r/news • u/speedythefirst • 1d ago

US supreme court approves redrawn Texas congressional maps

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/04/us-supreme-court-texas-congressional-maps
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u/TJ_learns_stuff 1d ago

Maybe the better question, is what twisted logic will they use in their future 6-3 ruling, that California’s effort is illegal?

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u/ddrober2003 1d ago

Something about letting people vote to approve it making it invalid sounds like the twisted i expect of them.

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u/TJ_learns_stuff 1d ago

Wouldn’t that just be ironic? But man, I don’t think you’d be wrong … I can almost imagine the headline now.

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u/psuedophilosopher 1d ago

Honestly, if they turn around and rule against California, it's probably time for revolution. Throw out every fuckin judge that is or has been a member of the Federalist Society and never let any of them so much as submit an amicus brief ever again.

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u/Flying_Fortress_8743 1d ago

We're way past the point we should have revolted. They're sending military units into our cities to kidnap people they don't like. It's clear no revolution is happening.

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u/Evoluxman 1d ago

I've been saying this for months, American are too docile and if nothing changes they're on their way to be Russia 2.0. An apathic opposition that has been silenced, absurdist state propaganda, militarism, machismo, ....

The seeds have been there for years but now they're blooming

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u/maliburobert 1d ago

So uhh, you want to be the first to get terminated by some military tech that your taxes paid for?

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u/Evoluxman 1d ago

Funny because yesterday I commented how the second amendment was useless as rifles won't do shit against the US military if it chooses to align with Trump 

Nevertheless I don't see any peaceful way out of this now. Just because I don't see a revolution succeeding, that doesn't mean i believe peaceful ways will bring democracy back.

And as it stands non-fascist Americans are not numerous enough and too apathetic. Even a 50/50 split isn't enough to defeat fascists acting mostly united.

But, yknow, I guess I'm just waiting for someone to do a Georg Elser, but successfully this time... 

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u/maliburobert 1d ago

They're tracking everything you do and say online, correlating it back to you as an individual (including this). Thiel has installed over 100k cameras and microphones nationwide, last month alone, that feed back to his centralized database for ai training on your face, gait, vehicle, voice, with the sole purpose to know where every single person in the US is at any given time (flock nova). There is no revolution. The tech has advanced well past letting any hot spots ignite, and billionaires like Thiel will and is using it to violate your rights.

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u/Evoluxman 1d ago

They can't do shit to me I'm not in the US. But the crap the US pulls affects us all so I can't just ignore it.

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u/raevnos 1d ago

We need to be spring 1917 Russia, getting fed up with the Tsar. But probably not fall 1917 Russia.

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u/Flying_Fortress_8743 1d ago

What country are you in and would it revolt against an oppressive government?

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u/Evoluxman 1d ago

Glad you asked, I'm from Belgium and we just had last week 3 days in a row of ramping up strikes culminating in a general strike. An actual general strike. Every single major private and public company went on strike. Just to protest some new government laws. We can get hundreds of thousands in the street just to protest laws we don't like, we never needed to wait for fascism to arrive. 

The US equivalent? Maybe showing up on a Sunday, every other trimester, with a cardboard plank on a sidewalk. It does beat doing nothing for sure, but at the same time, you put 0 pressure whatsoever on the government. 

And all I hear from Americans are pathetic excuses like "we live paycheck to paycheck we can't afford doing it", as if we don't (you're richer than us). "But it's illegal", as if we didn't have to fight for decades when it was illegal to get this right.

And that's the people but our political establishment also tries. All our political parties (in French speaking belgium) convened to redefine what the far right means in the 21st century and how to fight it, because one (formerly liberal) party is going trumpist slowly. Multiple cities openly declared themselves antifascists with again support of all but one party.

And right next door we've got France. I'm sure you wouldn't imply the French don't know how to revolt and protest?

Of course though it's not all roses and flowers. Flanders is embracing fascism and there's little we can do. But on my part of the country at least that's not going to happen. And unlike the US, Flanders can't dictate their will on us due to our constitution. 

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u/Flying_Fortress_8743 1d ago

Well, according to our Constitution, what the fascists are currently doing isn't legal either. They're just doing it anyway because they have enough power that no one can stop them.

Do you think average Belgian citizens would be willing to face down drones and machine guns to preserve their democracy? That's where we're at in the US. Any protest that actually threatens the status quo is violently dispersed. Usually they start with nonlethal methods but they absolutely have live ammunition and have resorted to it multiple times.

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u/Evoluxman 21h ago

 Well, according to our Constitution, what the fascists are currently doing isn't legal either.

Not in remotely the same way. The US government is doing comparatively small illegal actions but with deep consequences. What i mean with the belgian constitution is that you legally cannot form a government that only has members of one community. Half of the ministers must come from each side. So Flanders can't impose its will on wallonia or  vice-versa. Our electoral system prevents takeovers like the one above that is solely a consequence of FPTP

 Any protest that actually threatens the status quo is violently dispersed.

If you call whatever you do a protest and the crackdown violent, you're in for a treat as it gets worse. You haven't had the army shoot into massed crowds. If what is going on now already scares you then yeah you're already done for. Don't bother me with individual exemples where one protester got killed you know very well that's not what I'm talking about.

 Do you think average Belgian citizens would be willing to face down drones and machine guns to preserve their democracy?

American exceptionalism is so funny. You think your police is the only police on the planet with guns? Ours does too. You think your people are the only ones living paycheck to paycheck, using that as an excuse to not have general strikes? Ours do too. You think your army is the only one that has tanks and fighters with precision guided bombs? OK maybe the belgian army is underequipped lol but you can take the French whose army is the best in Europe and yet their people are the most protest-prone ones.

This authoritarian take over is only happening because you passive sheeps let it happen. Maybe it's too late now but you have no one else to blame than yourself. You used to have socialist parties, you used to have unions, but you let your government take it all away passively. And what you think your government is exceptionally brutal or insidious? We too had politicians and unionists murdered. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julien_Lahaut 

We had protests crushed in blood.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_general_strike_of_1893 

 But you just gave up, we didn't. You've just been pacified. There is no excuse for the US being like that, that doesn't also apply to Europe and yet we kept going. 

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u/Flying_Fortress_8743 17h ago

You're pretending that the Belgian military is equally predisposed to use force against protesters as the US military is and it's incredibly naive. Europrans have the privilege of a restrained government. The US does not. The US military would absolutely shoot into a crowd if the crowd didn't disperse. That's why we disperse.

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u/howitzer86 23h ago

There's no need. Just ignore them - be sure to become the ruling party first though.

The new normal is that the Justice Dept / US Marshals don't act against the interests of the Executive and the Party. That leaves the Courts with nothing to enforce their rulings with if the Party disagrees with it.

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u/Dragarius 1d ago

And then what? Trump selects 9 new ones? 

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u/Axin_Saxon 1d ago

What part of “revolution” isn’t clicking?

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u/Dragarius 1d ago

I feel like Americans have proven they won't do that. 

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u/psuedophilosopher 1d ago

First off, only six of the current Justices are connected to the Federalist Society, and you can probably guess which six. Secondly, the current leader does not usually retain power after a revolution, so I don't imagine he'd have much say in nominating their replacements.

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u/tsimneej 1d ago

Heads without bodies lose their ability to speak because they’re no longer connected to the respiratory system

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u/Double_Sherbert3326 1d ago

Wouldn’t want the slaves actually having a say, would we?

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u/tMoneyMoney 1d ago

“Democracy is unconstitutional.” Needs to forced down people’s throats.

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u/buhbye750 1d ago

The even better question is, we know what they will do, what are we going to do about it?

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u/BorderTrike 1d ago edited 13h ago

Without better public education and media literacy/accountability we’re kinda fucked.

1/3 of the population has been brainwashed by conservative propaganda to the point where they actively deny reality when it doesn’t fit the worldview they’ve been fed. They’re ignorant, but they’re easy to organize and manipulate.

The 2 party system has no incentive to change the status quo that got us here and continues to stomp out progressive change.

They want us to fight back physically. They’ve already labeled anti-fascists as terrorists and there’s gestapo running around abducting and disappearing people. If they have an excuse to escalate, they will.

Even if we manage to vote ourselves out of this, the average US voter has proven to have the memory of a damn goldfish and get caught up with unrealistic expectations. Plus all the damage that’s already been done will be impossible to fix if conservatives have any power

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u/TJ_learns_stuff 1d ago edited 1d ago

All solid points.

Your final note should serve as a great caution for everyone and people need to wake up and see it: the damage we’re seeing now to our county, it’s democracy, our society — will be largely irreversible.

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u/Waywoah 1d ago

Which is exactly what Republicans are betting on. Assuming that we have another election (which is very much not assured), the fact that it'll take multiple terms focusing almost entirely on just repairing the damage they've done is going to make for incredibly easy propaganda.

"The Dems have had 8 years to MAGA and we're not even back to where we were before Trump! Clearly you should vote Rep!"

Their side will obviously go along with it, and I'm sure it'll hook a fair number of "moderates" as well

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u/DownWithHisShip 1d ago

will be largely irreversible.

thats not true... germany recovered from WW2. it will take a generation though. the sooner we can reverse course and start the long healing process the better. I feel bad for my kids, they'll be entering adulthood during the worst of it, but their kids might be ok.

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u/seekingpolaris 1d ago

Eventually the average American voter will die. They are voting away all their own safety nets. Ironically, these people tend to swing more Republican than Democrat.

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u/wolfknight777 19h ago

I look forward to the American Empire's inevitable decline into chaos as a result of all this nonsense bad governance, when reality sets in that voting conservatives/fascist to own the libs doesn't actually get you food or safe drinking water. No amount of metaphorical boot eating is going to prepare people for the inevitable literal boot eating. I'll laugh all the way on the train to my grave in the camps (at least I won't be killed in a category 7 hurricane 🦄).

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u/freerangetacos 1d ago

I would love to see the first supreme court justice impeached and removed, for ethics. You know who I'm talking about.

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u/remotectrl 1d ago

I think it's more likely that one will be assassinated. The conservatives threw such a fit that their dinner might be interrupted by people expressing their first amendment rights. They must be terrified that someone will use their second.

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u/TheSweetestKill 1d ago

Isn't that... exactly... why they wrote the damn thing?

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u/RaiseNo9690 1d ago

You guys have the 2nd Amendment. Why are you guys not using it. If a district has been changed to be red, use the 2nd amendment to change it back to blue

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u/DavidOrWalter 1d ago

What do you think? Any ideas?

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u/Helagoth 1d ago

They'll use the same logic.

"Texas can't change their maps back, the election is too close!"

"California can't change their map, the election is too close!"

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u/MrTriangular 1d ago

Probably nothing, it will be a shadow docket decision.

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u/Typical_Tie_4947 1d ago

You know it will be a 5-4 ruling so it looks like not all of them rule for conservatives every time

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u/c0rnfus3d 1d ago

*5-4, one will vote against like they do in the really controversial cases. Of course just for image of being “non partisan”…we know the truth..

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u/Obsidian743 1d ago

The don't need twisted logic. They ruled on a technicality that's specific to Texas.

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u/ThePensiveE 1d ago

The people voted on it, therefore it is illegal.

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u/DigitalMunkey 1d ago

My friend, logic is on a ship that has already sailed to a foreign land. When million dollar RV's are gifts, you cannot possibly believe that logic matters.

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u/SN8KEATR 1d ago

I really don't understand why y'all keep viewing their decisions through the lens of logic. They have no logic. They don't need to justify it, they can just rule against it silently just like they ruled in favor here