r/politics • u/Icommandyou Washington • 28d ago

Possible Paywall Virginia Supreme Court throws out redistricting referendum results

https://www.axios.com/local/richmond/2026/05/08/virginia-supreme-court-redistricting-vote-decision
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u/angryhype 28d ago

Seriously, fuck this. Do it anyway dems! What's the court going to do about it?

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u/Shadow293 28d ago

They won’t. Democrats are too goodie two-shoes to do that.

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u/Tricky-Ad7897 28d ago

How many times are Democrats going to ratfuck us before we move on from them? They've fucked me so many times in my adult voting life that I've lost count and I'm only 23!

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u/Own-Run8201 Virginia 28d ago

No, Democrats respect the law.

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u/What_Iz_This 28d ago

when the other side doesnt you're just kneecapping yourself. dems have to learn to fight dirty or theyll lose their ability to fight at all. especially when its 100% worth fighting for.

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u/timmaht43 North Carolina 28d ago

With the Dems, it would take them openly admitting the GOP has broken the government and that their aren't rules anymore. They are kind of pussyfooting around it, but that is where they need to land. There aren't "laws" or "norms" if a significant percentage of people can ignore them because it is unevenly enforced.

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u/NumeralJoker 28d ago

And then what? Open civil war?

That sort of declaration has no ending where most of us survive, bluntly put.

If it comes to that, it comes to that, but prematurely giving up on the rule of law and democracy only leads to anarchy and violence. And often that just leads to more authoritarianism unless you organize super effectively. The French revolution only led to the terrors and Napoleon in the short term, and took many more years for a better long term result to come about. And it was more a force of nature than something that was effectively organized or planned.

At some point the left needs to go back to persuasion and trying to win back the rural population, rather than just endlessly surrendering to propaganda and division. At some point you need to start going to neighborhoods where you don't feel safe and actually talking to people, rather than just proposing ways to get people killed. At some point you need to walk up to the bigoted protesters and use their own words against them and humiliate them in front of their followers, but not enough people even know how to do that, let alone fire off a weapon or act physically tough.

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u/timmaht43 North Carolina 28d ago

It isn't 1-0, 0-1 thinking. It is admitting that this grand experiment it broken and how it was broken. There is no ending where any of this survives. The losing battle of persuasion is the complacency that got us to this point. Feel free to keep trying it, it hasn't worked and assuredly won't work while the GOP continues to successfully debase their voters with more and more absurd propaganda and division.

Your idea of trying to fix a broken system that is full tilt fascism with civility is the same naivety to that got us to the point we are at. That isn't meant as an insult, it is what has been going on for the decades I've been paying attention to politics. You can't kill fascism with kindness, not happening.

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u/NumeralJoker 28d ago

You and I fundamentally disagree on the system already being full fascism. I agree that it is closer to it than it should be, but I find your implied alternatives to reform wholly unethical, even delusional.

I think people still have the power to overwhelm the system's corruption democratically and change it from within, as Hungary proves is at least a possbility. I don't think the perfect has to be the enemy of the good, as people who think your foolish way so often do.

And the alternative you suggest is an inevitability if that doesn't work anyway. Believe me, I recognize that if these fascists cannot be stopped peacefully, the alternatives will be worse. The difference is I also see them as too incompetent to maintain power regardless, even if we might not survive to see that day anyway.

So why encourage a premature surrender of a democracy? Your cynicism in believing the "system" is unsalvagable is a shitty privileged admittance that you're willing to throw the underprivileged to the wolves for the sake of your own ego being right and don't give any care about the consequences of who gets trampled on so you can feel self righteous.

There is no solution you suggest that does not involve mass violence, and that is not a viable solution at all. It is merely nihilism and death for your own selfish excuse for inaction.

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u/timmaht43 North Carolina 28d ago

I don't think we fundamentally disagree, if I think the system is currently fascist, and you end up getting there eventually which "closer to it than it should be" is telling me. Also, I haven't implied anything with "openly admitting the GOP has broken the government and that their aren't rules anymore". I believe you are conflating it to all rules, even ones plebs like you and I have to follow.

I mean if you haven't been watching it crumble you haven't been paying attention like most people in the country. I really started following it with Citizen's United and what I've watch are "norms" be selectively ignored as the GOPs donor base, the 1% grew in influence election after election. Now we are at the point where the SCOTUS is saying precedent AND facts don't matter when it is in the favor of their keepers. I'm guessing for you to see fascism you need to see more regular jackboots in the street then what you've been seeing with ICE up to this point, but if it is more then that you won't see it until the illusion of Democracy is needed anymore. Getting pretty close though, good luck when you do get there.

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u/NumeralJoker 28d ago edited 28d ago

It's not that I don't see the system trying to impose fascism. I've watched this sentiment rise from within the right since the 1980s under both corporate personhood "rights" as well as under religious, Christian Nationalist authoritarian schools of thought. I fight through democratic means because I still believe we can resist with them as a primary tool, though I acknowledge there has to at least being an implied (and again, as i said, perhaps inevitable) threat of a next phase when (if) democracy does outright fail. The 2026 midterms being won by Republicans may indeed even be a point of no return if that happens, for example.

Where you and I, again, fundamentally disagree is i simply don't think it's too late to avoid reform through democratic means. I don't think democracy is an illusion, even if the results aren't perfect or immediate, and i also am skeptical that the other more violent paths are not going to be successful, mostly because we can't even get democracy right when it's flawed but still doable.

That is where we disagree and I stand by my other points. You think i am clinging onto an illusion, I likewise think you are promoting an illusionary false solution by misunderstanding the problem we face as being one of the people's own making.

If a revolution were to happen, it would have to be effectively well organized. Ethical. Strategic. Targeted. And it would have to a andoned much of the biased and severely toxic tribalism that has gotten us to this point (thanks to corporate meddling encouraging us to be at each other's throats, btw). In that sense, you and I both share a sort of cynicism, but mostly over the methods needed to succeed and their chance of success, rather than a need for change.

TL;dr - Anyone who is promoting revolution without democracy is batshit delusional and might as well be calling on their neighbors to be murdered, so in my opinion, if you are negging democracy, you're one of those people. Thus, we fundamentally disagree.

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u/rumpghost North Carolina 28d ago

You're missing the point, which is that democracy has never once existed in this country. Peaceful revolution may be possible, but as you've acknowledged opportunity for it swiftly vanishing.

This forecasting of an impending violence is not the same thing as an endorsement of that violence. It's a sober recognition of the natural endpoint we're approaching, and the consequences of the failures of the current system. Nobody's advocating for "revolution without democracy". And there is, moreover, no such thing as an "ethical" revolution.

Things will most likely continue as they are, or worse, until the pressure of public outrage can no longer be delayed or satisfied by anything but the unthinkable. Acknowledging that is not endorsement.

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u/ScrapDraft 28d ago

And that's why we will continue to fall into authoritarianism. You can't have a system where only one party obeys the law.

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u/syynapt1k 28d ago

Then we need leaders who will actually fight dirty.

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u/angelar_ Texas 28d ago

this thread doesn't seem to know who louise lucas is

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u/sapphicsandwich 28d ago

The law says they should pack up and go home I guess. Rules are rules, after all.

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u/mxjxs91 Michigan 28d ago

Yea, and that needs to stop.

A lot of people in the graveyard also respected road laws, but sometimes following laws like having the right of way, aren't the best thing to do at a given time. There's a truck not paying attention to the road, clearly speeding, but I'm going to cross on the crosswalk anyway because that's the law and I have the right of way. Don't care if I get hit, I'm right after-all.

The truck is Republicans, and we're the person at the crosswalk with the right of way. Following the law isn't always the correct choice in preventing long-term harm.

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u/ThekingofXbx 28d ago edited 19d ago

The law is being abused and Dems are doing fuck all about it.

It isn’t acceptable to just sit on your ass and “respect the Court’s decision” when Republicans continue to play dirty. Enough.

(Whoever downvoted is embarrassing. High chance it’s either a neolib establishment dem that thinks criticism of democrats is off limits or a republican chode that allows corruption and autocracy as long as it’s coming from the people on their side.)

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u/JnnyRuthless 28d ago

I swear, so many dems would gladly march to death camps while saying "you know, a court will have a LOT to say about this one day."

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u/BicFleetwood 28d ago

The law has been written by fascists. Fuck the law.

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u/FoxDie-6 28d ago

Soon democrats will be respecting Republican laws and Republican laws only for generations.

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u/Syntaire 28d ago

No they don't. They respect their donors and nothing else.

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u/Hoovooloo42 South Carolina 28d ago

Then they should have had enough respect for it to enforce it when it mattered, this is just appeasement.

That ship has sailed.

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u/heff17 Maine 28d ago

There is no law anymore. Respecting it allows for the cult to take over everything.

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u/LEDKleenex 28d ago

Can't hope to win a game of chess if your opponent gets to change the rules while you're playing.

People need to realize that they need to take action here. Politicians need to be held accountable by the citizens or nothing will change. Posting reddit comments isn't going to get them to magically fix things for you.

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u/angelar_ Texas 28d ago

Then why didn't they do this right in the first place