Scorched Earth

The Supreme Court’s ruling gutting the Voting Rights Act marks a new era in American politics. We can hand-wring — or we can fight back. Here’s how.

This week, the Republican-majority Supreme Court took a sledgehammer to democracy in a move unseen since, well, the last time they took a sledgehammer to democracy.

In its decision, rendered through Louisiana v. Callais, the Supreme Court dismantled key provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, clearing the path for Republican legislatures across the south to redraw their congressional maps and erase Black and Latino representation in Congress.

Section 2 of the VRA, which was gutted in the Court’s decision, prevented legislatures from enacting congressional maps that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or nationality.

Just thirty-nine minutes after the decision was handed down, Florida enacted a new map that aims to gain four additional seats for Republicans in the state. In Tennessee, Senator Marsha Blackburn (who’s sadly running for governor) posted a tweet publicly urging the legislature to redraw their maps and eliminate their sole majority-minority district in Memphis. In Louisiana, the governor postponed the state’s primary elections in order to implement a map that discriminates against Black voters. Other red states, like South Carolina, Mississippi, and Alabama, have also signaled their intent to redraw their maps.

What will result from this is a less representative government. It will be a government where entire communities will be shut out of the democratic process by being packed and cracked into misshapen districts. What this decision has done is state the quiet part out loud: in Donald Trump’s America, ours is not a government of, by, and for all the people. It’s only for some of the people.

This is not a decision made in isolation. It’s yet another example of Republican attempts to suppress the will of the voters and to dismantle the key tenets of our democracy. In other words, it’s a five-alarm fire. Complacency is no longer an option.

This also represents the latest counterargument to those in favor of incrementalism in the face of authoritarianism.

Make no mistake: Incrementalism has failed, and it is a large reason why we have ended up here today. Politicians on both sides of the aisle have spent decades operating independently of the will of the voters, and in despair, many turned to Donald Trump as an answer.

Upon hearing of the decision yesterday, Trump lauded it as a “BIG WIN” for Republicans. In contrast, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for Democrats to fight back against further attempts to rig the midterms by redistricting in blue states “until we get to the day where we can pass non-partisan anti-gerrymandering legislation federally.”

The era we find ourselves in is no longer a jockeying between parties for an infinitesimal advantage on policy. It’s a war of extinction in which victory for one side results in the erasure of another. It’s an era where political violence has become increasingly normalized, partisanship is the defining trait of each person’s identity, and the ideals upon which the United States was founded seem further from reach than at any time since the first shots of the American Civil War.

This environment is not reflective of the America many of us know and love. Yet, because of a decade spent undermining and dismantling our democratic and social institutions by Donald Trump and Republicans, it’s the tragic reality we find ourselves in.

At Headquarters, our purpose isn’t simply to report the news. We leave that to legacy media. Our purpose is to contextualize it and explain why it matters. The ruling in Callais by the Supreme Court matters because of the signal it sends. It tells us that the time for incrementalism has not only passed; it is no longer an option. For the sake of the republic we’re inheriting, we must demand bold change, no matter the risk.

On every front, young people everywhere find themselves walking into the middle of an unprecedented cyclone.

On the economy, young people are the most economically disadvantaged, unstable, and vulnerable group in the country. We are bearing the brunt of the cost of Trump’s wars of choice, an inaccessible housing market, and exorbitantly high education costs.

Socially, Gen Z is torn between those who were born just prior to the explosion of technology and social media, and those who’ve only ever known a world where smartphones, cameras, and online content are ubiquitous.

Now, we must contend with unprecedented assaults on our democratic principles, liberties, and fundamental freedoms. With a ruling gerontocracy determined to cling to power at the expense of literally everyone else, we cannot afford to be cautious any longer.

In 2021, Democrats proposed the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which would have, among other things, made partisan gerrymandering illegal, expanded ballot access, and reaffirmed the VRA’s outlawing of race-based gerrymandering. After passing the House (where ZERO Republicans voted for it), it failed in a party-line vote in the Senate because of the filibuster’s 60-vote threshold required to pass legislation.

But now, we are where we are. And Democrats will have no choice but to use every tool in their arsenal. The choice we face is a binary one: fight fire with fire or be gerrymandered into oblivion.

Democrats in legislatures across the country must be prepared to counter regressive gerrymanders emerging across the South. In Illinois, Colorado, New York, and other states, we must be prepared to fight fire with fire.

Let’s be clear: The result of a war of such proportions is that everyone loses. Every state that redraws will become less representative. Our democracy will become more dysfunctional and polarized. However, MAGA has left us no choice. As citizens, we have a responsibility to mobilize in defense of the only democracy we’ve ever known.

Here at Headquarters, we’re not ones to prescribe specific policy proposals, but the truth is that there is action needed. Urgently.

All hope is not lost. Despite MAGA’s best efforts, the People do still have the final say. In our current circumstances, where Democrats don’t have access to any of the institutional levers of power by which to rein in Republican overreach, we must organize, mobilize, and vote in unprecedented numbers, because the ballot box is the one true power we have.

This week, the Supreme Court made its latest move in trying to remove that right, too. Now, it’s our turn to send them a message. It’s time for us, like Justice Kagan, to say:

We Dissent.