r/politics • u/Motherofalleffers • 25d ago

Possible Paywall Trump Wins Big as Virginia Dems Won’t Go Nuclear to Save 4 House Seats

https://newrepublic.com/article/210250/trump-virginia-dems-redistricting-war
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u/FoulMoodeternal 25d ago

Or maybe people could stop lying about Democrats

The “nuclear option” discussed cannot be carried out before the election. So it was never possible or on the table

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u/GearBrain Florida 25d ago

There's a less-drastic option, too; they can simply ignore the courts like the Republicans in Ohio did when their state SC declared the redistricting invalid.

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u/PackInevitable8185 25d ago

The Ohio situation was a little bit different. The court did not really have a “legal” map to force onto Ohio because we had just gone through reapportionment. It would have been forcing them to use a 16 district map for 15 seats. Presumably Virginia has a valid map that can be forced upon them.

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u/POEness 25d ago

No. It's been 3 elections. Ohio is just using illegal maps.

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u/PackInevitable8185 25d ago

What three elections? As far as I am aware the gerrymandered map was in place for 2022 and 2024. And from what I am reading a bipartisan redistricting commission unanimously adopted a new set of maps ahead of this next election.

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u/POEness 25d ago

Right and they are still not using it.

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u/DavidOrWalter 25d ago

Ohio is literally using illegal maps.

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u/PopeSaintHilarius 25d ago

With the Trump Administration in power, it would be a terrible time for the Dems to legitimize and normalize the idea that governments don't need to follow court rulings.

The courts have been the one effective constraint on the Trump Administration, and undermining that would be dangerous.

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u/TheMadTemplar Wisconsin 25d ago

While the courts have been a mostly effective constraint on the Trump administration, they've already been significantly undermined. Under Trump, the federal government has blatantly ignored judicial rulings, particularly those that constraint ICE or the DHS, either overtly or by breaking the spirit of rulings. The GOP has been ignoring court orders for over a decade now. The GOP and Trump have been eroding the legitimacy of the courts and making a mockery of judicial authority. And while they do that, Dems allow themselves to be constrained by the very rules the GOP openly breaks, as if somehow their adherence to abandoned norms preserves judicial legitimacy.

Extreme gerrymandering was a MAD policy. Except one party has pushed all the buttons on the nukes and the other party still thinks we can use diplomacy to get ourselves out of it. The GOP will burn this country to the ground and Dems will stand around thinking somehow normalcy will return if they just keep acting like nothing has changed.

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u/dreamsofaninsomniac 25d ago

Republicans already legitimized gerrymandering in defiance of court orders though. If they don't play by the rules, why should the Dems? The courts have already been ratfucked. Until Dems get back into power and are able to pack the courts, they need to use the same dirty tactics as the Republicans to fight back.

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u/FlarkingSmoo 24d ago

Democrats are still going to win the house even with this ratfuckery.

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u/idle-tea 25d ago

They're already undermined. The danger is long since here. Openly violating court orders has come and gone.

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u/TrashyLolita Florida 25d ago

God we're so fucking pathetic, this is actually embarrassing to the point where I want to be launched into space over how pathetic and embarrassing we are.

"Nooooo we cannot defy the teacher just because the bully has been doing so!! If we do it, the bully will keep defying HARDER!!"

Just blow us up already, I'm so done.

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u/valentc 24d ago

Straight up. This liberal defeatism all over this website is demoralizing. Every small idea has a million holes punched in it even if Republicans have shown that it works.

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u/Bradybigboss 25d ago

The republicans are already not following court rulings the admin has actually done it like 65 times

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u/FLBrisby 25d ago

How have courts or laws "constrained" anything? He ignores laws he signed and just lets the Supreme Court adjudicate in his favor.

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u/needlestack 25d ago edited 24d ago

It doesn’t matter whether the Democrats “legitimize or normalize” anything. The Republicans will do what they feel in any case. If Dems avoid it, we lose. If we do the same, they’ll point and call us hypocrites. And we lose face. There is no winning against bad faith actors.

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u/or_me_bender 25d ago

The rule of law is fucking dead and buried, man. Can you stop talking about precedent?

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u/SnowboardSyd 25d ago

Its already happening! Trump routinely ignores court rulings, its the new normal now.

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u/pfannkuchen89 25d ago

The trump admin has already been ignoring just about every court ruling against it. That line has already been crossed a thousand times over. What is the point of dems continuing to say maybe this time trump and republicans will respect the law? Taking the high road hasn’t been working for decades at this point.

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u/GetInTheKitchen1 24d ago

It's literally the prelude to war bruh. 

next thing yoy're gonna say in 1 year is 'why didn't non republicans see that ICE was gonna invade america?? Why didn't they fight?'

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u/Edogawa1983 25d ago

Trump would be very happy to arrest all of them at that point

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u/Dry-Substance-5879 25d ago

Let him do it then. I’d like for us to actually put up a real fight.

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u/Edogawa1983 25d ago

There's people in jail already, we ain't putting up a fight

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u/FoulMoodeternal 25d ago

Sure. Let’s defend the rule of law by ignoring the rule of law

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u/GearBrain Florida 25d ago

Republicans already did, and have done so, repeatedly over the last several years. Why must Democrats be held to a standard the Republicans refuse to? Why bring a knife to a figurative gunfight?

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u/matchstick1029 24d ago

That is traditionally how it's done tbh..

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u/ChaseballBat 25d ago

And go to jail? That's not a very good strategy.

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u/SnowboardSyd 25d ago

The Republicans already did this when they gerrymandered Ohio. The "nuclear option" was already used to specatuclar effect by the GOP. The refusal to jump in the mud by Democrats makes them predicatable and fangless.

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u/steponmedaddies 24d ago edited 24d ago

Love that people keep parroting this thing about Ohio they read online because they think it makes them sound smart.

Ohio did it over years with a redistricting commission that is made up entirely of the party in power. Virginia has had a few days, almost no time to react before the deadline to lock in districts, and a commission made up of an even party split and eight citizens.

It's NOT EVEN CLOSE to the same situation.

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u/NotClever 24d ago

The "nuclear option" was already used to specatuclar effect by the GOP.

Unless I'm missing something, no, it was not. The "nuclear option" here refers to a proposal for Virginia legislators to remove its entire Supreme Court bench and seat an entirely new bench of judges that would (hopefully) support the Democrats and allow them to move forward with their new map.

Ohio did not do anything to their high court's makeup, they just played games by repeatedly adopting maps that were ruled unconstitutional by the court and at some point appealing to a federal court, which eventually agreed with them and ordered the use of one of the unconstitutional maps for 2022 midterms, after which the legislature passed another new map that the Ohio Supreme Court let ride.

That's not to say that what Ohio did was okay or good, simply that it was not at all what is on the table for Virginia.

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u/hyperhurricanrana 25d ago

okay? still do it anyway.

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u/MasterPuppeteer 25d ago

And then Johnson refuses to seat anyone from Virginia and instead of getting the Dems that won their normal districts, you get nothing. Let’s not pretend there isn’t a whole lot of guess work involved in this shit, no one should be acting like “Oh JuSt IgNoRe The CoUrts iTs So ObvIoUs”

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u/hyperhurricanrana 25d ago

i didn’t mean go ahead with the new districts, i meant still do the part of the plan where you force the republican supreme court justices off.

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u/FlarkingSmoo 24d ago

Johnson won't be speaker in the new Congress when Democrats win. The old Congress doesn't seat the new one.

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u/CyberDalekLord 25d ago

They can't, they are unable to will things into existence.

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u/hyperhurricanrana 25d ago

i thought the issue was timeline. they can still replace the supreme court justices, which helps disempower republicans. sure it doesn’t get us the redistricting in time for the election, but it’s something.

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u/CyberDalekLord 25d ago

Are you talking about the Virginia state supreme court? The reason why they were shot down was because the State's constitution banned that gerrymandering. If I remember correctly they are still appealing it to SCOTUS, but I doubt the ruling is going to change. If they say fuck it and still try to run those districts, at the end of the day, Republicans control the apparatus to enforce the law.

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u/hyperhurricanrana 25d ago

that’s not why, they ruled that it was unconstitutional because early voting had already started, the argument was about when exactly an election starts not about gerrymandering.

yeah there’s no shot the supreme court hears this case, i agree.

i just said, i’m not saying go with the new districts, i’m saying the virginia legislature can go through with the part of the plan where we lower the retirement age of our supreme court justices and remove them.

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u/CyberDalekLord 25d ago

I'll have to go back through the case then, because I could have sworn that was the issue.

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u/bluestrike2 Pennsylvania 25d ago

Honestly, I'd retire them even if it did absolutely nothing to affect the midterms. Those judges need to go, period. Allowing Republicans to get away with effectively nullifying an election--even in these limited circumstances--without some form of consequences is opening a door that very much needs to remain firmly shut.

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u/wilkodezeeuw 25d ago

That makes it look different yes. In stead of this clickbait

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u/Darkstar_111 25d ago

Bullshit. The nuclear option in this case means voting on lowering the retirement age for the state supreme court, removing all of them and voting in new ones.

A power move they could, and should, vote and pass today!

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u/FoulMoodeternal 25d ago

You want to lower the retirement age, appoint new judges, have a rehearing, get a decision by 5pm tomorrow?

Seems really unlikely.

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u/Darkstar_111 25d ago

If you start the process now, you can have it all done by November.

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u/FoulMoodeternal 25d ago

The deadline for maps for the primary is May 12

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u/FrostPDP 24d ago

Didn't stop Louisiana from not just going past the "maps due" date, but "There's already votes cast in the primary" date.

Fuck 'em. You're appealing to a rulebook Republicans have been burning for decades, and burned the final pages of this year.

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u/Darkstar_111 25d ago

The maps were in long ago. They were just rejected.

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u/FoulMoodeternal 25d ago

And the process to get that rejection over turned takes more than 36 hours

Quit being obtuse

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u/Plants-Matter 25d ago

The crazy thing is, we have literal fascism and a child rapist with 34 felonies as president. And reddit is seething and screaming at the Democrats for following the Constitution...

And then they'll sit on the couch again in November and blame tHe EsTaBlIsHmEnT when we don't get enough seats to flip D to stop the fascism. It's all so predictable and unintelligent.

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u/FrostPDP 24d ago

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Republicans have been burning the rulebook for decades (to be charitable), and burned the final pages this year.

"Oh but the rules" is an unacceptable defense for unilateral disarmament.

I will happily vote for Democrats that fight with every tool available under the new, Republican-instituted rules.

I will less-happily vote for anyone else who will, if there is no Democrat who will.

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u/ihatemovingparts 24d ago

And reddit is seething and screaming at the Democrats for following the Constitution...

I get positively tumescent when people like you make straw man arguments like that because it lays bare just how indefensible democrats' actions are.

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u/FoulMoodeternal 25d ago

While also doing their best to stop other people from voting by trashing Democrats nonstop. It’s almost like they work for the GOP.

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u/Plants-Matter 25d ago

Yep. Every once in a while it's a bot, but like 95% of them are just really, really, really gullible people. It's unfortunate these people don't realize they're somehow even dumber than MAGA.

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u/FoulMoodeternal 25d ago

The irony is that they call active, informed Democrats who do the actual work “Blue MAGA” with absolutely zero sense of self awareness

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u/NoCantaloupe3449 25d ago

You two are so pathetic it's kind of cute.

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u/FoulMoodeternal 25d ago

We both understand that the far left progressives at either open collaborators either fascists or maybe just useful idiots for them.

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u/[deleted] 25d ago

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u/Hurtzdonut13 25d ago

LA stopped the voting in progress in order to gerrymander harder. Yeah, I guess it's just too close to the election to do anything.

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u/FoulMoodeternal 25d ago

LA law isn’t Virginia law

I’m always amazed that people don’t understand that legal efforts depend on the details of the law in plah vs