Democrats and NeverTrumpers are very very angry at the Virginia Supreme Court
I think they were counting on winning in court, which is one of the reasons they originally backed the idea that the court allow the vote to occur before issuing a ruling, which is an accord with Virginia precedent.
Now we get “confused” tweets like this:
very confused as to why the VA Supreme Court declined to stop the vote on the redistricting referendum. Whatever you feel about the merits of their decision to strike it down today, the handling of this is a bit odd
— Sam Stein (@samstein) May 8, 2026
Which brings up the old fools/knave issue. Does someone like this not remember the course of events? Did someone like this never pay attention in the first place? Or does he remember but is lying in order to get readers even more incensed at the court for allowing the vote to go forward and then cruelly striking down the people’s will?
Speaking of the people’s will – I’d say this is more than a “little” ironic:
Lydia Moynihan: It's a little ironic that the woman now who is likely going to win the 9th Congressional District in Tennessee is a black Republican instead of a white Democrat male. But that's racist?
Tezlyn Figaro: It actually is
It's now RACIST to elect a black Republican pic.twitter.com/2gEVkz870K
— Brianna Lyman (@briannalyman2) May 8, 2026
The only bona fide black people are Democrats.
Reaction after reaction follows a pattern that shows zero understanding of the fact that states have different rules from each other about how to accomplish redistricting, and that Virginia didn’t follow its own rules. A lot of tweets and comments follow a “they did it in [fill in the blank with a Republican-controlled state], so why can’t we do it in Virginia?” Well, because Virginia has different rules, and this is a state-by-state proposition:
The Virginia Supreme Court has narrowly voted to overturn the will of the people, who voted for a new map to counter Trump’s gerrymandering.
This is despite Republicans in the South moving to eliminate Black-majority districts without even a vote after the Supreme Court gutted… pic.twitter.com/4WoRugVIqI
— Headquarters (@HQNewsNow) May 8, 2026
Also:
Let’s be clear: If this standard applies in Virginia, it should apply in Florida too.
Two different standards for democracy is not justice. https://t.co/SsAdJupxfq
— Katherine Clark (@TeamKClark) May 8, 2026
Once again, I don’t think this is mere stupidity. The concept of federalism is not a difficult one, and I’m pretty sure these people could easily master it. Their reaction is politically motivated, of course. To me, it also indicates the desire for states all to have the same rules, and for those rules to always favor Democrats. Plus, I think these tweets come from people who may (accent on the “may”) know better, but who count on the idea that their readers don’t know better and are trying to stir them up to rage. It’s one of the reasons Democrats want education to be leftist indoctrination that keeps people ignorant of some very important facts about our government and our history.
Speaking of stirring readers to rage, we have Hasan Piker:
the va supreme court denied the results of the redistricting referendum. scotus gutted the voting rights act and tennessee carved up the last dem district destroying black voter power in the state.
those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable https://t.co/Ul1nW2oz29
— hasanabi (@hasanthehun) May 8, 2026
NOTE: And what of California? Stay tuned.
I seem to recall the referendum featured a phenomenon we see elsewhere. It passes due to a late night flood from tallies of mail-in ballots.
“Once again, I don’t think this is mere stupidity.”
I dunno, Neo. Maybe not stupidity, but almost certainly ignorance given today’s public education. I think the commenters probably reflect a split between your theory and mine.
Yes…I’ve seen several posts where my left friends can’t seem to wrap their heads around the fact that different states have different constitutions. And my BiL just stated that Tennessee has now regressed 150 years as they removed the two black legislators for disruption as an example of what happened in post CW south.
We are so screwed. There’s a large portion of our population that is beyond redemption.
(1) “Once again, I don’t think this is mere stupidity.” It isn’t “mere” stupidity, it’s willful, conscious, deliberately-ignoring-reality stupidity.
(2) “Or does he remember but is lying in order to get readers even more incensed at the court . . . ?” When there are readers receiving the words, it’s a very distinct (and very common) possibility. When there are no readers in the mix, loop back to option (1).
They know better, lots of them, but they don’t *want* to know better, so they substitute in what they *want* to be the case — blithely ignoring that next week they’ll be as likely as not to be lobbying (and b!tching and moaning) for a “principle” that’s 180 degrees opposite to this week’s “principle”, all depending on the sociopolitical need du jour.
It all gets really tiresome. *Really* tiresome.
It’s galling to let nincompoopery such as the above slide, but what’s the use? They’re immune to reason and (especially) consistency. So it is coming down to countering the nincompoopery and my mental health, and these-a-days, my mental health is becoming top prority. I’m too old for this . . .
So it is coming down to //choosing between// countering the nincompoopery and my mental health, and these-a-days, my mental health is becoming top prority.
MJR,
Yes, I’ve stopped even responding to their absurd statements to preserve my sanity. Their response has always been ad hominem attacks with no logic or evidence.
Funny, one fellow wondered why all the conservatives who used to respond dont anymore. Of course, his buddies just said it’s because they are all ashamed of Trump and no longer have any answers. The arrogance and sense of superiority is nauseating.
MJR at 5:56 nailed it, in my experience trying to engage otherwise sane liberals. They live in la-la land politically.
As for Piker, he’d be among the first to die if he gets the revolution he so fervently wishes for.
The threat of violence has been implicit in leftist rhetoric for a long time. Accept these new ideas and change your way of acting, or we’ll make something awful happen to you.
physicsguy
There is a clip out there of one of them campaigning for a college post wearing a suit and tie, looking and talking to appeal to both sides of the aisle. There is a recent clip where he is ranting and wearing—shall we say—some interesting clothes. From assimilationist to race man.
From Wiki: Tennessee’s congressional districts, we find out that currently Tennessee has 8 Republicans and 1 Democrat in Congress—and no blacks. Steve Cohen has represented the largely black 9th District (Memphis) since 2007.
No change there. Decades ago I concluded that Democrats were smung,sneering, condescending, and self-righteous.
These people base their opinions only on the outcome, not on the legal process. They are not interested in the state constitution and what it requires. It’s the corollary to “The end justifies the means.” An end they don’t like delegitimizes the process (in this case the rule of law).
physicsguy (6:49 pm) said, “The arrogance and sense of superiority is nauseating.”
B I N G O
bill fello (7:07 pm) said, “MJR at 5:56 nailed it, . . . .”
Thanks, sir, for the upvote!
Kate (7:11 pm) said, “The threat of violence has been implicit in leftist rhetoric for a long time.”
Implicit, and consequently overlooked by many of us benefit-of-the-doubters. And just as I long ago rid myself of this benefit-of-the-doubt delusion, the left has been migrating from implicit to increasingly explicit. These are very unpleasant times.
Gringo (7:36 pm) said, “Decades ago I concluded that Democrats were smug, sneering, condescending, and self-righteous.”
Certainly, many, many are, especially the apparatchiks and true believers. But I know a couple who aren’t — at least not to my face.
Jimmy (7:46 pm) said, “These people base their opinions only on the outcome, not on the legal process.”
Yes. See also “Jackson, Ketanji Brown.” She’s the poster child for this approach.
The NYT reporting exemplifies this. It depicts court rulings like a sport contest in terms of which team (Democrats or Republicans) win. The headline is “Virginia Ruling Rejects Democrats’ House Map In Win for Republicans.” A proper news story would have said “Virginia Ruling Declares Democrats’ Redistricting Plan Violated Constitution,” or something to that effect. The story should start out explaining the legal ruling. Instead it’s all about which team won, and they get to all that boring legal stuff around seven paragraphs in.
The delusional are by definition in conflict with reality.
Ultimately, that is a losing proposition.
There is a limit to how much damage the sane will tolerate from the delusional.
@GB: “There is a limit to how much damage the sane will tolerate from the delusional.”
But with approximately 47+/- % of the population thus deluded, it is hard to understand why the sane have not rejected this a long time ago – effectively and forcefully via legal and persuasion means.
Will it take two or three generations to reconstitute the reverse march through the institutions?
How do you “persuade” or “educate” deluded people? Maybe by forcing them to face the fiscal music? Gut the spending to thwart the Dem slush funding of the NGOs and then the Dem Party.
M J R
My take is that eye-to-eye contact will result in less of the “smug, sneering, condescending, and self-righteous” attitude. A childhood friend served a term as a Democrat state legislator. A swing district, so only one term. I would never describe her thusly. Ditto a fellow homeowner who debated politics over beers every Friday night for nearly 10 years.
It is much easier to be “smug….” when you are not dealing with someone face-to-face.
@ Gringo > “It is much easier to be “smug….” when you are not dealing with someone face-to-face.”
Indeed.
The rise in vicious antagonism seems to be strongly connected to the rise in internet-based “long distance” relationships.
We have friends on FaceBook who say things about Republicans (and parrot all the lies about Trump) that I don’t think they would ever say to us in person; however, I am dreading a coming reunion with some of them because I’m afraid I might be wrong about that.
@ R2L > “Will it take two or three generations to reconstitute the reverse march through the institutions?”
I don’t think that can ever happen, in the same way the Leftists took over, because they use methods that Conservatives (and, frankly, theists/Christians) won’t use.
Piker: “those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable” — that is a quote from JFK.
Somehow, the Left never seems to apply that maxim to the likely consequences of their continuing repressions of Conservatives.
That’s because the Leftists always mangle the context of their quotes.
Smugly.
Because the line Piker appropriated was delivered in aid of a Kennedy initiative that most looks like President Trump’s “Donroe Doctrine.”
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-the-first-anniversary-the-alliance-for-progress
MJR 5:56,
‘The issue is never the issue, the issue is always the revolution.’
Again with the dog zapper!
When is the ASPCA going to take this guy out?
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I sympathize @physicsguy. I sympathize way more than you know.
The problem is that there’s always a new cadre of new people coming up in the world. The truly ignorant because they really were born yesterday. And when we conservatives yield the field, the liberals take over and gain recruits because the young are not hearing any different.
“All it takes for evil to triumph…” what we forget (and I struggle myself) is that “good men doing nothing” can entail good men staying silent in the face of lies.
We have to keep reminding ourselves we’re not arguing to convince the liar, but to save the innocent he’s trying to deceive.
Their north star is power. To acquire, increase, and maintain power. Political, social, cultural, any kind of power, in every sphere of society. Their telos is some sort of perfect utopia. And power is their means to take us there. Willingly or not.
Gringo (11:06 pm) said, “My take is that eye-to-eye contact will result in less of the ‘smug, sneering, condescending, and self-righteous’ attitude. . . . It is much easier to be ‘smug….’ when you are not dealing with someone face-to-face.”
Yes, definitely, with the ongoing exception of feral, rabid haters who are so blinded by their bile that they can’t even act civil. But then again (I’m thinking out loud here), even in a face-to-face situation, I’ll bet that in many to most cases, even the haters act at least a wee bit less uncivil, a wee bit less bilious, in an eye-to-eye contact scenario, as compared to a less personal scenario. So . . . yes, definitely.
Molly Brown (4:30 am) said, “The issue is never the issue, the issue is always the revolution.”
True enough. Those words come down to us courtesy of David Horowitz, whose exact words were, “An SDS radical once wrote, ‘The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.’ In other words the cause – whether inner city blacks or women – is never the real cause, but only an occasion to advance the real cause which is the accumulation of power to make the revolution.”
Nate Winchester (11:03 am) said: “I sympathize @physicsguy [who wrote, ‘I’ve stopped even responding to their absurd statements to preserve my sanity’]. I sympathize way more than you know. . . . And when we conservatives yield the field, the liberals take over and gain recruits because the young are not hearing any different. We have to keep reminding ourselves we’re not arguing to convince the liar, but to save the innocent he’s trying to deceive.”
I cannot argue with that. I can only point out that after years and years, after decades and decades, “preserve my sanity” takes on a very real and literal urgency. Let me put it this way: at my advanced age, which is advancing more and more relentlessly as time lurches on, I am more and more inclined to leave the field to the younger turks.
I’m finding I need to step back from the field of battle, because for me, exhaustion and weariness have become very aggressive and are winning more and more. Needless to say, I very much credit the point you’re urging on us.
“We have to keep reminding ourselves we’re not arguing to convince the liar, but to save the innocent he’s trying to deceive.”
Unfortunately, in the sphere I encounter these people there are no innocents. They exist within a perfect leftist bubble where they all reinforce their beliefs. You have to remember that for these people politics has become a substitute for religion so it takes on all the worst aspects of a fanatical religion. Nate, there’s no point in even engaging with these people. As was mentioned, the fact that 47% of the population may fall into this category is concerning, but changing them by argument is not going to work. It’s going to take something much more direct and concrete.
LOL, I just saw a few hours ago how one of them was again complaining that the conservative people are no longer showing up on my friend’s FB page. By not being there we are taking away from their fun of having a 2 minute hate. It’s like a toddler being ignored.
physicsguy (1:57 pm) writes, “changing them by argument is not going to work.”
Nothing will work on that crowd. Nothing. As has been pointed out many times before, we cannot reason people out of something that they were never reasoned into. Is there any hope, other than waiting for the denizens of the leftist bubble to die off naturally, but to work on their (figurative if not literal) offspring?
As Nate Winchester (11:03 am) observes, “there’s always a new cadre of new people coming up in the world.” Does our side do with them as the Gramscian marchers did to our generation? It’s a really, really tall order but I don’t see an alternative. Do you?
In conclusion, I agree very much with both Nate Winchester and physicsguy. How so?
The first position is applicable to voicing a viewpoint in what is a figurative public square, and the second position is applicable to personal one-on-one social interactions.
— — — — —
Happy Mothers’ Day, all!
Nate Winchester on May 10, 2026 at 11:03 am:
“We have to keep reminding ourselves we’re not arguing to convince the liar, but to save the innocent he’s trying to deceive.”
That struck me as a marvelous statement for a bumper sticker or for bill boards in selected areas. Besides helping to advance our views within the next generations, it might help others of a similar persuasion to ourselves to not feel so isolated and alone, compared to the daily Leftist onslaught they may face from the cultural absconders all around us.
@MJR: “… even the haters act at least a wee bit less uncivil, a wee bit less bilious, in an eye-to-eye contact scenario, as compared to a less personal scenario.”
Maybe because (outside of joint video sessions?) the presence of eye to eye contact could devolve into a scenario of fist to nose contact!!
That seldom ends well for either the sender or the receiver.
Sunday with family was a brief respite from the news, but here I am again, with some memes relevant to the topic, from Sarah Hoyt’s Saturday post.
I don’t even recognize all of these flags anymore.
https://accordingtohoyt.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/hhvsev2w0aexg3d.jpg
Solzhenitsyn knew what the issue was.
https://accordingtohoyt.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/hhubi4yxaaiaauu.jpg
From an earlier Hoyt meme post; check the attribution.
https://accordingtohoyt.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/communism_by_rapierwitt.jpg
This is clearly logical.
https://accordingtohoyt.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/hhwfaalxcaasymz.jpg
And now the Democrats are literally voting for a neo-Nazi in Maine.
Studies support the conclusion that being a Leftist leads to mental illness, even when it doesn’t stem from being mentally ill.
They need help.
https://accordingtohoyt.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/1898724513768546304.jpg
— R2L
It’s not 47%. Not even close. Maybe 20%, and not all of them are all-the-way-nuts.
Yes, the Dems pull half the electorate, but the Dem voting ranks are a vast coalition of many different agendas and priorities.
For ex, a big chunk of the Dem voting ranks vote for them for purely economic reasons, they reject what they perceive as the GOP business agenda (free trade, unlimited immigration, no worker protections, etc.) Until fairly recently they were right to think that, that is what the Old Guard wants. Thom Tillis, Cornyn, Mitch McConnell, etc. would love nothing better than to go back to that.
Those people might even agree with us about how crazy the progressive/liberal faction is, but they prioritize economics over it. For ex, you can point out that the Dems want limitless immigration, and they would agree that that is bad, but point out that the GOP business wing, want exactly the same thing. Prior to Trump, the GOP and the Dems were basically exactly the same on immigration.
You could point out to them that the Dem social agenda is nuts, and some of them would agree, but then observe that the GOP only pretends to oppose that. Prior to Trump…they’d mostly be right.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking the entire 50% of the electorate that votes Dem believe all the crap, but they don’t. Which is both a hopeful thing and a frustrating one. Hopeful because it’s possible to peel those people off, eventually, frustrating because they have different priorities than we do, even so.
The whole Virginia referendum was predicated on having an outright lie on the ballot. People being deceived by lies are not exercising their wills.
Even the Democrat signs were claiming the referendum was to stop a “MAGA takeover”, which was in no way true, not even remotely.
I’m saddened and disgusted that 3 Supreme Court judges, presumably Democrats, did not judge in favor of the Rule of Law. I have no doubts they had spelled some kind of contrived, Katanjic reasons for doing so in their dissent.
HC68 on May 11, 2026 at 3:05 am
Thank you for your very reasoning response.