Chief Justice John Roberts makes (successfully) an effort to come across as a mild-mannered, milquetoast unassuming guy. Don’t buy his act for one second. For all his talk during confirmation and early years as Chief Justice about incrementalism when it came to rulings he was just waiting for chances to turn into some super conservative fire breathing dragon. Laying waste to anyone/anything that challenged the rule of (rich) white men over all people and things. And he HATES the Voting Rights Act.
Roberts has already presided over eviscerating the VRA and now has SCOTUS poised to apply the coup de grace and feed it into the wood chipper. They’ve just heard oral arguments on a Louisiana redistricting case that will clear the way for partisan gerrymandering that would if done ruthlessly eliminate non-white Congress members across the Confederacy…er, I mean the southern United States. Roberts and conservatives can talk all they want about being ‘color blind’ but what they really mean/intend is to not have so see NON WHITE people. Except maybe as servants, tending their golf courses, lawns, as janitors working for slave wages.
Roberts and his cronies are creaming their jeans over turning back the voting rights clock. However, as Alternet tells us HE might not have thought things through. Actions sometimes, in fact often have unintended consequences. Roberts/conservative have tunnel vision as they are hyper focused on those red southern states (even a purple one like North Carolina where I live but the GOP has super-majorities in both chambers of the legislature) trying to stamp out black votes. Or more precisely black (or brown) members of the House, not to mention building insurmountable GOP rule (which they’ve damned near got already) across the old Confederacy. I’ll explain more in a minute.
Roberts and his Federalist Society pals want to turn back the clock so that only WHITE property owners can vote. That sounds good to a lot of conservatives but what they aren’t looking at the long-term. Over time average middle class white guys will see their own voting restricted. Because they will try to use said votes when they realize the ‘triackle down’ of Supply Side economics never will happen with them. These non rich folks are fine with Project 2025 fascism right now, but when they start demanding their WHITE conservative elected leaders finally get around to addressing their wants and needs the goons will come after THEM.
It will be a variation on the ‘first they came for’ theme. First they came for the voting rights of black and brown people and I said nothing. Then they came for the voting rights of of whites who weren’t conservative and I said nothing. Then they came for MY voting rights because I complained I wasn’t getting what they promised I’d get and there’s no one to speak up for me. Make no mistake, Project 2025 isn’t and never was about making Trump dictator. Trump is just a blunt and malleable tool to move us away from the Constitutional Order we all took for granted. An awful lot of people including idiots like J.D. Vance and other would-be inheritors of MAGA will find themselves in a very bad spot the the REAL power broker(s) take over.
In the meantime let’s look at a key factor on how we’ve gotten this close to the brink. The gutting of voting rights. Both via voter suppression and the protections of the landmark Voting Rights Act. Roberts hates that legislation the way Trump hates Obama. doesn’t come across as some fire-breathing dragon out to scorch things like ‘Equal Justice Under Law’ (the inscription in the stone above the entrance to the SCOTUS building) and destroy anything that challenges white rule (RICH whites mind you) over all of God’s creation. Scorching things like in Game of Thrones. But make no mistake via his rulings and management of SCOTUS that’s exactly what he is – a creature that will lay waste to anything that stands in the way of his and his Federalist Society cronies of an America that is owned and controlled by a handful of unelected WHITE MEN. And they will decide who takes over their seat at the table of power, not voters or politicians in any “for show” legislative bodies.
The GOP already has a built in advantage in the Senate. There’s that swath of sparsely populated mountain west states that are solidly red, and of course the ruby red and more populated south. The House is razor thin however and that’s why Trump is leading a full court press to engineer a (for now) fifteen or twenty seat margin. Once again I note that mid-census cycle redistricting won’t be limited to Congressional Districts. They will create or increase conservative super majorities.
We’ve seen Texas already create a new Congressional map that would give their delegation another five seats. Out in even bigger (population wise) California it’s likely that state will match Texas’ move in a referendum next month. So, Trump has called on all GOP controlled legislatures/statehouses to rework their maps, hence what I said earlier resulting in significantly larger majority in the House than currently exists. Other blue states have been kicking around options but for a variety of reasons nothing is as clear cut as what Newsom has conceived. It would seem the GOP is well on its way to getting a real advantage heading into the midterms.
EXCEPT Roberts’ zeal to kill the Voting Rights Act offers Democrats a chance to match the GOP and have a ‘fair, unfair (gerrymander guaranteed seats) fight. The question is whether Democrats will walk through the door Roberts intends to open. There could and likely would be blowback. The linked article cites Mark Jacob Stern’s interview with Slate. Noting the ‘electoral bonanza’ SCOTUS is poised to deliver to southern states he says it could create an additional 15 or more GOP seats in the House. That would be the practical effect of eliminating the VRA’s provision to ensure minority represented districts.
However he goes on to point out that the provision doesn’t apply only in the old south/red states. Multiple blue states have “minority majority districts in compliance with the Voting Rights Act. It’s a provocative notion and would be even more so if it turned into action but consider this:
“Currently, to comply with the VRA, [the New York] legislature has grouped many minority neighborhoods — so-called communities of interest — in districts together. But since nonwhite voters are disproportionately Democratic, that produces ‘wasted votes‘: ballots cast in excess of what the Democrat needs to win,” said Stern. “If the legislature ‘unpacked’ these districts by dispersing minorities into areas now dominated by white Republicans, it could enact a map that gives Democrats 24 House seats and Republicans just two. That’s a five-seat pickup for Democrats.”
Similar opportunities await the party in New Jersey, said Stern, with that state’s House delegation split between nine Democrats and three Republicans.
Stern goes into more discussion about how this could unfold. I was born and raised in Illinois which has three GOP Representative. Unpacking some of their minority majority Districts could move the state from a 14-3 Democratic advantage to all seventeen seats being help by Democrats. I’m from southern Illinois, just 45 miles from where the Mississippi and Ohio rivers join at Cairo and as it happens there’s a GOPer from my hometown who could lose his seat under such a scenario. I know damn well P.O.S. Mike Bost (I went to school with his big sister) would eagerly screw over Democrats this way if he could. I’d take great delight in seeing his punk ass gerrymandered not just out of his position as Chair of the House Armed Services Committee but out of the House altogether!
Other states could eliminate their lone GOP Representative. Just as the GOP is doing or trying to do in places where IT can do so. Stern notes how ugly this would all be but from where I sit Democrats have for too long played fair in the face a blatant Republican lying and cheating and not just when it comes to voting rights and representation. The issue Stern doesn’t address is that this would cost Democrats some minority Democratic Representatives.
Hey, I’m an old white guy so it’s relatively easy for someone like me to say fight fire with fire. However given all the barriers blacks and other minorities have had to overcome I can see why they’d object to this. I’m sure the Congressional Black Caucus would if not raised holy hell voice strong opposition. Enough to depress black turnout and at a time when black males who a year ago decided to go with Trump in surprising numbers might see their ranks swell. From what I can tell while most would never openly “dis” or challenge “Momma” they’ve chafed under her ‘best behave you ass’ oversight. As with while males Trump has made them feel empowered to take their ‘Men should rule” egos out for a romp.
Black women are who we should pay attention to. THEY are a critical, if not the most critical factor in getting out the vote. Not just in the south I should add. If they get pissed then it’s game over for Democrats. IF they say to themselves some version of ‘We’ll accept it for one, maybe two cycles but come 2028 expect a new Voting Rights Act, an even stronger one than LBJ passed’ we’d be in the driver’s seat.
Where all this leaves us is that Roberts will likely corral the votes on SCOTUS to wipe away everything the Voting Rights Act accomplished. Minority representation in Congress will go down and worse, the GOP will gain even more control and not just at the federal level. If Democrats in blue states will lose some minority Representatives, at our own hand. I see it as a lose big vs. lose little scenario.
Minorities would be, and with some justification furious with the Party that has helped them gain representation on Capitol Hill. To make a Congress, or the House at least look like America. Again, I’m an old white guy. However I’d ask them, and anyone reading this article to consider the last election. It wasn’t just Palestinians and Muslims furious at Biden and then Harris for not taking a far stronger stance against Israel. Trump and the GOP played on that anger and it’s a big reason why the GOP eked out a WH win, narrowly keeping their narrow control of the House and the Senate actually picking up GOP seats. So the question is “How’s that worked out?”
We aren’t even a year into a Trump Presidency and GOP control of the entire government. More damage has been done in less than a year than in all four years of Trump’s first Presidency! So while I hate the idea that we’d lose some leaders because they aren’t white. But do we have a choice? So yes, Democrats can literally use Roberts’ screwing over the concept of free and fair elections by taking away black’s and other minorities ability to vote for their own and screw him over at his own game. The question is whether we should, and will.
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You’re a self hating cuck.
Wow, scrolling through to moderate is quite something tonight. It seems I’ve struck a nerve with conservative guys. Enough that they feel the need to project their own proclivities (that means their desires/what gets their rocks off dumbass) onto others.
I bet you only watch BBC cuckold porn.
Feeling a need to project are we? It’s said, with some truth I might add that when people write something and show it off it often tells more about themselves than their subject. Your vile use of a great person and President’s name as a screen handle reveals a lot of envy. Perhaps because Obama has rather big hands? And BBC porn? Not that back in the day I didn’t sometimes enjoy some raw, passionate ‘jump each other’s bones’ sex but being a romantic I was into actual making love with an actual partner. Someone I felt more than lust towards. I’ve seen porn of course and little of it is the kind of thing I enjoyed in my personal life and I never had a fetish. Like what you label BBC porn. But like I said your projection indicates it’s something YOU are into. For me sex is a between two people thing and if I’d ever had a partner that wanted me to watch her with another guy that would have been the end of the relationship for me. What about you?
i don’t know how many of the districts involved are majority minority but it might not be as bad as you think. i think it might be more majority white districts that could be broken up.