⚠️ SNARKY DISCLAIMER

 The following rant is brought to you by the Ghost of George Carlin, the Spirit of the First Amendment, and your friendly neighborhood sense of civic doom. If you’re allergic to sarcasm, allergic to facts, or think gerrymandering is just competitive cartography, buckle up. This ain’t a TED Talk. This is democracy with brass knuckles.

So, what the hell is going on in Texas?

Well, sit down, open your cold Lone Star, and let me explain how the Lone Star State is yeehawing its way into full-blown banana republic cosplay.

🗺️ The Crime? Drawing Lines Like a Drunken Etch-a-Sketch.

See, in most places, congressional maps are drawn once every ten years after a census. But in Texas? That’s not dramatic enough. Nope. Governor Greg “Red Sharpie” Abbott decided it was time to break out the emergency gerrymander crayons and redraw the maps mid-decade because the last ones—already designed by Republicans—weren’t unfair enough.

Why? Because Donald "Two-Time Loser, Thirty-Four-Time Felon" Trump whispered sweet nothings into Abbott’s ear and said, “I want five more seats. And make them whiter than a Hobby Lobby Christmas aisle.”

So here comes a new map. It slices up Austin, Dallas, and Houston like a brisket in a church potluck, cutting up Black and Latino communities like they’re confetti at a Klansman’s birthday party. Gerrymandering so obvious it should come with a MAGA bumper sticker and a shovel for burying democracy.

✈️ The Democrats? Gone in 60 Seconds.

How did Texas Democrats respond? They pulled a political Houdini. Poof. More than 50 of them vanished across state lines to Illinois, Massachusetts, and New York—anywhere they couldn’t be legally dragged back like rebellious school kids who skipped detention.

Why? Because if they stayed, the GOP would’ve had the quorum to pass the new map. So they took the Constitution at its word and used one of the few tools available to a minority: leaving.

It’s like calling timeout in a rigged game of dodgeball where the other team is playing with bricks.

🪤 Abbott's Big Wet Dream: Dictator Cosplay

Enter Greg Abbott, rolling around like a bad Bond villain in orthopedic boots, declaring, “Bring them back, dead or alive!” Okay, maybe not dead—but certainly dragged back by state troopers under civil arrest warrants signed by House Speaker Dustin Burrows. Because nothing screams “democracy” like arresting elected officials for using legal protest to block illegal power grabs.

Burrows, by the way, thinks skipping the vote is “shirking responsibility.” Oh, honey. If fighting a racist power grab is “shirking,” then Martin Luther King Jr. must’ve been a part-time janitor.

And let’s not forget—Abbott wants to go even further. He’s openly fantasizing about declaring their seats vacant if they don’t come back. A legal theory so flimsy even Ken Paxton—a man who thinks “indicted” is just a fancy political credential—says, “Yeah, I’m not sure that’s gonna fly.”

You know it’s bad when the guy still facing his own securities fraud charges thinks you’re pushing it too far.

⚖️ But What About the Courts?

Oh, the courts? They’ve been in this rodeo before. Back in 2021, Texas tried the same quorum-warrant stunt. Courts said, “Yeah, you can issue the warrants—but good luck enforcing them if lawmakers skip the state faster than a snake on a skillet.”

Also, let’s talk precedent. Removing legislators for doing their jobs by not rubber-stamping injustice? That’s not law—it’s authoritarian fanfiction. The Texas Supreme Court may be conservative, but even they’d need a gallon of boot polish and a lobotomy to go along with that mess.

🛑 The Stakes? They're National.

This isn’t just Texas BBQ gone bad. This is the test kitchen for autocracy.

If Abbott succeeds, you’d better believe other states will follow. Florida’s already measuring the drapes. Missouri’s heating up the ink. Ohio’s calling their cartographer.

Because if you can redraw maps whenever you feel like you're in danger of losing an election—what the hell’s the point of voting?

Democracy means voters pick their leaders. Gerrymandering means leaders pick their voters. And what’s happening in Texas? That’s leaders picking which voters are allowed to exist on the map at all.

They’re not just moving lines. They’re erasing lives.

🚨 So Let’s Be Clear:

• This is not governance.
• This is not policy.
• This is not democracy.

This is minority rule, whitewashed and wrapped in a big ol’ flag.

And if we let them win this round? The next one won’t even need quorum. They’ll just change the damn rules.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go draw a map of Texas where Austin annexes the Governor’s mansion and installs a cactus as interim leader. I trust the cactus more. 🌵

End of rant.

 Mic drop.

 Vote like your map depends on it—because it does.