Adam Serwer

I do think it is going to take a tremendous effort to get us back even to square one.

I think that the only way what the Virginia Democrats did is justifiable is as an escalation meant to de-escalate, ultimately, to get to a point where

Republicans are willing to negotiate over the issue of gerrymandering.

Drawing districts is tough.

I mean, the other thing is, is that you can try to do this and you can get it down to a pretty good science.

But the fact is people move.

Those lines don't always stay what you think they're going to stay.

you think you've made a bulletproof district and sometimes it doesn't actually turn out that way.

Again, I think this race to the bottom with gerrymandering where democratic states have been responding to Republican gerrymandering by gerrymandering of their own is only necessary because the only thing that's worse than constitutional hardball is unilateral constitutional hardball.

You ultimately have to get to a point where both sides are open to de-escalation, not just one side.

I think that race to the bottom is bad news in general.

I don't know how else to describe it.

To go back to our previous conversation, they are going to try and redistrict Black people out of American political life.

It is harder to do that than they think.

That's all I can say about that.

I don't think it'll necessarily work out the way that they want it to work out, but I think it should be very clear what the intent is here.

The court in the 1870s is facing a tremendous amount of public pressure from white Americans to abandon the Reconstruction Project.

Not just peaceful, but violent pressure.

But this court did it without any of that.

They just did it because they wanted to.