WaPo Editorial Board goes full denialism: What's happening in the Lone Star State is not a threat to democracy.

[Celerity]

WTF

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/08/20/texas-gerrymander-redistricting-midterms-backfire/

https://archive.ph/N9Tx9



Texas Republicans forged ahead Wednesday with their plan to prematurely redraw the state’s congressional map. Partisan gerrymandering is never pretty, no matter which side is doing it, but hold the apocalyptic warnings about the end of democracy. Republicans’ gambit could well prove shortsighted.

With Democrats back after fleeing the state for weeks, members of the Texas House voted along party lines to redraw the state’s congressional districts six years early. Typically, they wait until after the census provides new data to guide their changes, but Texas is breaking that norm after the Justice Department told the state some of its current districts might be unconstitutional racial gerrymanders.

This Justice Department notice serves President Donald Trump’s political agenda for the 2026 midterm elections, but that does not mean it’s frivolous. The Supreme Court could soon prohibit any racial considerations in the redistricting process.

Whatever the finer points of the law, it is indisputable that Republicans are exploiting that opening to make Texas’s districts more favorable to their party, which holds 25 of 38 seats in the state’s delegation to the House of Representatives. They are creating five new districts in territory Trump won by double digits last year.

snip

[BoRaGard]

1. Wow - Extreme Goveling (r)

what a disgrace the Post has devolved to become.

[David__77]

2. If one thinks the US was a "democratic country" under Jim Crow, then I suppose I understand the perspective.

[LeftInTX]

3. Oh ugh...I was checking for the columnist (They have a few like George Will etc) but it's the Editorial Board.

How dare they? That's bad.

[hatrack]

4. It's the WSJ Editorial Board - par for the course frothing Randroid nothing to see here bullshit . . . .

[edhopper]

6. Washington Post

not WSJ

[hatrack]

11. Apologies! It was so over-the-top awful I thought it had to be the WSJ board . . . .

Skim in haste, repent at leisure . . . .

[edhopper]

13. Sad that

it's hard to tell.

[edhopper]

5. Beezos lips

meet GOP ass.

[AltairIV]

7. Question

I suppose they support what California is doing and soon to be followed by New York. Would love to jettison six of the seven idiots from New York.

[RandomNumbers]

9. I don't support any of it, BUT

as long as there is no universal control to stop it, hey if Republicans are doing it, Democrats had better do it too.

It sux though. Politicians should NOT be allowed to choose their voters.

Anti-gerrymandering is a somewhat complex problem, however. I have an idea to solve it, but it would never work in this country - our voting population would never understand it. Meanwhile we should at least get RCV everywhere we can.

[peggysue2]

8. That's willful denialism

WAPO sold its soul like other MSM outlets. Because Trumpism loves its billionaire supporters and the money-grubbing oligarchy loves him right back, enough to pay tribute in gaudy gifts and capitulation.

All done with a wink, wink to the First Amendment, of course.

Bezos and his like-minded owner/editorial colleagues have driven a stake through the heart of our once free press.

Never forget, never forgive.

[Kid Berwyn]

10. Monopoly and Money Forever!

[dsc]

12. They do have one point

TX may well regret this map if Hispanics regret their votes enough to vote for Democratic Congress members. But the rest is just non sense.

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. They even point out the danger - Trump is trying to get the VRA called "unconstitutional racial gerrymanders"

ProPublica reminds us how Trump (OK, it's probably too sneaky for him - Miller or others) started this - by "threatening to sue" Texas for its current districts, drawn to fit the Voting Rights Act, as "unconstitutional racial gerrymanders".

The letter decried the congressional map previously passed by the state’s Republican-led Legislature as “unconstitutional racial gerrymanders.” It demanded that Gov. Greg Abbott and state Attorney General Ken Paxton respond the same day with a plan to comply. Otherwise, the Justice Department said, it reserved “the right to seek legal action against the state.”

Despite its adversarial tone, the letter was hardly unwelcome. In fact, it was just the opposite.
...
A decision will hinge, in part, on how the courts view an assertion by the Trump administration that the congressional map passed by the Legislature four years ago, and defended by GOP lawyers in court as race-neutral, suddenly must be changed because it paid too much attention to race.
...
During a four-week federal court trial in El Paso that ended last month, Texas officials denied practicing racial discrimination. The three judges hearing the case have delayed issuing a decision, citing the special session in Austin.

https://www.propublica.org/article/texas-redistricting-trump-lawsuits-courts

The aim of the Trump regime is not just to gerrymander the upcoming elections; they want a case to their tame Supreme Court, so that it can strike down the remaining parts of the Voting Rights Act, which would then prevent any state from drawing districts to give equal racial representation, forever. And it would allow all Republican states to draw boundaries however they want - meaning they could go wild on the gerrymandering.