The Dictatorship
It’s now clearer than ever that Democrats must pack the Supreme Court
In seemingly the blink of an eye, the gerrymandering wars have turned against Democrats — all because of unelected judges imposing their views over the will of voters and elected officials.
If Democrats are able to win back power despite the new electoral hurdles the courts have placed before them, there is only one path forward: judicial reform and, in particular, adding new justices to the Supreme Court. Indeed, packing the court may soon become a new litmus test for Democratic politicians — and it should be. Any hope of Democrats holding power and enacting their agenda will rely on undoing the Supreme Court’s partisan lean.
GOP-controlled Southern states quickly proved why the Voting Rights Act was so necessary.
Over the weekend, Democrats focused their ire on Virginia’s Supreme Court after four of the court’s seven justices threw out the results of a statewide redistricting referendum in which three million Virginians cast a ballot. With that ruling, the court undid Democratic efforts to flip four House seats from red to blue.
But the real culprit for the Democrats’ sudden reversal of fortune is the conservative majority sitting on the Supreme Court in Washington. It’s because of their actions that Virginia Democrats were pushed to redraw their congressional maps in the first place.
Back in 2019, the Supreme Court issued one of its most damaging decisions in recent memory. In Rucho v. Common Causethe court’s conservative justices ruled that even though “excessive partisanship in districting leads to results that reasonably seem unjust,” federal courts simply could not adjudicate partisan gerrymandering.
“For the first time ever,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent, “this Court refuses to remedy a constitutional violation because it thinks the task beyond judicial capabilities.”
Writing for the conservative majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said that “the court’s decision does not condone excessive partisan gerrymandering.” But that’s precisely what has happened since — and until recently, almost exclusively to the benefit of Republicans.
Last month’s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais compounded the damage. The court’s conservatives eviscerated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which was enacted to stop Jim Crow laws that limited Black political participation and had provided voters a legal path to challenge racially discriminatory election laws.
Incredibly, Justice Samuel Alito made clear in his opinion that states can now defend themselves against claims of racial gerrymandering by arguing that they are merely engaged in partisan gerrymandering — even though, in the South, limiting Democratic representation and Black political representation is in effect one and the same. But in allowing states to use partisan gerrymandering as a cover for racial gerrymandering, Alito is not merely condoning partisan gerrymandering — he’s endorsing it.
GOP-controlled Southern states quickly proved why the Voting Rights Act was so necessary.
it’s impossible to disentangle the court’s decision-making from a desire to help Republicans win elections.
Tennessee Republicans quickly to carved up Memphis to remove the state’s only Black-majority district. Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry suspended House primary elections in which some 80,000 votes had already been cast so the Republican-controlled state Legislature could erase a majority-Black district. Republicans in Alabama, Mississippi and South Carolina may follow suit and, in effect, gut Black representation across the South.
The Voting Rights Act, a triumph of the Civil Rights Movement, has been destroyed by partisan Republicans masquerading as Supreme Court justices. (Though President Trump remains unsatisfied. In a Sunday social media post complaining about the court’s hostility to his administration’s stance on birthright citizenship, Trump wrote, “In fact, I should be the one wanting to PACK THE COURT!”)
As Kagan wrote in her dissent in Callais, the Voting Rights Act brought America “closer to fulfilling the ideals of democracy and racial equality,” and the law had “repeatedly, and overwhelmingly, reauthorized by the people’s representatives in Congress.”
But none of that mattered to the court. Indeed, it’s impossible to disentangle the court’s decision-making from a desire to help Republicans win elections.
Last December, a district judge in Texas, after nine days of hearings and testimony from 23 witnesses, issued a 160-page decision throwing out Texas’s mid-decade gerrymander. The Trump-appointed judge found overwhelming evidence that Texas had created a racial gerrymander.
Without even bothering to hold a hearing, the Supreme Court breezily dismissed the lower court’s findings and criticized it for having “improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, causing much confusion and upsetting the delicate federal-state balance in elections.”
Yet in the Callais decision, the Supreme Court granted Louisiana’s request to dispense with the usual waiting period between issuing the decision and sending it to a lower court. By doing so, the justices are allowing the state to expedite rewriting its congressional maps. If this isn’t an example of the Supreme Court improperly inserting itself into “an active primary campaign” and “causing much confusion,” it’s hard to imagine what would qualify.
But of course the conservative justices are more than happy to violate past precedent and put their fingers on the scale to help Republicans.
If a law as sacrosanct as the Voting Rights Act is vulnerable from the Supreme Court’s meddling, no legislation passed by Democrats will be safe. u
To be clear, this is not just a problem in the federal courts. Last month, Florida Republicans passed their own partisan gerrymander even though the state’s constitution, thanks to a 2011 voter-passed referendum, explicitly forbids partisan gerrymandering. Nonetheless, few political observers expect Florida’s Republican-leaning state Supreme Court to overturn the new maps.
The courts’ increasingly partisan lean puts Democrats in a near-impossible situation. Even if Democrats control the House, Senate and White House come January 2029 — still a reasonable possibility — there’s every reason to believe that the court’s conservative majority will use its judicial veto to undermine Democrats’ political and legislative objectives.
This is why an increasing number of Democratic politicians and pundits are calling on the party, if it takes back power, to pack the court with liberal judges in order to undo the conservative majority’s political stranglehold. And they are right to do so.
But what has so far been a trickle could soon become a torrent. A political environment where the nation’s highest court is the GOP’s political trump card is not one in which Democrats can engage in normal politics. They will be operating on a playing field that, because of the court’s interventions, will be tilted toward Republicans.
If a law as sacrosanct as the Voting Rights Act is vulnerable from the Supreme Court’s meddling, no legislation passed by Democrats will be safe. Adding new justices is a more-than-reasonable response to a Supreme Court that continually acts with thinly veiled partisan zeal.
Critics will argue that if Democrats take this momentous step, Republicans will respond in kind when they retake power.
Let them. For too long, the court’s decisions have been an abstraction to voters — seemingly immune from political considerations. But if tit-for-tat court packing is the future of American politics, then let voters decide if they prefer a conservative or liberal Supreme Court.
But the larger issue for Democrats is how they wield political power. Last year, when it seemed obvious that Republicans were in danger of losing their House majority, Trump pushed Republicans to engage in an unprecedented wave of mid-decade redistricting. The GOP is now poised to pick up between eight and 10 House seats — in effect insulating the party, at least in part from voter anger.
None of this would be happening if not for the Supreme Court’s partisan interventions.
This electoral advantage for Republicans doesn’t even take into account the high court’s near-constant judicial interventions on behalf of the Trump administration. Since Trump took office, the court has issued so-called shadow docket rulings in favor of the administration’s requests for relief 80% of the time — often with little or no explanation. In 2024, the justices played a delaying game with Trump’s federal indictments before the court issued what amounted to a get-out-of-jail-free card for presidential misconduct. And of course, there was the 2022 decision that undid the 50-year precedent of Roe v. Wade and led to the criminalization of abortion in dozens of states. In short, the court’s political and ideological interventions, often discarding well-established precedents, have been going on for some time and, almost exclusively, at the expense of Democrats.
Democrats have little choice but to respond to the GOP’s efforts to increase their political advantage (as they tried to do in Virginia). Adding new judges to the court is not the last step in that process, but it’s essential. To defeat Republicans, they must act as ruthlessly as Republicans.
Michael Cohen is the publisher of the newsletter Truth and Consequences and hosts the weekly podcast “That ‘70s Movie Podcast.”
Over the course of June, Donald Trump spent nearly every day focusing attention on assorted construction and beautification projects, emphasizing the unavoidable conclusion that the president takes his renovation crusade very seriously.
His allies aren’t necessarily pleased. The Hill recently reported that Republican officials, worried about the midterm elections and maintaining partisan control, have been “thrown off-balance” by, among other things, Trump’s focus on “pet projects” instead of more meaningful national priorities.
The list of projects keeps growing nevertheless. It includes (but is by no means limited to) the ballroomthe Reflecting Poolthe “triumphal arch,” the fountainsthe horse statuesthe “Trump Promenade,” the “statue garden” and the dozen or so additional renovation projects he’s prioritized in and around the White House complex.
But let’s also not forget the helipad.
A couple of months ago, The Washington PostThe Wall Street Journal and The New York Times separately published similar reports about Trump hoping to build a permanent helicopter landing site on the White House grounds. Evidently, those plans have now advanced to the construction stage. The Post reported this week:
President Donald Trump has begun construction on a new White House helipad, his latest change to the historic grounds, according to three people who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the project publicly.
Construction crews worked into the night Monday on the White House’s South Lawn, with the project blocked off by a large fence.
The report, which has not been independently verified by MS NOW, added that the project hasn’t yet been formally announced by the White House, even as construction is apparently underway.
It’s not yet clear how much the project will cost, who will pick the tab and whether this has joined the growing list of no-bid contracts.
Unlike some of the president’s other priorities, there is a legitimate issue here — the latest generation of helicopters really do damage the White House lawn — although this doesn’t answer the other lingering questions or explain why Team Trump hasn’t acknowledged the existence of the project.
What’s more, this almost certainly won’t be the last of the Republican’s projects.
Earlier this week, the president used his social media platform to promote an artificial intelligence-generated image of a gold eagle affixed to the White House exterior. Trump added in his online image, “A Golden Gift to the White House for its 250th Birthday Year!”
The text (which erroneously said the White House is celebrating its semiquincentennial) suggested the president intends to add this gaudy addition to his ambitious renovation agenda.
Recent polling has found two-thirds of Americans are convinced their unpopular president simply has the wrong priorities. Trump could take steps to change their mind, but he apparently doesn’t want to.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
The Dictatorship
Hegseth blasts protesters at ceremony for D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force: ‘Ingrates’
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday derided protesters at an event in Washington, D.C., tied to the America 250 celebrationscalling the demonstrators “ingrates” who are “blinded by ideology.”
The D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force event in Meridian Hill Park was set to begin at 9 a.m. ET but did not start until roughly 30 minutes later, as members of the National Guard waited for Hegseth’s arrival amid a brutal heat wave. Protesters shouted during his brief address, in which he said he was to blame for the delay and praised the troops for their service.
“In fact, this background noise this morning is perfect,” Hegseth said about the protesters, with White House adviser Stephen Miller and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche standing behind him.
“It’s the sound of ingrates, of ingratitude of people who are so blinded by ideology they can’t see law and order and common sense in front of them,” Hegseth said. “That there’s nothing ideological about this group, there’s nothing political about this exercise.”
Some protesters could be heard shouting “Shame!” and “Guard, go home!”
Pete Hegseth: “This background noise is perfect. It’s the sound of ingrates, of ingratitude, of people who are so blinded by ideology they can’t see law and order and common sense in front of them.” pic.twitter.com/aWt5ciuRG3
—Aaron Rupar (@atrupar)”https://x.com/atrupar/status/2072679604184109222?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>July 2, 2026
National Guard troops have been deployed to assist with America 250 celebrations in the capital, though some Democratic governors have warned against their guard members being utilized for a larger federal joint task force to tackle what the Trump administration has called“rampant crime” in Washington.
Many Washington residents are not thrilled with the National Guard’s presence. The controversial America 250 festivities have also sparked criticism from Democrats who accuse President Donald Trump of putting himself at the center of the celebrations.
At the Thursday ceremony, Hegseth suggested the protesters were not from Washington.
“These ingrates will fade away; they’ll go back to wherever they came from,” he said, before asserting that National Guard troops have brought the crime rate down in the capital — a claim that at least one study has found to be inaccurate.
“The crime rate here has dropped in staggering amounts, and the media won’t want to admit it because, of course, they’d have to give credit to President Trump, and then they’d have to give credit to the Department of War or to Stephen Miller,” Hegseth said. “But courageous men like President Trump and Stephen, who said enough is enough, are the reason why this city is a safe and beautiful place.”
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
Stephanie Ruhle said she was left “almost speechless” after the release of Donald Trump’s new financial disclosureswhich reported he raked in more than $2 billion since returning to the White House. “Man, it looks good to be president,” the “Money, Power, Politics” host said Wednesday.
According to the 927-page document released Tuesday, Trump’s income has only increased since retaking the White House. The president reported almost $575 million in real estate and golf-related income and another $68.6 million in royalties and licensing fees.
But, as Ruhle pointed out, $1.4 billion of Trump’s 2025 total comes directly from one industry: crypto.
Despite having called that industry a “scam” and a “disaster waiting to happen” in 2021, Trump has in recent years appeared to have a change of heart about digital currency.
“That was just five years ago, but now he is a major crypto industry operator and essentially its top policy maker,” the MS NOW host said. “Remember, he is the one who appointed regulators that changed the rules to hugely benefit the crypto industry, and since he came back to office, he has either completely dropped or settled a whole lot of cases with crypto companies.”
As Trump rakes in more cash, Ruhle said the American people are not experiencing the same kind of prosperity, in part because of the administration’s policies. “[They] are suffering, whether it’s because of tariffs, whether it’s because of inflation, whether it’s because of increased costs, because of the war in Iran,” she said.
While Ruhle noted the president has said he does not choose his investments and has said they are in a “blind account,” she said the American people should not ignore how much Trump has profited since returning to the White House.
“Here’s what you need to know: All of this would be a major conflict of interest — a huge scandal — if it were any other presidency,” she argued.
You can watch Ruhle’s full breakdown in the clip below.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW. She was previously a segment producer for “AYMAN” and “The Mehdi Hasan Show.”
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