Every Friday morning, I join the Cardle & Woolley Show on Talk1370 Radio in Austin to announce the week’s Winners & Losers. It’s good to be on the radio in a week when all the trades are reporting that “audio is having a moment.” Big deals are brewing across the industry. Meanwhile, here’s who made the list:
WINNER: Supreme Court Ruling Eliminates ‘Majority-Minority Districts’
The United States Supreme Court is a huge winner this week for striking down racially gerrymandered congressional districts, an idea, according to Justice Samuel Alito, that assumes that a group of voters from the same race “think alike, share the same political interests, and will prefer the same candidates at the polls.”
Ridiculous, right? Particularly in a country that elected Barack Obama president twice, not to mention Kamala Harris, who was elected to serve in the U.S. Senate from the most populous state in the country.
Still, for decades, Democrats have demanded separate so-called “majority-minority districts” to ensure that African-Americans and Hispanics can elect representatives of their own race and ethnicity. Over the years, majority-minority districts have ensured that a set number of minorities will be elected to Congress, because most states have districts set aside for them.
Majority-minority districts have not increased minority participation in politics—instead, they have created political ghettos that segregate Black and Hispanic candidates and voters, stifling their voices instead of expanding them into the larger political conversation. Currently, 55 of the 59 African-American members of Congress represent majority-minority districts. Notably, U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas, an African-American who ran for statewide office earlier this year, does not.
Still, U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries thinks district segregation must be preserved. He blasted the SCOTUS ruling, calling it “voter suppression,” and insisting that it “undermines the ability of people of color to elect their own candidates.” He didn’t say exactly how that happens, so we must conclude that Jeffries also believes people of the same race all think and vote alike.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that he hopes the practice of majority-minority districts, which he has criticized for over 30 years, has finally come to an end. It is hard to believe that racially gerrymandered districts were ever allowed, and it is a great day for America that they are gone.
WINNER: King Charles III Charms the Nation
The fifth great-grandson of George III, who the Americans defeated at Yorktown 250 years ago, was a big winner this week. King Charles III reminded Americans that the British have one weapon that is currently in short supply in the USA—dry wit and subtle humor. He demonstrated what is meant by the term “soft diplomacy.”
King Charles gently pushed back on Trump’s frequent comment that if it weren’t for the U.S., all of Europe would be speaking German, noting that if it weren’t for Britain, America would be speaking French today. In the King’s speech to Congress, he accomplished something Americans haven’t seen in years—both Democrats and Republicans standing to applaud. In these tough times, it was great to have him in the country for a few days.
President Trump seemed to agree and gave the King credit for getting him to lift the tariffs on whiskey—a boon to both Scotland and Kentucky.
LOSER: White House Correspondents’ Dinner
Why is the White House Correspondents’ Dinner (WHCD) still happening? Seriously? There are no “White House correspondents” anymore, no people who sit outside the president’s office whose job is to keep the rest of the country informed on what is going on. As we learned in the Biden years, many view their job as keeping the country in the dark—cognitive decline? What cognitive decline?
The White House Correspondents’ Dinner creates a platform for the lie that the legacy media still matter, even though their credibility has disappeared and trust in the press is at an all-time low.
The horrible fact that there was an assassination attempt at the event meant that we got, literally, hundreds of news stories from reporters at the dinner who couldn’t restrain themselves from writing what they saw while they were sheltering underneath the tables. The Washington Post bragged it had the worst table there and still got the story. The New York Times published four joint perspectives featuring heads bopping up and down. Probably the most embarrassing came from the usually astute Gen Z columnist, Suzy Weiss, at the Free Press, who used her under-the-table perspective to report that the shooting helped highlight that strong men can be essential in a crisis. Indeed.
Nobody reported any real news from the dinner.
To demonstrate my point, the fact that media from around the world were reporting live from the scene did nothing to dispel almost immediate charges by some on the left, including Dallas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, that the shooting was fake. Trump should walk back his statement that the WHCD will be re-scheduled. This is a good time to just get rid of it.
LOSER: Left Justification of the Murder of Trump
Many are puzzled as to why Cole Tomas Allen attempted to assassinate President Trump. As National Public Radio (they are still a thing) reports, he didn’t have a “radical footprint.” But what exactly is a “radical footprint” these days?
Collaborators at the Network of Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) and Rutgers University’s Social Perception Lab released a study this week that showed that 55% of respondents who identified themselves as “left of center” said that the murder of Trump could be “somewhat justified.” Almost half said the same thing about Elon Musk. Probably most of that 55% don’t have a “radical footprint” either.
We’ve been seeing this data coming off campuses from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) for years, but no one dug down on what it actually means. The latest data shows that about a third of college students believe violence is at least sometimes acceptable to stop someone from speaking. How much violence isn’t asked. Cole Allen provides some insight into the answer.
LOSER: California Billionaire Tax Going on the Ballot
In what is shaping up as a battle between California Gov. Gavin Newsom and New Hampshire socialist Bernie Sanders, Golden State progressives say they have enough signatures to put an initiative on the ballot that will levy a 5% tax on California residents with at least $1.1 billion in assets. Newsom rightly points out that the move will fuel the capital drain from the Golden State—Bernie doesn’t care.
One Californian who doesn’t like it is HBO talk show host Bill Maher, a liberal who pointed out on his show last week that as a Californian, 60% of his income goes to taxes. Maher rattled off the stats every conservative knows by heart—that the top 10% still pay 72% of all federal income taxes, while the bottom half pays 3%. If you missed what has become Maher’s annual anti-tax rant, you can watch it here.
WINNER: Civitas Symposium on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas Speech on the Declaration of Independence
After Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas delivered an address at the University of Texas at Austin on April 15 on America’s Declaration of Independence, his remarks prompted a national discussion on his ideas on our founding documents. I am honored to be included in a symposium on the speech presented by the Civitas Institute at UT. You can read my article here and access the entire symposium here.
WINNER: Who knows? The 152nd Running of the Kentucky Derby
For those who aren’t traveling to Louisville, you can watch the Kentucky Derby pretty much anywhere beginning Saturday at 6 p.m. Texas time.
In other sports news, the San Antonio Spurs defeated Portland four games to one this week and will move onto play the Minnesota Timberwolves in the second round of the Western Championship on Monday. The Houston Rockets are still battling with the Lakers and will play Game 6 tonight.
Have a great weekend!
Sherry Sylvester is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation and the former Senior Advisor to Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick.