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Beto O’Rourke’s Message to Blue-State Governors on Redistricting: “Quit F—ing Around and Waiting”
(www.texasmonthly.com)
this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2025
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politics
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The danger is not that Republicans will win. The danger is that the American tradition of democracy will be permanently damaged. Democrats can't avert that by becoming part of the problem. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that the only victory possible is a victory won despite refusing to resort to tactics of this sort. Anything else is a defeat.
Do you think the American tradition of democracy has not been permanently damaged and will not continue to be permanently damaged by Republicans in the future? These are completely legal tactics as adjudicated by the Supreme Court. There are no prizes for going high except watching the country descend further into authoritarianism.
The American tradition of democracy is exactly that - a set of traditions built up over centuries. It is more than just the law. Republicans have done and continue to do serious, permanent damage, and the main way in which they do that damage is by violating those traditions. If the goal is to stop the damage, the means of attaining that goal has to include the defense of traditions.
What you're missing is that these traditions only exist as a peace treaty. Your attitude is precisely why that peace treaty has been broken. Your belief is why democratic norms have eroded so much.
Every democracy depends on both sides respecting democratic norms. It is impossible to write any law or constitution in a way that cannot be abused by bad-faith interpretations and bad-faith actors. Democracy only works if both sides come together and say, "well, we know we could find some twisted interpretation of the law to meet our goals, but the other side can do the same, so we'll both just agree to follow reasonable norms. If we both keep doing this, both keep escalating, eventually we'll end up killing each other."
Democracy is a peace treaty. And you have forgotten this. It was this balance of power that enabled democracies to start in the first place. Ultimately, democracy is an alternative to civil war. We're supposed to debate things in good faith instead of killing each other.
However, in recent years, Democrats have forgotten this. It's the Obama disease, and your disease as well, the cowardly "they go low, we go high." Well Republicans have realized that the balance of power no longer exists. They can violate any and every norm, and Democrats will simply turn around, bend over and take it, and never respond in kind. It's this spineless, sniveling, submissive attitude that is currently destroying American democracy. Republicans can break norm, violate any peace treaty, and Democrats will simply tut tut and never respond in kind.
The thing about democracy is that again, it is a peace treaty. If you want democracy to survive, both sides need to be willing to escalate things all the way to the point of civil war. You need to be willing to return any escalation, all the way to the point of literally killing the other side if need be. Otherwise you just get trampled. Democracy is a balancing act. A tug of war. And Democrats like yourself have forgotten how to pull the rope.
You are responsible for the decline of American democracy.
The Democrats have been doing it your way for decades and we subsequently now have secret police putting people in concentration camps for slave labor. Your way already lost because traditions aren't legally enforcable. We have to actually win first in order to then enshrine those traditions and standards as enforcable law.
Or, uphold the law, and fuck traditions. Rules and norms that aren't a written part of the law got us into this mess. They aren't going to get us out of it.