While mindful of the importance of not counting our chicks before they hatch, we do need to think ahead for different contingencies. There are signs that 2020 could be a very big year for Democrats up and down the ballot. If that’s true, it’s quite likely to lead to a political correction in 2022 just like we saw in 2010.
But the election of 2022 will be held under new redistricting maps drawn by the state legislators who win in 2020. They may be operating from the highest water mark Democrats have seen or will see for some time. As I see it, that is a golden opportunity for us to gerrymander the shit out of a number of states, which might allow us to survive a 2022 backlash and hold onto the House, even if only narrowly.
But with the energy being pushed into anti-gerrymandering legislative and court battles by progressives, we may find ourselves having thrown the GOP a lifeline just when they will need it. So I’m not really arguing for gerrymandering on philosophical terms (that’s an impossible lift), but just based on raw, down-and-dirty bareknuckle political terms. Let’s look before we leap here, is all I’m saying.
That’d be right … rather than tasking an independent statutory authority to determine electoral boundaries when there are ample precedents around the globe eg Federal redistributions - Australian Electoral Commission
… the US prefers to have the political equivalent of two alcoholics fight over who gets the keys to the liquor cabinet.
If we don’t abolish gerrymandering when we can, then we’ll be wishing come next cycle that we did. We need to fix the system, not just break it in the opposite direction.
And they are letting idealism override common sense. No gerrymandering reform will change the unfairness of the Senate. Maximal House gerrymandering would only tip the scales partway back.
Allowing gerrymandering won’t change the unfairness of the Senate, either. The unfairness of the Senate is the entire point of allocating Senators in the fashion of what we do: so that a handful of high-population states don’t run the whole country, which is also unfair in a different fashion.
House gerrymandering defeats the intended purpose of the House. State district gerrymandering also screws up representation in State legislatures. Which party is on top at the moment isn’t why to get rid of it. Effectiveness of the electoral process and faith in the electoral process are why to get rid of it. And we should.
Whatever flaws there may be in the U.S. Senate–and American federalism in general–party operatives can’t use sophisticated computer programs to re-draw state lines on a block-by-block level to give their side the most favorable possible electorate. U.S. Senators are chosen by their constituents; they don’t get to choose their voters. This is pretty fundamental to a democratic republic. If, say, New Hampshire switches from being dominated by “rock-ribbed New England conservatism” and being a stronghold of the Republican Party, to being the sort of state which elects two Democratic Senators, two Democrats to the U.S. House of Representatives, and Democratic majorities in both houses of the state legislature, well, that’s just the way it is. It’s up to the Republicans to figure out how to appeal to the people of New Hampshire; they can’t gerrymander New Hampshire into some new and twisted shape.
I hope you’re joking? For discussion, I have to assume you’re not, because there are really people who think this way - like Mitch McConne - but there’s a reason I wouldn’t piss on him to put out a fire and plan on dancing on his grave the moment he croaks.
In fact, if he was shot tomorrow, I think I’d have to suppress a giddy laugh.
Are you thinking like Mitch McConnel? Because if you are, you might have gathered what I think about your proposal here.
Hypocrisy means one is just as guilty as those one criticizes, but also a disgusting hypocrite on top of that. I question the universal value of human life when it comes to blazon hypocrites.
Tell me what you really think! Don’t hold back, now.
I am definitely not joking, BTW. I just hope the Democrats in governors’ mansions and statehouses in 2021 are not so naive. Politics ain’t beanbag, folks.
ETA: I do not think “hypocrisy” means what you think it means.
Without gerrymandering, Democrats have a small but real edge. And if the Republicans wanted to compete with that, they’d have to become more reasonable.
With gerrymandering, we would swing wildly between Democrats having a big edge and Republicans having a big edge, and there’d be every motive for both sides to become less reasonable. And it’s easier to destroy than it is to create.
This. I’m a small-d democrat and always have been, regardless of party affiliation. The people should get to choose their representatives, not the other way around.
And thinking about it tactically, it’s still a loser. Gerrymandering in your own favor makes you more, not less, vulnerable to a wave election.
Thank-you for finally posting a statement that I can point to every time someone on this board asserts that it is only the Republicans who are politically opportunist in what they do. :rolleyes:
Of course, for what it is worth, so far no one agrees with you, so that’s a good thing…
How often does it happen that people say this, in a way that is rebutted by some rando on the board whose posts are nearly always repudiated by other Democrats?
Yeah, Slacker loves posting these absurd, ill-considered threads that show zero foresight, and then insisting that the only reason anyone could disagree with him is that they’re naive and idealistic. So what? He’s gonna keep doing that, and he’s gonna keep ignoring the substantive issues with his terrible proposals, and the world’s gonna keep on turning.