Assclown Alert is a column of opinion, analysis and snark.
When President Donald Trump asked Texas leaders to redraw the map to help Republicans maintain their slim House majority ahead of the midterms, Gov. Greg Abbott didn’t just drink the gerrymandering Kool-Aid. He quaffed the whole damn pitcher. And in doing so, he helped set off a national redistricting bar fight that’s left the GOP with a big, fat bloody lip.
This week, Virginia voters approved a redrawing of that state’s electoral map in favor of Democrats, becoming the second state to do so in response to Abbott and other Trump lackeys. The Virginia victory yielded nine more blue seats, at least matching what Republicans have been able to achieve in states they control.
Of course, the smoke hasn’t cleared yet, and Republicans in Florida are eager to get into the redistricting game. But polls and election outcomes indicate the GOP is still poised to lose the House in November despite all its gerrymandering shenanigans.
Adding to the embarrassment, Latino voters continue to sour on Trump, leaving it an open question whether Texas’ redistricting will yield much of anything in the midterms. Republicans hoped to carve out five more safe seats in the state, but given that three of those are dominated by Latino voters, it now seems an unlikely outcome.
As all the chaos plays out, it’s important to remember that Abbott and Texas Republicans happily played along with Trump’s plan, kicking off the nationwide escalation. What they didn’t account for was that Democrats have finally stopped bringing a butter knife to a gunfight.
The full consequences of Trump’s redistricting arms race aren’t yet clear. The push didn’t just tilt the playing field — it detonated the norms that had been restraining Democrats from going full scorched-earth themselves.
Instead of cementing control, the MAGA-blindered GOP may have accidentally handed Dems the blueprint — and the political permission — to out-gerrymander them. These kind of mid-decade scrambles to redraw political maps could well become a fixture for both parties.
In other words, Abbott and company didn’t just fail, they made things worse.
Because once you normalize bare-knuckle map manipulation, you don’t get to cry foul when the other side leaves you spitting out pieces of your broken teeth. Virginia’s new map, which heavily favors Democrats, is exactly the kind of thing Republicans used to defend when it benefited them. Suddenly, it’s an outrage.
Funny how that shit works.
Here’s something assclown Abbott probably didn’t consider he fell all over himself to do Trump’s bidding: if you rig the game hard enough, eventually everybody starts cheating — and you might not even be the best at it.
Sign Up for SA Current newsletters.
Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed
