I have spent another morning staring into the sun-bleached abyss of American governance, and the abyss is currently arguing over a map of Fresno. There is something profoundly pathetic about the California Republican Party’s latest trek to the Supreme Court, begging the nine high priests of the American experiment to save them from a map they don’t like. It is the political equivalent of a child running to their parents because the neighborhood bully drew a line in the sandbox that makes them feel small. Except, in this case, the sandbox is a burning state, and the line is a congressional district that was drawn by a committee of ‘independent’ bureaucrats who have as much impartiality as a pack of wolves deciding on a lunch menu.

Let’s be clear: the GOP’s argument is that California’s redistricting map violates the Constitution. Specifically, they are invoking the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, a legal maneuver so tired it should be collecting Social Security. They lost in the federal courts, where judges apparently found their claims of victimhood about as compelling as a telemarketer’s pitch. So now, they turn to the Supreme Court, the final dumping ground for every grievance that couldn't be solved by actual leadership or, heaven forbid, winning over a single voter who doesn't already own a 'The End is Near' sign. It is a marvelous display of irony. The same party that screams about 'judicial activism' at every turn is now on its hands and knees, praying for a group of robed octogenarians to engage in the most intrusive form of activism imaginable: redrawing the political geography of the nation’s most populous state to suit their dwindling relevance.

But let’s not let the Democrats or the so-called 'Independent Redistricting Commission' off the hook. This entire process is a farce wrapped in a tragedy and sold as a victory for democracy. The idea that you can find fourteen 'unbiased' human beings in the state of California—or anywhere else on this godforsaken planet—is a hallucination. These commissions are designed to give the illusion of fairness, a way for the ruling class to say, 'Look, we didn't gerrymander this; a computer and some volunteers did it!' It is bureaucratic masturbation of the highest order. They pretend to follow 'communities of interest,' a term that essentially means 'grouping people by how much they annoy the people in charge.' The result is always the same: a map that ensures the incumbents stay comfortable while the rest of us are shuffled around like cattle in a pen that’s slightly more aesthetically pleasing than the one before.

I find myself bored by the GOP’s desperation. They are a party in a state where they have been rendered functionally obsolete, clinging to legal technicalities like a drowning man clutching a piece of driftwood. They aren't fighting for 'the Constitution.' They are fighting for the survival of their donor base’s tax breaks. If the roles were reversed—and they have been in states like Texas or Florida—the Republicans would be the ones screaming that the courts have no business interfering with the 'sovereign will' of the map-makers. It is a circular firing squad of hypocrisy where the only thing that dies is the truth.

The Supreme Court, for its part, must be thrilled. There is nothing they love more than being asked to solve math problems they don't understand to appease people they don't particularly like. This is the theater of our decline. We no longer debate policy; we debate the geometry of our containment. We argue over whether a district should look like a lobster or a Rorschach test, as if the shape of the cage changes the nature of the captivity. Whether the justices step in or not, the outcome remains the same: a state run by a technocratic elite that views the common citizen as a data point to be managed, and an opposition that has nothing left to offer but litigation.

I look at this filing and I see the death rattle of a political system that has replaced vision with cartography. It doesn’t matter how you draw the lines when the people within them have lost all faith in the institutions the lines are supposed to represent. If the Supreme Court blocks the map, the Democrats will scream about the end of democracy. If the Court allows it, the Republicans will scream about the end of the Republic. They are both right, and they are both the cause. I’ll be here, watching the world burn, wondering why anyone still thinks that changing the shape of a congressional district will make the people inside it any less miserable. It’s all just lines in the sand, and the tide is coming in.