Editor's Notes: Can We Defy Courts While Believing In Rule of Law?
Do our tactics throw out democracy and rule of law while purportedly aiming at saving them?
This is the fifth issue of Editor's Notes, a newsletter that will provide occasional thoughts and updates for paid subscribers. Readers of our free articles can sign up below to gain access.
On Saturday, we published an essay by Robert Black arguing, essentially, that Virginia Democrats should ignore the state Supreme Court and implement their new district map. Quite a few people—in the core of the Liberal Currents community no less—were very uncomfortable with his proposal. To them, it was clear that when you defy courts for any reasons, you've gone off the rails.
This response was a bit funny, as just two days earlier most of them were quite pleased with Alan Elrod's argument that a revolutionary moment is upon us. Robert was not talking about committing arson or organizing liberal paramilitaries; he was talking about doing something that two Republican states had just recently done, in response to an ongoing series of escalations that Republicans have one-sidedly instigated, pursued, and enabled.
This led to debates about what it means to preserve the rule of law, something we certainly aim to do in our opposition to the Trump administration. This is a topic I have considered a few times at Liberal Currents, but I thought, in light of the community's reaction, it would be a good time to revisit it.
