While the overarching aim of One Daily Link is to lower the temperature of our political debate, another equally important goal is to illustrate why the the temperature never should have risen so high in the first place. Case in point: today’s Supreme Court decision on the independent state legislature theory.

The independent state legislature theory is, even to our legally untrained eye, a blatant attempt to get away with gerrymandering. It posits that state courts have no authority to strike down state laws concerning federal elections. Until this year, the theory was so widely dismissed practically no one had heard of it. But because North Carolina Republicans used it to defend their congressional district map before the conservative U.S. Supreme Court, Democratic pundits began sounding the alarm. We won’t link to their columns and soundbites because they don’t deserve more play than they’ve already gotten, but the argument went that the Supreme Court would put party above principle and rule in favor of the Republicans, making gerrymandering standard practice not just in North Carolina, but across the country. Voting rights would be eroded. Our democracy would fade.

Guess what happened.

Three conservative justices joined three liberal justices to send the NC map back to the drawing board. The decision wasn’t close. So, amidst the Democratic pundits’ celebrations over the decision, we have to ask: What was all the fuss about? Was it rooted in reason, emotion, or cynicism? Whatever it was rooted in, it was a complete waste of breath and time.

We need to stop listening to pundits’ endless catastrophizing (yes, Republicans do it, too, or did they finally prove President Biden destroyed America?) and give measured consideration to the problems facing us. That would have spared many on the left a great deal of bother over the independent state legislature theory. It will spare many on the right a great deal of bother over President Biden the next two to six years. That sounds like a win to us… for both sides. How many pundits do you know who want that?