A friend in Virginia (where I grew up) is mad because there is a ballot question that would allow Virginia — like California before it — to ignore its law banning gerrymandering. If passed, the law would allow the Democrats to draw new districts to give them more representatives.

You know — exactly how Texas and other red states have done year after year.

The Republicans are doing everything they can to defeat this ballot question, even running misleading ads with a picture of Obama, as if he was telling people to vote “no.” (For the record, Obama’s quote was about how bad gerrymandering is but he endorsed a “yes” vote on the question — the exact opposite of what this ad implies.)

Suddenly Republicans are concerned with fairness now that they are on the receiving end.

Historically, what has happened all over the country is this: Democrats pass laws to stop gerrymandering because it’s unfair. Republicans ignore that and gerrymander their states to death.

Democrats are now saying it does us no good to be playing by the rules and trying to do the right thing only to be defeated by people who have no interest in doing so.

It’s how you deal with bullies — you fight back. You don’t let them win. You give them a taste of their own medicine.

Would I prefer that the entire country have fair, nonpartisan committees to figure out the districts? OF COURSE. That’s what the Democrats have been fighting for over and over again. But until the Republicans join, it makes no sense for us to allow them to run over us.

They’re just now getting a taste of their own medicine, and they are pissed. Well, suck it up. Maybe you Republicans should have done something to prevent us from doing this.

But, as has been pointed out before, Republicans know they’re outnumbered. They know if they play fair, they’ll lose. So they do everything they can to cheat — not just with gerrymandering, but with unnecessary voter suppression laws. In order to save our democracy, we have to fight back. And clutching our pearls and saying “Gracious, they’re so evil” will not do it. We need to fight back.

And this is a necessary step. Do we like it? No, of course not. We don’t like gerrymandering. But until the day we can control the government again and then outlaw gerrymandering, we should use every tool at our disposal to win. Republicans sure would (and do).