Democrats’ Gerrymander Bellyache
Working the refs is a sure sign you’re a sore loser.
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Today in Free Expression, columnist Louise Perry explains how Keir Starmer has tried, and failed, to conserve the New Labour spirit of the 1990s; Rachel O’Donoghue questions dodgy claims in the New York Times of sexual assault in Israel; and Mary Julia Koch says the dream of being an influencer is fading among burned out Gen Zers.
But first, the whirlwind returns . . .
Sore Losers
—Jack Butler
It can be fun to get mad at the referees. It can also be a huge psychological relief. When your team loses, being able to convince yourself it wasn’t your fault, but rather that of the supposedly neutral arbiter regulating gameplay, means you can go on feeling like you’re the real winner, whatever the final score.
Yes, there are bad calls. Referees and umpires are human. The most notorious example I can think of is the 1972 Olympics men’s basketball final between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. I wasn’t alive to watch in horror and rage as the refs at that game erased a U.S. victory by extending play until the Soviets won. But I love America and hate communism enough to be angry about it to this day.
Sports and politics aren’t the same, however much they’re bleeding together and resembling one another nowadays. Which may be why there’s a lot of getting mad at the closest politics allows to refs. That often means judges. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts once compared himself to an umpire, calling “balls and strikes.”
Since Friday, many elected Democrats and others on the left have been throwing a tantrum against the refs that would get them ejected from any venue I can think of. The decision by the Virginia Supreme Court to throw out the result of the state’s gerrymandering referendum has caused many who should know better, and some who never did, to embarrass themselves.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries claimed the state court attacked “three million Virginia citizens” by choosing to “invalidate their voice, disenfranchise them and violate their due process rights.” Never mind that that three million is the total number of voters who cast ballots in the redistricting referendum, including votes against. Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine said that, if the court had problems with the referendum, “the time to stop it would have been before” the vote. Well, Democratic lawyers argued explicitly against doing this before the vote. The nonpoliticians have also weighed in, not exactly wowing anyone with erudition or restraint.
The problem: This wasn’t a bad call, and some of those people know it, or should. To get the transformative gerrymander on the ballot this year, Virginia Democrats steamrolled the process their own state outlines. Because a constitutional amendment empowered a bipartisan commission to do Virginia’s districting, gerrymandering a state whose congressional delegation was 6-5 D/R to 10-1 D/R required another amendment. Virginia law requires amendments to go through the legislature twice, with one intervening election. But Democrats in the state approved the amendment just before Election Day last year, by which time millions—almost half the electorate—had already voted. Pretty straightforward.
Facts haven’t stopped the caterwauling. Democrats are now seeking a deus ex machina from the Supreme Court. This ploy is desperate and defective—worse options are circulating— but it’s at least better than the anti-institutional performative outrage of which Democrats have made a habit. Think back to the reaction to the Dobbs abortion decision. To Sen. Chuck Schumer and his “whirlwind.” It isn’t only one side that’s guilty of this. President Trump, apparently worried that a case on birthright citizenship won’t go his way, issued a pre-emptive missive late Monday night in which he complained that “Republican justices often go out of their way to oppose me, because they want to show how ‘independent’ or, ‘above it all,’ they are.”
Again, there are bad calls. When it comes to the Supreme Court, Dred Scott v. Sandford, Plessy v. Ferguson, Buck v. Bell, Wickard v. Filburn and Roe v. Wade come to mind, among others. But wrathful fulmination when things don’t go your way erodes the institutional respect necessary for politics as we understand it to happen at all. It has a tendency to lead the wrathful outside the political system for redress. There lies chaos and anarchy, wailing and gnashing of teeth, or what one Founder called “accident and force”—the sort of thing America was created to escape.
There’s one big shortcoming in the “anger at the refs” analogy. Though it may seem increasingly hard to see, politics still isn’t a game. How do I know? Because there’s a worrying possibility, if still distant (for now), that if we’re not careful, we could all lose.
California Dreamin’: Not every blue city is doomed to dysfunction. A new poll finds that 74% of San Francisco residents approve of Mayor Daniel Lurie’s approach to reviving the city from its pandemic-era decline. Citywide crime is down to its lowest point in two decades, small businesses are returning to downtown, and open drug markets and homeless encampments are clearing out. Other cities, take note: Pro-business and tough-on-crime policies can work. — Mary Julia Koch
Handbags, Gladrags and Ratbags: Wrinkly rocker Rod Stewart was overheard congratulating Britain’s King Charles III for his recent performance in the U.S. The monarch visited New York and Washington in April. “You were superb, absolutely superb, put that little ratbag in his place,” the “Maggie May” singer told His Royal Majesty, apparently in reference to President Trump. Sorry, but when did that happen, exactly? If by “in his place” Mr. Stewart means the White House, a republican correction is in order. The American people put him there, bub, not your King Cholly. — Matthew Hennessey
Under the Lake: Usually you have to go pretty deep into a lake, sea or ocean, to catch a glimpse of what the waves have claimed. Not so in Seattle, where Lake Union contains a large number as yet unidentified wrecks. Phil Parisi is exploring the lake and identifying what lies in what he calls a “shipwreck city.” If present trends continue in that beautiful but badly governed city, ruins worth exploring may appear above the water line. — J.B.
Greek Bumps: Filmmaker Christopher Nolan is under fire for casting non-Greek actors with American accents in starring roles in “The Odyssey.” Rapper Travis Scott plays a bard, a singer-poet in Greek mythology, “to nod towards the idea that this story has been handed down as oral poetry, which is analogous to rap,” Mr. Nolan told Time magazine. Some say the director is appeasing Hollywood’s DEI police, or juicing the film’s relevance to audiences who never read Homer’s epic. One hopes Mr. Scott sings melodic ballads with a majestic lyre, true to the original story, not renditions of his hit songs “goosebumps” or “SICKO MODE.” — M.J.K.
Keir Starmer’s Conservatism
Louise Perry
When Tony Blair came to power in 1997, his New Labour party was a progressive political project that aimed to lift up the whole world. In practice this meant massive increases in welfare spending and immigration, and legislation that made it difficult to deport foreign criminals and illegal immigrants.
Keir Starmer longs to conserve that spirit of social justice. Mr. Starmer is a regime man, through-and-through. Unluckily for him, that regime is now in the process of collapsing.
Read Louise’s Column ⧁
Kristof’s Unbelievable Tale
Rachel O’Donoghue
A New York Times opinion piece penned by Nicholas Kristof includes wild claims of torture and dog rape in Israel. Such allegations are grave and demand proper investigations and rigorous reporting. Mr. Kristof’s column doesn’t meet that standard.
Read Rachel’s Article ⧁
Influencers No More
Mary Julia Koch
Gen Zers are often viewed as slumped-over doomscrollers who never see the sun and self-obsessed TikTokers who never look away from their selfie cameras. But a quiet revolution is taking root: Young people are burning out from the relentless digital world and losing faith in the dream of internet fame.
Read Mary Julia’s Article ⧁
Watch: Can Trump Convince Xi to Release Jimmy Lai?
Free Expression talks to Sebastien Lai about democracy and freedom in Hong Kong.
Thank Democrats for High Energy Prices
The party spent a generation restricting fossil fuels.
By Matthew Continetti
Big Brother Is a Bad Daddy
Subsidizing single motherhood is a terrible response to the fertility crisis.
By Rob Henderson
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Do you think that white woman looking at the robot thug is thinking, how the hell did this idiotic clown ever get to be the minority leader? Did Pelosi hate us that much? Diversity is NOT our friend.