“It’s very hard to think about all the people who lived through the 1960s and the civil rights movement who are now seeing all that work, all that sacrifice being undone by a court that is equal parts naive and malicious.”
Adam Serwer, author of The Cruelty is the Point
One ruling at a time, the Supreme Court is chipping away at American democracy. The weakening of voter rights combined with extreme gerrymandering are the latest blows to the notion that the United States offers a beacon to the world.
The court's decision on the Louisiana Voting Rights case has triggered yet another nationwide scramble to redraw maps in a last ditch effort to manipulate the 2026 midterm elections. In Tennessee, lawmakers have carved up communities not to better represent citizens, but to maximize political control. Both parties gerrymander, but only one stands ready to put an end to it.
When politicians choose their voters, democracy stops feeling like democracy and starts looking like the authoritarian regimes we've long criticized.
But history also shows that when ordinary people get angry enough, even the most entrenched political systems can change. Look at how Victor Orban was ousted in Hungary.
C'mon America, get angry. We have work to do.
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Short list of what ails American democracy
An Electoral College that overrides the popular vote
Winner-takes-all instead of proportional representation
Extreme gerrymandering
Disproportionate power of small states in the Senate
Overrepresentation of rural areas
Outsized influence of swing states
Voter ID laws that restrict poor, elderly, minority and student voters
The 24 States without automatic voter registration
Purges that remove eligible voters from registration rolls
Limiting polling stations to reduce voter access
Restrictions on mail-in and absentee ballots
Workday voting instead of weekend or a national holiday
A primary system that advances party extremists
Partisan control over election certification
Underrepresentation of territories like Puerto Rico
DC residents lacking representation in Congress
Lobbyists and special interests who wield more power than voters
Misleading and fear-based campaign tactics to suppress turnout
Census interference that undercounts specific populations
Campaign costs that favor wealthy donors
Super PACs and dark money that increase billionaire influence
Citizens United
A Congress that refuses to do its job
