The Backburn To Save American Democracy Goes On

Ten years into this fascist thing, American voters – even mainline Democrats – are now adept at sniffing out the right's bad faith. They did it in the 2022 midterms, telling Republicans no, I don't believe you mean what you claim to mean.

Voters did it again on Tuesday. They looked past the right's bad-faith arguments against Virginia Democrats' redistricting plans – Republicans had finally seen the light on the undemocratic nature of gerrymandering – and approved the measure by a narrower-than-expected four point margin. Your fifth favorite BFT blogger was sweating there for a while on Tuesday night. Fairfax County was causing me great angst ... until it wasn't. Areas like Charlottesville (+71 points on the "yes" side) and Richmond City (+66 "yes") really came through.

If you like Bad Faith Times blogs and would like to support the site, consider becoming a BFT supporter or leaving a tip. Supporters gain access to the weekly BFT Podcast.

I've written a lot about Democrats' (correct) decision to gerrymander the shit out of states they control in the face of wildly racist and extreme SCOTUS-endorsed Republican gerrymanders that come along with our current competitive authoritarian landscape. Beyond the basic math of the whole deal – Democrats will now gain about ten House seats thanks to redistricting in Virginia and California – we've seen a desperately needed shift in the ways Democrats have approached the pursuit of power.

What would have been unimaginable even a couple years ago is now reality: Elected Democrats (except for feckless losers like Maryland State Senate President Bill Ferguson) are aligned in the all-out fight for control of Congress.

Now Is The Time To Maximize Republicans’ Political Pain

It shouldn’t matter that the Texas gerrymander might be dead. Democrats have to stay on offense.

Bad Faith TimesDenny Carter

Is gerrymandering blue states ideal? Of course not. Are we witnessing a race to the bottom in democratic self governance? Yeah, we are. Is there any other choice today? No, there is not. Unless you enjoy losing forever.

This is nothing more than a backburn to save whatever remains of American democracy before our fascist wildfire swallows it all. Blue state gerrymanders, approved by voters who understand the fascist threat and complete with expiration dates, are carefully designed to slow and eventually stop the wildfire that will consume everything if left unchecked.

Firefighters never want to go the backburn route in fighting the raging wildfires that have become commonplace during our accelerating climate collapse. But if a backburn is the only option, a backburn is what they do. As explained by the Western Fire Chiefs Association:

Deliberately set fires are typically set along a man-made or natural firebreak in front of an active fire front. Once all the fuel is burned by the intentionally set fires the wildfire is no longer able to spread. The goal of back burning is to create a slow-moving and more controllable fire, but it can also be used in a predetermined area to create a controlled burn to aid in wildfire mitigation efforts. This technique allows firefighters to prevent the spread of wildfires and reduce the fire’s intensity, but the technique can only be utilized if conditions allow. Backburning also produces smoke, but because it’s done in a controlled way, people can handle it better and reduce its impact on air quality. The controlled release of smoke in backburning is different from the uncontrolled and usually more damaging smoke that comes from big wildfires.

"You don't fight a wildfire with a prayer, you fight it with a backburn, you use the fire against itself, but you do it with a plan, with clear lines and with a single purpose: To stop the bigger blaze from consuming everything," Tad Stoermer, an historian focused on resistance movements, said in a video that changed the way I thought about gerrymanders to counter gerrymanders.

History is littered with examples of authoritarian opposition using backburn tactics and even adopting the opposition's anti-democracy maneuvering in hopes of dislodging them from power. It's all part of this awful little game, and Democrats appear to understand that. It's something they either did not or could not or would not understand way back in 2016. Most Dems still didn't understand this in 2020 after accomplishing the exceedingly difficult task of removing a wannabe tyrant from power.

No Gerrymander Can Save Republicans Now

Even the election doomers can see something is happening here

Bad Faith TimesDenny Carter

Will Republican voters in Virginia be disenfranchised under the state's new districts? Yes, they will. It's something they should have thought about before voting a third time for the fella who was last seen trying and barely failing to overthrow the U.S. government. By putting an insurrectionist back into power, Republican voters asked for this. Consider this your punishment. My heart does not break for a Virginia conservative in a safe red district who woke up Wednesday morning in one of the most libbed-up districts in America.

Sorry brother. Don't vote for a fascist next time and maybe your electoral shit won't get fucked up. Elections have consequences, things of that nature.

With elected Democrats finally punching back after happily absorbing sledgehammer blows to the head for years and year, state-level Republicans and GOP governors seem a lot less enthused about fucking with electoral maps. Republicans in Florida, a prime candidate for another right-wing gerrymander, reportedly don't have much appetite to answer Virginia redistricting for fear of implementing a so-called dummymander, the very manifestation of bad faith politics. Maybe Florida Republican officials subscribe to Bad Faith Times and know gerrymanders won't save them in an unprecedented political environment.

It goes without saying – or it should – that this gerrymandering arms race can't be a permanent arrangement. Virginia's redistricting plan will apply, for now, only to the 2026 and 2028 elections.

That means congressional Democrats, sometime between 2027 and 2029, need to pass an anti-gerrymandering law, something that will enforce fair districts across the country. Hopefully our big, beautiful, radicalized Supreme Court will allow such a law to stand. Fair districts have to be a priority if the country is to inch out of this competitive authoritarian phase that voters chose because eggs were expensive in 2023 (everything single fucking thing is expensive now, another form of punishment for those who went fash in 2024 ... and those who didn't, sadly).

Americans like fair congressional districts. Democrats found as much in Michigan when they took power there and un-fucked an electoral map devised by the utterly shameless Republican legislators who had run the state for a while.

Forcing every state to create and maintain fair congressional districts has to be the end goal here. By no means does this guarantee a decades-long House majority for Democrats. It will, however, force Republicans to be slightly more responsive to the demands of constituencies that will no longer be chosen by the party. Think of fair electoral maps as a roundabout way to de-radicalize a major political party that stopped playing by small-d democratic rules a long time ago.

Follow Denny Carter on Bluesky at ‪@dennycarter.bsky.social‬.