There is no comparison to the GOP and Dems on this issue. Look at the maps for the most partisan blue states, like Illinois. It would be entirely possible to draw a North Carolina or Texas style map that completely neuters GOP power in this state. Yet this isn’t remotely the case. The number of house seats is slightly more in favor of Dems, at +1 seat than pure vote allocation, but it is a small percentage.
Compare to Pennsylvania. A near 50/50 state that has managed a ratio where the GOP gets 13 seats to the dems 5.
Yeah, there is no evidence to suggest that the Dems would pursue such supressive measures employing strongly partisan gerrymandering. That is pure fantasy.
Now whether they should, in states they control, is another matter. I am very near ‘fuck it, make the bastards get 0 seats’ for states like California and Illinois. It’d be merely balancing the scales.
But Craig has the right of it; until and unless we fundamentally change the way elections are held in this country we will continue to be held hostage by the extremists.
I agree that the GOP has taken things to a much more extreme level than at any previous time, and I want them to fall and fall hard, but Illinois is 55% dem voters and 2/3 dem seats, so it does kind of go both ways. California is proportional, and I salute them for doing things right. I can unfortunately guarantee if texas gets a dem majority, they won’t play as nicely.
I believe strongly that the founders of our country would have prevented gerrymandering through the constitution if they imagined it would happen. Was there prior precedent in other countries? It is the weaponization of democracy.
The Republican Party is showing signs of doing some whirlwind reaping. Right now, it appears that Trump voters – that 35% that thinks POTUS is doing a dandy job–aren’t blaming the struggles of the White House on the President. They’re blaming the usual suspects: liberal snowflakes, Demorats, the media, etc. But here’s what appears to be emerging: they’re blaming the Republican members of congress with growing animus. In Kentucky, for instance, a reputable pollster found this past month that Trump has more than double the approval rating in that solid red state than Mitch McConnell has. That’s…not good.
Flipping things isn’t gonna be easy. Nothing worth doing ever is.
What we should do is run a bunch of liberals in red states, but have them campaign as Republicans. Double agents! Then they get elected and it’s all “Surprise Motherfuckers” and they do good instead of evil.
I doubt that anyone could have conceived of quite this level of demographic analysis when the constitution was drafted. But there were certainly analogues to gerrymandering at the time, e.g. the UK rotten boroughs. Those were based on an extremely limited franchise + no regular re-districting to balance out the populations, but the concepts were basically the same. In fact, US politicians actually started weaponizing redistricting literally before the first congressional elections!
To an outsider, it’s amazing what a mess the political system in the US is in general. But this is easily the most fucked up part. It’s been obvious for over 200 years that single-representative first-past-the-post districts with boundaries drawn by politicians is an awful system. How did this not get fixed at some point?!
To reform it, politicians would have to vote for something that would limit their power while they are in power. That’s a hard sell even if it’s the right thing to do. Maybe after seeing the damage the GOP has done, the dems would be amenable to some changes.
And the texas GOP is planning to appeal this one too, just like all of the other ones. Draw things out, maybe squeeze another election out with these illegal districts prior to having to redraw more illegal ones.
Continuing the strange and unexpected Saga of a Man and his Landline, for the last month i kept receiving a landline call in the evening, every evening from something called CROSSINGS INC, which i kept ignoring until boredom and annoyance got me to answer. An automated system asked me if i was HENRY [LAST NAME] - my father - and i selected the option that, no, i was not. Still calling every day. Finally after another week of this i gave in and took the stupid survey they kept trying to push.
It was clearly being run on behalf of a Texas politician looking to run for governor, probably George P. Bush, though it never specifically said this. It asked if Greg Abbott chose not to run for re-election [for governor] next year, which of the two candidates would you prefer? Sid Miller or George P Bush? George P Bush or Christine Craddock? Christine Craddock or Sid Miller? And with a weird inverted 1 for no, 2 for yes, system. It then asked, "Whom do you blame for the failure to repeal Obamacare? Congressional Republicans or President Trump? "
The worms underneath the floorboards are definitely wriggling.
The Republican Party sowed the seeds of the bad news they may soon have to contend with. They made themselves the party of grievance and outrage…which is fine if you expect to be the minority party for some long term. But they’ve had both houses of Congress for a while now, and they’ve got the White House now. And being the party of grievance and outrage is a lousy basis for governing.
And here’s the thing: Donald Trump is president today because he latched onto that grievance and outrage. He’s the true believer. Establishment Republicans want their tax cuts and defense spending and selectively regulated and unregulated sectors. Sadly, the voter base they’ve cultivated wants them to make laws that ensure the pre-eminence of white rural Americans over all others in the job market, education, and social affairs. Which is tough to do legislatively.
And so now, they’ve got a President who increasingly refers to Congressional Republicans as “They”, who has a hard core of voters who are unwavering in their support. Might be a problem.
