(Todd A. Smith)
The current United States Supreme Court has justifiably received criticism for being a court of conservative activist justices.
One must only look at Justice Clarence Thomas and his unethical behavior in addition to his wife trying to steal the 2020 election from former President Joe Biden.
With the Supreme Court allowing Texas to keep its racially gerrymandered congressional maps, for now at least, if the Court does not uphold the changes to California’s maps, meant to combat Republicans trying to rig the 2026 midterms, it deserves all the ridicule coming its way.
Furthermore, the court would have merited its role in the weakening of American democracy when this chapter is added to the history books, assuming actual history is ever taught again in American schoolhouses.
The potential hypocrisy is as clear as day because although many Republican state lawmakers from across the country have fallen in line with President Donald Trump’s desire to redraw districts to limit the possibility that he becomes a lame duck in 2026, Republicans also have sued California for fighting fire with fire by redrawing districts to potentially add more Democratic congresspeople.
What is good for the goose should be good for the gander, and it is past time for Democrats to start playing by the new political rules, which in effect are no rules at all.
President Trump ignores rules that do not benefit him.
Therefore, why shouldn’t Democrats do the same?
And if the Supreme Court allows for separate rules for separate political parties, they should separate themselves from ever calling themselves true Americans or patriots.
Although the GOP and the Court say that the redistricting is partisan and not racial, very few racists have ever openly admitted to being racist.
Bigots often make every excuse under the moon to excuse their hatred and discrimination.
Bayliss Wagner and John C. Moritz of the Houston Chronicle reported, “In Houston, the new map combines two districts that had Black Democratic representation into just one and creates an open GOP-leaning seat that stretches from the East End to Liberty County. U.S. Rep. Al Green, whose 9th District was redrawn, will now have to weigh running in the neighboring 18th District against up-and-coming Democrats Christian Menefee or Amanda Edwards, who are locked in a runoff to finish the late U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner’s term.
“The court’s three dissenting justices defended the lower court’s rational, writing that plaintiff’s had shown that Texas ‘largely divided its citizens along racial lines to create its new pro-Republican House map.’ They also slammed their colleagues’ assertion that it was too close to an election to strike down the map, saying if that were true, any state wanting to pass a ‘blatantly unconstitutional’ map could simply pass it months before the election as Texas did.”
I concur with the dissenters and urge blue states to take note and pass their own new maps like California did, even if it is right before an election.
Maps are usually redrawn every 10 years after the Census.
And a lower court had previously ruled that Texas’ new map was unconstitutional because it drew the new maps based on race, and not purely partisan lines.
Trump wanted new maps favoring Republicans because he sees his presidency and the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement losing popularity, even amongst some of his strongest past supporters.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) even admitted that Trump’s second term would basically end if the Democrats took the House in 2026 because he would lose power with more Democrats in office.
What MAGA Republicans need to realize is that no rigging will stop what is happening in America.
This country is becoming more diverse by the year.
But instead of reaching out to Americans of color, the GOP wants to keep its party and the country Whiter.
That is a recipe for defeat because the GOP’s math is simply not “mathing.”
But in past generations, when people of color just hoped and prayed to overcome, this generation must take the fight directly to those trying to oppress them.
The MAGA movement is a dissolving movement.
Like Symone Sanders said on MSNOW, MAGA supporters are now beginning to see that their lord and savior is just a small, powerless man hiding behind a façade like in “The Wizard of Oz.”
He talks a strong game to hide his blatant weaknesses.
Many White people are beginning to see that Trump’s dismantling of DEI policies are not just having a negative impact on minorities, as they probably hoped.
It is also having a negative on White men, as they have seen the largest enrollment drop in colleges after the dismantling of DEI programs, according to Essence magazine.
But any Black person that is knowledgeable could have told MAGA members that policies like affirmative action benefitted White women more than it did Black people.
This week, a viral video of some White people expressing disdain for an immigrant driving a new sports utility vehicle, worth more than $100,000 in an affluent neighborhood that they worked their entire life to get into.
What those disgruntled White Trump supporters failed to realize is even if the game is rigged in their favor, minorities will sometimes be better at life than they are.
As a result, minorities will continue to rise to the top even if the system aims to keep them down and silence their perspectives.
The new maps will be like those disgruntled White Trump supporters.
Even though the game is rigged again to benefit White people and diminish the power and prestige of minorities, the cream will still rise to the top.
And mediocrity will find a new way to make excuses for their own failures and the success of those they tried to keep down.
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