New Rules of Engagement

The political operatives at SCOTUS have spoken. Now we fight fire with fire.

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I knew it was coming, but Wednesday’s SCOTUS ruling was a gut punch. Right-wing donors have spent hundreds of millions of dollars over decades to make this happen, attempting to buy America’s entire court system to accomplish their goal. The six right-wing justices sitting on the bench are bought and paid for. They might have the title of Justice, but they’re political operatives first and foremost. Now the Voting Rights Act is all but gone.

The decision was devastating for Black and Brown communities in the South and Southwest. As Stacey Abrams explains in an op-ed for MS Now, the ruling is a “direct hit to the heart of the Voting Rights Act and to the fragile promise that every American’s vote should carry equal weight. The VRA ended Jim Crow. Full stop. With this decision, it’s open season — once again — on Black and brown voters at the ballot box.” It’s a death knell to the ideal that everyone in America deserves representation and the ability to vote for their representatives from and for their communities.

Republicans immediately got to work taking away the rights of their Black and Brown constituents. One hour after the ruling, the GOP-controlled Florida legislature voted for redrawn districts. That evening, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry immediately halted a primary election in which absentee ballots were already being counted, and early voting was set to begin yesterday. I expect them to do anything and everything in their power between now and the election to redraw the maps.

At the same time, I’m also hopeful about what comes next. Because, as I wrote just last week, Democrats from Rep. Ocasio-Cortez to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries are game to fight fire with fire. If MAGA insists on rewriting the rules and redrawing the maps in real time, there’s no reason blue states can’t do the same. And the appetite to do so is clearly there.

Beyond that, we need to redouble our efforts to ensure that the midterm elections are free and fair. Especially since the Trump Regime is doing everything in its power to ensure that they aren’t. States run elections, which remains our advantage, helped by the fact that Democrats in Congress have so far been able to kill Trump’s SAVE Act, which would have taken some of that power away from the states and given it to the Federal Government. As citizens, we have our own levers of power to pull, and a growing willingness to leverage them. In the face of this week’s defeat, that’s a good and hopeful reality.

From a numbers standpoint, I don’t think this is a fight Republicans will ultimately win. Their attempts to destroy American Democracy have always banked on mainstream elected democrats continuing to fight only nominally to preserve the system. But every day, more and more Americans seem to realize that the old system is gone and that we, too, need to play by the current rules of engagement.

Or better yet, start making our own rules.