There is no sugar-coating it: The Roberts Court’s Callais decision is a disaster. But it is one the democracy movement has been preparing for since the court took up the case. Callais will test us. But as a movement and as a nation, we can meet the challenge — as our predecessors did in Selma. In this week’s column, I share ideas on how we Contrarians can pitch in, gleaned from some of the toughest and wisest people I know.
I was in New Mexico at a democracy conference of all places when the decision hit on Wednesday morning. As I sat on my patio in the morning sun and read the decision beneath the high blue sky, I was struck by the contrast between the beauty of my surroundings and the horror on the page. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which guaranteed fair representation for Black and Latino Americans in Congress, state legislatures, and more, was annihilated.
The content of the majority opinion was devastating, but so was the timing. I knew that the decision would be bad, but I had hoped that the Roberts Court would at least have the decency to wait until the end of the term in June — not drop this bombshell in the middle of primary season.
Sure enough, chaos immediately ensued across the South as the GOP sought to capitalize on the case by immediately commencing efforts to snatch away Black and Latino representation. Florida passed a bill the same day. Alabama and Tennessee are taking steps to pass their own bills. Louisiana went even further, canceling active congressional primary elections! Odious Gov. Jeff Landry claimed an “emergency” in contravention of state law.
It was one of the darkest series of days since Jan. 20, 2025. But we Contrarians refused to quit back then and have since helped mount ferocious pushback in the courts of law and of public opinion. Your efforts as part of the overall democracy movement have helped make Donald Trump one of the most unpopular presidents in history. We will do the same pushback here, starting with litigating vigorously with our pro-democracy allies in the South. Your paid subscriptions make that possible; because we are owned by no one, all profits are plowed into our over 300 legal cases and matters — and counting.
The past 15 months are not the only inspiration for what we must do now. Far from it. The civil rights movement in particular offers vital lessons. I asked three of today’s leaders in that movement — Bryan Fair of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Lauren Groh-Wargo of Fair Fight, and Juan Proaño of LULAC — for inspiration and specific next steps. I had intended to combine their ideas with my own into a single column, but their ideas stand on their own as distinct and brilliant guides to action.
Bryan’s Thoughts:
I’d like to start with a few high-level observations:
The majority opinion in Callais reminds one of the court’s infamous opinions in Dred Scott and Plessy, in which the court announced that “persons of African descent, whether slave or free, … had no rights which the white man was bound to respect,” and that “separate was equal.” Now, “nonminority voters,” a euphemism for white voters, have no duty to respect and preserve minority voters’ power. The Callais decision invites an immoral race to the bottom against all minority voters and their nonminority allies. We eventually defeated Dred Scott and the similarly dreadful Plessy. We must also reverse Callais.
The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend toward justice unless we bend it.
The price of freedom is high. Many people gave their lives to gain for us the right to vote for us. We honor them by exercising the right to vote. If we want change, we must demand it by participating and encouraging others to join the fight for free and fair elections.
Every electoral district in this country is a racial gerrymander, designed based on the racial demographic composition of the district. If Black and Latino opportunity districts are violative of the Fourteenth Amendment, thousands of white opportunity districts violate that amendment as well.
Tyrants are never the heroes. My heroes are those who resist tyranny in all its forms and all its sources, whether legislative, executive, or judicial. Resistance is our superpower!
We are on the right side of history and the right side of justice.
With that here are five specific guidelines for action:
A multiracial democracy cannot be defended by a narrow constituency. It requires a broader, deeper coalition that spans race, gender, class, geography, religion, and identity. Every coalition partner must commit to supporting our allies and their right to free and fair elections.
We must speak to current voters and the nearly 90 million nonvoters who sat out the 2024 election. We must speak where they are, and we must hear their concerns to connect with them. We must help them participate in our democracy, especially those who face invidious barriers.
We must advance the principle of one person, one vote as the cornerstone of our democracy and challenge every device, procedure, or map that undermines that fundamental constitutional doctrine. We need a new Voting Rights Act that proscribes voter suppression, vote abridgment, and vote dilution in all elections across the country.
We must speak directly and candidly about racism, past and present, identifying both the sophisticated and simple-minded strategies used to suppress minority voting power. Nonminority voters are not entitled to an inflated weighting of their votes. That’s what the 1965 Voting Rights Act proscribed.
We must expand voter education, engagement, and registration efforts to mobilize the largest multiracial turnout in our history for the November midterms.
Lauren’s Thoughts:
Callais represents the latest move by the Roberts Court, the Federalist Society, and the MAGA movement to dismantle Black and Latino political power through Supreme Court cases gutting the Voting Rights Act and eliminating private enforcement mechanisms. These actions are intended to strip the political power of Black and Latino Americans and to create a “New Solid South” under White one-party rule.
Below, I outline a strategy to delay, disrupt, and ultimately defeat these efforts while building a long-term coalition for democratic progress and a multiracial American democracy. This strategy builds the infrastructure needed to fight this immediate crisis. It also empowers us to create a new vision and build enough power to enact real, structural changes necessary for a thriving multiracial democracy responsive to the needs of its residents.
Fight Back Hard Now: We are working with existing coalitions and networks across the South alongside our national allies to push back against these cynical, racist attempts to gut Black political power and gerrymander the congressional and state maps. If we cannot block them outright, we must make the fight as long, difficult, and painful as possible for the GOP. The more we can combat its plans and expose them as the extreme and cruel measures they are, the more the public will see how GOP leaders are focused on their own power rather than meeting their needs.
Organize and Build a Deeper Coalition: We must build a deeper, more resilient coalition rooted in people and their needs, hopes, and dreams. This must be paired with developing mass movements with an effective use of electoral tools to counter anti-democratic forces along with organizing for better living and working conditions and much more. We need a mass revival of labor, community, and electoral organizing across the South. That means deepening outreach to the millions of nonvoters among us and those who aren’t following the news, and engaging and empowering young people across racial and cultural lines with strategies that go beyond political spaces.
Make the Coalition Broader: A key lesson of the civil rights movement is that it won the hearts and minds of the nation by constructing a truly broad tent, an approach that’s needed again today. That means bringing in the business community, disaffected Republicans, civic organizations, and other influential voices who agree we need a thriving two-party system and responsive government, the needs of our people met, healthy debate even if we all don’t agree on the issues, and the isolating of extremists and autocrats. We will engage major corporations and regional leaders who are rooted in and connected to the South and encourage them to take an active role.
Expose Racism, Corruption, and Disdain for the American People: Southerners and Americans more broadly do not want racism, division, or hatred. They want a functioning democracy that can make tangible differences in their daily lives. MAGA knows it has no agenda the American people want or support, which is why it is stealing power and eviscerating norms rather than attempting to make a persuasive case to voters. Political parties try to earn your vote; authoritarian movements find ways to win without it. To move forward, we must clearly identify and confront the extremists, making them and their out-of-touch ideology central and visible in ways the broader public can see and understand.
Mobilize Black Voters and Their Allies in the 2026 Midterms: We must leverage this attempt at massive voter suppression to drive the most robust, organized, and empowered mobilization effort in modern history this fall and fight attempts to steal or undermine the count and the results. Leaders in the South are already gearing up to do that. Allies everywhere must support this effort — and themselves turn out in record numbers. From Birmingham to Selma to Minneapolis, overreach has historically prompted voter backlash, and we must channel that here.
Juan’s Thoughts (Note: Juan was so into it that he produced a 2000 word Substack essay of his own that you can find here. Excerpts follow.)
American political life rests on a foundation that Latinos did not build alone. We built part of it. We fought for part of it. But the load-bearing structure underneath all of it was built by Black Americans who marched, organized, sued, were beaten, were jailed, and in too many cases were killed so that this country could become, for the first time in its history, a real multiracial democracy….
Here is the five-track plan I am taking to our 400+ LULAC councils and 575,000 members nationwide:
Federal Legislation: Congress must pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act. We know the political environment. We know the votes are not there today. But the bills must be live, on the floor, forcing every member of Congress on the record. That is itself a mobilization tool, and the political environment will not stay the same forever.
State Voting Rights Acts. Eight states already have their own voting rights acts that go further than the federal VRA. We need them in Texas, Florida, Arizona, and every state with a meaningful Latino population. LULAC is mobilizing our councils to push for state voting rights acts state by state. This is the work of the next 24 months.
State Courts and State Constitutions. Callais gutted the federal pathway. State constitutions and state supreme courts remain. Florida’s Fair Districts amendment, California’s Voting Rights Act, the New Mexico and Arizona state-level protections, these are now the front lines. We will litigate aggressively in state court, and we will defend state-level protections from federal court challenges that are coming.
Voter Mobilization. This is where LULAC lives, and this is the work that matters most right now. We will accelerate our voter registration program. We will train Spanish-language poll workers and election observers. We are building the largest Latino voter protection infrastructure the country has ever seen to challenge in real time the suppression measures that will follow this ruling. Callais makes our turnout work more important, not less. The single most powerful response any Latino voter can give to this court is to register, to vote, and to bring three others with them. We turned out in record numbers in 2020 and 2024. We will turn out in record numbers again.
Coalition. This week’s media briefing, convened by the National Urban League — featuring LDF, the NAACP, UnidosUS, AAJC, the Lawyers’ Committee, the National Action Network, the Leadership Conference, and other organizing partners — is the model. What you saw on that call was a multiracial civil rights coalition refusing to be divided. That coalition is the answer. The attack from this Court is on multiracial democracy itself, and the response has to come from a coalition that reflects what multiracial democracy actually looks like.
There you have it friends — a passel of ideas for how we can start work right now to rebuild, repair, and renew post-Callais. I know I felt more hopeful after talking to Bryan, Lauren, and Juan and getting their ideas. Before turning to our usual weekly summary, I wanted to share one more jolt of wisdom from my wonderful Contrarian colleague, April Ryan, discussing the broader context of the decision:
That’s all we’re asking for: a level playing field for every American. We talk about that aspiration and much more in this week’s round up of the best of the Contrarian, put together as always by our wonderful team.
Gun Violence & WHCD Aftermath
Why Is the White House More Concerned with Building a Ballroom than Protecting Americans?
On the podcast this week, AFT President Randi Weingarten joined Jen Rubin to discuss gun violence, Trump’s ludicrous (if unsurprising) response to Saturday’s attempted shooting, and Friday’s May Day Strong Rally.
Gun Violence Deeply and Uniquely Impacts Women and Children
Jennifer Weiss-Wolf wrote on the ripple effect of gun violence on women and children—and also some underreported good news from states like Virginia, where gun safety bills that haven’t gained traction in Washington are moving ahead under Democratic governors.
Yes, Shootings Are Traumatic. Welcome to Our World
Ciera Stone gave us a searing essay on what it’s like to grow up with school shooter drills and the real and deadly threat behind them as a generational norm—and to know that institutional leadership will again do nothing. “I ask traditional media and politicians alike: how long until you forget this shooting, too?”
SCOTUS v. the VRA
The Supreme Court Has Demolished the Voting Rights Act
Leah Litman broke down exactly how antidemocratic the Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais decision was and what we can expect as Republican-controlled states seek to redraw their maps to entrench power by destroying majority-Black and Latino districts. “It’s basically a judicial coup — a revolution against the will of the people expressed in the VRA.”
The Supreme Court’s Racist Rerun
Nadine Smith of Color of Change put the Louisiana v. Callais decision in context of America’s long history of racist attacks on voting rights, while looking to past and present for a roadmap to successful democratic resistance. “People fight differently when something has been taken; we are in that moment now.”
Want to Fight Today’s SCOTUS Decision? Then Fight for the Georgia Supreme Court in May
Ben Wikler, Lavora Barnes, and Spencer Klein—key members of the fight for the Wisconsin Supreme Court last year—wrote on two state supreme court election races that, in the wake of Wednesday’s Voting Rights Act decision, now matter more than ever. “Nobody is talking about this election. That needs to change.”
Media & Tech
Musk vs. Altman: Risking the Future on a Battle of Egos
Reuben Steiger wrote on the OpenAI as a case study in abandoned ideals. “To see where this kind of internal tension between idealism and greed leads, look no further than OpenAI’s recent agreement to work with the U.S. military to surveil citizens and use AI to make tools of war.”
Trump Is Trying to Get Jimmy Kimmel Fired (Again)
Meredith Blake analyzed Trump’s post-WHCD threats against his favorite talk-show target du jour, Jimmy Kimmel, and why they’re packing notably less of a punch this time. “The president’s problem — or at least one of them — is that his poll numbers are only tracking downward.”
Warnings About Kash Patel May Fall on Deaf Ears
Josh Levs wrote on legacy media’s “credibility crisis of its own making,” which may soften the impact of important investigative work like the Atlantic’s coverage of Kash Patel’s radical unfitness to be FBI director. “In 1976, 72% of Americans trusted the media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly either a “great deal” or a “fair amount.” Now, that figure is at an all-time low of 28%.”
Fighting Back
Trump Made Progressivism Great Again
Jen wrote on the irony that active, humane government has rarely had a better call to action than Trump’s embodiment of its total opposite. In the midterms, “Democrats must paint a vivid picture of the choice voters face: MAGA nihilism, corruption, cruelty, and oligarchic rule vs. functional government, improvement of safety net programs, humane immigration policy with border protection, personal freedoms to define one’s life, and fairness for the little guy and gal.” Every voter can be part of the referendum.
The Contrarian Covers the Democracy Movement
This week, we covered May Day mobilizations nationwide, as well as earlier protests in New Jersey, Texas, Arizona, Oregon and Arizona, and more. See our weekly Calls to Action for ways to defend voting rights and continue May Day solidarity in the days and weeks to come. Get help organizing from Indivisible, find protests in your area at mobilize.us, and send us your protest photos at submit@contrariannews.org.
Culture, Cartoons, & Fun Stuff
This week, our cartoonists covered the president’s new construction fantasies (Tom the Dancing Bug, Ruben Bolling; At Least They Have Thoughts and Prayers, Michael de Adder) and the Supreme Court’s post-Reconstruction fantasies (The New Jim Crow, RJ Matson).
In 1970, Princess Anne Ruffled D.C. Feathers by Dissing America’s National Bird
Fred Frommer wrote about when a certain royal visited America with her brother, during which she said the eagle was a “bad choice.” Oh, for the gaffes of yesteryear….
Shalise Manza Young gave Megan Thee Stallion her flowers. “Yes, she is a multi-platinum rapper who is unapologetic about her sexuality, but she is so much more than that: a philanthropist, a savvy businesswoman, a prolific entrepreneur. A survivor.”
Jamie Schler gave us a dessert that’s perfectly “sweet and tart, retro for modern times.”
And last but never least: meet Cardi! This tongue-lolling angel of a lab mix is available for adoption.