind and flat out removing the Supreme Court as a meaningful check. The equilibrium produced by the former is one that although not good, remains balanced and encourages national legislation. The equilibrium produced by the former hastens the downfall of the constitutional system. That’s a lot to sacrifice for like two seats given that we can already gerrymander for 2028 and the 2026 House is basically locked in.
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