One of the defining characteristics of the modern American Left is that it treats rules the way toddlers treat vegetables: tolerated only when unavoidable and immediately discarded the second they become inconvenient.
That sounds harsh until you watch the pattern repeat itself over and over and over again.
If they lose an election, the system is broken. If a court rules against them, the court is illegitimate. If constitutional checks prevent them from getting what they want immediately, then the checks themselves must be removed.
Not debated. Removed.
Which brings us to Virginia.
Following the Virginia Supreme Court’s rejection of a Democrat-backed gerrymandering effort, voices on the Left are now openly floating ideas that amount to court-packing at the state level—expanding, restructuring, or politically purging the court itself because it refused to produce the preferred ideological outcome.
Think about how insane that actually is.
Not “we disagree with the ruling.” Not “we’d like to challenge the legal reasoning.”
No. The reaction increasingly sounds like: “If the institution won’t obey us, we’ll replace the institution.”
Jonathan Turley rightly pointed out the danger in this mentality. What’s especially revealing is how quickly national Democrats and activist voices moved toward the same familiar conclusion Americans have now watched for years: if constitutional structures stand in the way of progressive power, then constitutional structures themselves become the enemy.
And the justification for all of this? A low-turnout election. That’s the part conveniently skipped over in much of the coverage.
Yes, there was a special electoral result tied to the redistricting issue. Yes, “the people” voted. But pretending a low-turnout off-cycle election somehow represents an unquestionable, overwhelming moral mandate while simultaneously dismissing the constitutional role of the Virginia Supreme Court is intellectually dishonest. Especially because the Virginia Supreme Court itself is not some alien occupying force imposed from Mars.
Its justices are selected through votes in both legislative chambers—meaning the court itself also reflects representative government and the expressed will of elected officials chosen by Virginians.
In other words, checks and balances did exactly what checks and balances are supposed to do.
One expression of public will collided with another constitutional safeguard representing the broader structure of governance.
That’s not democracy failing. That’s constitutional order functioning properly.
But the modern Left increasingly cannot tolerate outcomes it does not fully control. And that gets to the deeper issue underneath all of this.
The reason so many activists on the Left ignore rules is because many no longer believe in objective morality at all.
Rules are not viewed as fixed principles rooted in enduring truths. They are viewed as temporary tools. Useful when they produce desired outcomes. Disposable when they do not.
That’s why procedures only matter selectively. That’s why institutional norms suddenly become sacred during one presidency and oppressive during the next. That’s why the filibuster must alternately be protected or destroyed depending entirely on who currently benefits from it.
There is no stable principle underneath any of it except power.
Acquire it. Protect it. Expand it.
And if rules interfere with those objectives, then the rules themselves become obstacles to eliminate.
We’ve watched this mentality spread everywhere. The Electoral College is illegitimate when Republicans win. The Supreme Court is illegitimate when originalists rule constitutionally. The Senate is unfair. Voter ID is racist. Free speech is dangerous. Religious liberty is threatening.
Eventually, you realize the problem is not actually with any individual institution. The problem is that constitutional systems were intentionally designed to slow raw power from consuming everything. That was the entire point.
America’s Founders did not trust concentrated authority because they understood human nature too well. They knew majorities could become tyrannical just as easily as monarchs could. So they built friction into the system intentionally.
Checks. Balances. Competing branches. Constitutional restraints. Not to frustrate democracy, but to preserve liberty. Because liberty without restraint eventually collapses into coercion. And coercion is precisely where radical political movements always drift when they stop believing truth exists beyond their own desires.
That’s what makes the Virginia situation so revealing.
The court did not stage a coup. It did not suspend elections. It did not invent authority from thin air. It interpreted constitutional boundaries and exercised judicial review inside the structure Virginians themselves established. And because activists disliked the outcome, some now openly discuss restructuring the court itself.
Think about the precedent that creates.
Every time one branch disappoints you, you simply threaten to replace it? That’s not constitutional government. That’s political extortion. And it’s profoundly dangerous.
Because once societies abandon neutral rules, all that remains is raw tribal power. At that point, constitutions become meaningless pieces of paper because whoever controls enough institutional muscle simply rewrites the rules in real time.
History is filled with regimes that followed exactly that path. It never ends well. Which is why this moment matters beyond Virginia.
The issue isn’t maps. The issue is whether Americans still believe constitutional restraints apply even when they prevent us from getting what we want immediately.
Mature societies understand delayed gratification. Stable civilizations understand limits. Free people recognize that power restrained today may preserve their own liberty tomorrow. But movements driven entirely by ideology rarely think that way. Because when politics becomes a substitute religion, opponents stop being fellow citizens and start becoming obstacles to history itself. And once that happens, rules become intolerable.
Checks become offensive. Courts become enemies. The Constitution becomes negotiable.
That’s the road the modern Left keeps moving down. Not because they are uniquely evil, but because political movements untethered from objective morality almost always end up in the same place eventually: Believing their own righteousness justifies overriding every safeguard standing between them and total power.
The Founders understood something many modern politicians have forgotten: The greatest threat to freedom is not disagreement. It is human beings convincing themselves that they are virtuous enough to wield unlimited authority without restraint.
No society survives that delusion forever.