The Commonwealth of Virginia, a land that once echoed with the high-minded rhetoric of Jefferson and the stoic leadership of Washington, has officially completed its transformation into a high-stakes game of Tetris played by careerists with the moral depth of a puddle. The latest news cycle brings us the heartwarming tale of Virginia Democrats attempting to 'decimate' GOP seats through the dark, arcane art of redistricting. It’s a move so transparently cynical that it almost deserves a standing ovation for its lack of shame. In the world of modern American politics, we no longer bother with the messy business of persuasion. Why waste time convincing a human being that your policies aren’t a dumpster fire when you can simply use a software algorithm to erase that human being from your district entirely?

The Democrats, who spent the better part of the last decade weeping into their soy lattes about the 'sanctity of the vote' and the 'threat to our democracy,' have apparently decided that democracy is a lot easier to save when you get to pick who participates in it. It’s the ultimate performative flex: crying about voter suppression on a national stage while hunched over a map in Richmond, trying to figure out how to pack every Republican voter into a single, weirdly shaped district that resembles a Rorschach test of a dying republic. They call it 'strategic realignment.' I call it what it is: the administrative equivalent of a toddler flipping the board game because they’re losing the match. It is the height of hypocrisy, delivered with the smug, self-righteous grin of someone who believes their own lies simply because they were typed in a sophisticated font.

But let’s not give the Republicans too much credit for their role as the 'persecuted' party. Their outrage is as hollow as their policy platforms. To hear the GOP tell it, this is an unprecedented assault on the American way of life, ignoring the fact that they’ve spent the last half-century doing the exact same thing in every state where they hold the crayons. They aren't upset about the lack of fairness; they’re upset that they aren't the ones holding the eraser. It’s a fight between two groups of people who both believe that the electorate is a nuisance to be managed rather than a citizenry to be served. The Republicans are merely the moronic victims of a game they helped invent, currently too incompetent to mount a defense beyond screeching into the void of cable news and fundraising off their own impending irrelevance.

Perhaps the most delicious part of this pathetic saga is the internal warning from within the Democratic ranks. Some party members are whispering—with the terrified tone of a middle manager realizing they forgot to cc: the CEO—that this redistricting effort might be 'more difficult than it looks.' This is the quintessential Democratic experience: possessing the desire to be ruthlessly Machiavellian but lacking the basic coordination to pull it off. They want to be the villains of a political thriller, but they’re stuck being the comic relief in a satire. They are worried that despite their best efforts to rig the deck, they might still find a way to lose. It’s a staggering admission of their own inherent clumsiness. Even when they have the software, the data, and the legal mandate to destroy their enemies, they are still haunted by their own legendary capacity for self-sabotage. It is the fear of a pickpocket who realizes his fingers are actually sausages.

This is what passes for governance in the 21st century. We have moved beyond the era of ideas. No one in Richmond is talking about how to fix the schools, or the crumbling infrastructure, or the fact that the average citizen is one medical emergency away from bankruptcy. Those things are boring. They require work. Redistricting, however, offers the immediate dopamine hit of power. It’s the geometry of despair. By carving the state into 'safe' seats, both parties are essentially ensuring that they never have to listen to a dissenting voice again. It creates a legislative body of extremists and sycophants who only fear a primary challenge from someone even more unhinged than themselves. This isn't a bug in the system; it is the system's primary feature.

The tragedy of Virginia—and by extension, the rest of this decaying empire—is that we’ve accepted this as the natural order of things. We watch these people move lines on a map like they’re playing God, and we argue about which side is 'cheating' more, ignoring the fact that the entire game is rigged against anyone who doesn't have a PAC behind them. The Democrats will likely succeed in their goal of 'decimation,' or they will fail spectacularly due to their own incompetence, but the result for the average Virginian remains the same: you are a data point, a statistical outlier, a nuisance to be moved from Column A to Column B. Welcome to the future of the Commonwealth, where the only thing 'common' is the contempt the ruling class holds for the people they ostensibly represent. It is a race to the bottom, and everyone involved is currently setting a new world record for speed.