Barack Obama posted a video this week warning that “free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy” and that they’re “under attack.” He then urged Virginia voters to approve a constitutional amendment that would let Democrats redraw the state’s congressional map to turn a 6-5 Democratic edge into a 10-1 blowout.

You cannot make this stuff up, folks.

The man who stood in front of Congress during his 2016 State of the Union address and said — direct quote — “We have to end the practice of drawing our congressional districts so that politicians can pick their voters, and not the other way around. Let a bipartisan group do it” is now telling Virginians to let politicians pick their voters.

That bipartisan group he was so passionate about? Virginia actually created one. The voters approved a bipartisan redistricting commission by a two-to-one margin in 2020. It was exactly what Obama asked for.

Democrats just don’t like the maps it produced.

So Governor Abigail Spanberger — the same woman who won’t hand an illegal alien murder suspect over to ICE without a “judicial warrant” that doesn’t exist — signed a new partisan map into law. The Democrat-controlled legislature drew it up in February. It would flip four Republican-held seats and hand Democrats a 10-1 advantage in a state that’s currently split 6-5.

The group pushing this little power grab calls itself “Virginians for Fair Elections.” That’s the outfit that produced Obama’s video. Let that name sink in for a moment. “Virginians for Fair Elections” — advocating for a map that would give one party 91% of the seats in a state where neither party wins elections by more than a few points. “Fair.”

(That’s like naming your all-you-can-eat buffet “The Salad Bar.”)

Obama admitted in the video that partisan gerrymandering is “not my preference.” Touching. Really. But he says Democrats have no choice because Republicans in Texas and other states redrew their maps first. In other words: “They started it!” The most eloquent president of the modern era has been reduced to kindergarten logic.

Here’s what Obama conveniently forgot to mention. After he left the White House in 2017, he and his buddy Eric Holder founded the National Democratic Redistricting Committee — the NDRC. Its stated mission? To be “the centralized hub for fair redistricting.” Sounds noble, right?

Except the NDRC’s own IRS filings describe its purpose as — and again, this is a direct quote — to “favorably position Democrats for the redistricting process.” The organization has spent the last eight years fighting gerrymandering exclusively in Republican-controlled states. They’ve never filed a single challenge to a Democratic gerrymander. Not in Illinois. Not in Maryland. Not anywhere.

Fair redistricting. Sure.

Obama previously endorsed California’s Proposition 50, which let Democrats redraw their congressional map to target five Republican-held seats. Now he’s doing the same thing in Virginia. Next it’ll be another state, then another. The man who wanted a “bipartisan group” to handle redistricting has become a one-man partisan redistricting machine.

And the beautiful part? Virginia’s Supreme Court hasn’t even ruled on whether this whole scheme is constitutional. The court let the April 21 vote proceed, but they’ve made no promises about upholding it afterward. A lower court already blocked the effort once for not following proper procedures. Virginia Democrats are asking voters to show up for a special election on a constitutional amendment that the state’s highest court might throw in the trash the following week.

Rep. Jennifer Kiggans called it a “blatant power grab that would permanently diminish conservative representation in Virginia’s congressional delegation.” She’s being polite. It’s a heist. They’re robbing voters of the bipartisan commission those same voters overwhelmingly approved six years ago and replacing it with a map drawn in a back room by the people who benefit from it.

Obama’s little “they started it” excuse is the tell. He’s laying the groundwork for a permanent Democratic position that any redistricting reform — independent commissions, nonpartisan panels, all of it — is suspended until further notice because Republicans drew maps somewhere. That’s the NDRC’s new playbook: advocate for reform when you’re out of power, then throw reform in the dumpster the second you can gerrymander for yourself.

This is the 2010 playbook in reverse, and Obama knows it. After the Tea Party wave, Republicans used their new state legislature majorities to draw maps that locked in House advantages for a decade. Democrats screamed bloody murder. Obama called it an existential threat to democracy. Holder launched the NDRC specifically to undo those maps.

And it worked! Democrats clawed back map advantages in several states by 2022. Good for them. But now that they have the power to draw maps in Virginia, California, and potentially New York and Illinois? Suddenly “fair redistricting” means “our redistricting.” Funny how that works.

Here’s the math that matters. The House majority currently sits at 220-215 Republican. Virginia’s four flipped seats alone would tie it at 219-219. Add in California’s five targeted seats and whatever Illinois cooks up, and Democrats don’t need to win a single competitive race in November. They can gerrymander their way to a majority without changing a single voter’s mind.

Mark my words: if the Virginia Supreme Court upholds this amendment and Democrats pick up even half of these gerrymandered seats in November, every blue state in America will start mid-decade redistricting for 2028. The “bipartisan commission” era that Obama championed from a podium will be officially dead — killed by the same man who asked for it.

And the NDRC will put out a press release about how they’re “protecting fair elections.”

The rest of us will still remember what Obama said in 2016: “Let a bipartisan group do it.” Virginia did. And Obama just told them to throw it in the garbage.