Your worry is appreciated and I understand that given our relative influence in the world, why people who don’t live here are concerned. But did you really, honestly think I wasn’t aware of everything you said? Did you think you needed to explain it to me like I’m blind and uninformed? I’m perfectly aware of the larger problems with the state of American politics (and am fairly certain that many other democracies are having similar problems for largely similar reasons). You’re views and concerns are most welcome, talking down to me is not. If you can’t understand why I find it insulting, then I don’t know what to tell you.
6 Likes
Talking down to you? I even took a moment to add a ‘not that I have to tell you’ in the back bit 'cause one of the exactly two things I know about you is that you are a historian (the other is that you are an American) and thought a measure of respect was due, expertise-wise. I wasn’t explaining anything to you—who on Earth would just randomly start lecturing people for no discernible reason? I was explaining myself because I figured that writing ‘I am worried’ might be a bit curt and contextless and so the preceding is explaining how I cam to be worried. Because if it was just gerrymandering I wouldn’t be.
To be annoyingly pedantic, I did expect you to gain some new information from my post, viz. that I also knew whereof I spoke on the subject and that if you had any good news that might allay my worry or commiseration that it can’t be allayed you’d go right to those rather than first explaining America to me.
I’m sorry, maybe the manners of my homeland and America are sufficiently different, but here it is considered good manners to establish common ground in this fashion.
4 Likes
Okay. Sorry for my misunderstanding of your point in posting. I apologize for jumping to conclusions about your intent.
This happens quite often and regularly to women. Which is why many of us tend to be sort of knee jerk about it.
10 Likes
False equivalency. Not only do fewer states Gerrymander in favor of Democrats, the degree to which that small number shift is MUCH smaller. For example, Washington, Oregon, and California have the blue shift statewide to lock out ALL Republican representatives to congress with Gerrymandering. Washington, instead, is split 6:4, Oregon is 4:1, and California is 39:14. Just those three states putting a full-court-press Gerrymander in place would shift the House of Representatives by 19 seats.
Contrast that with the two most-Gerrymandered states with a 50:50 split of (R) and (D) voters, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. NC has a 10:3 split in favor of (R) and Pennsylvania has a 13:5 split.
Gerrymandering is not rocket science. Any state leaning (D) by 10 points could easily game the system like North Carolina does. Actually, the populous Western states could do it more easily, as there are vast areas of very low population density that can be merged with a few square miles of high-density, liberal-leaning urban area to form a congressional district that looks OK on a map (compared to the squiggly lines you find elsewhere) but could be counted on to vote (D). So it’s not a matter of Republicans being better at it, and those dumb Democrats not being able to figure it out. 
In several states, as others have already pointed out, Democrat majorities have written it into state law to make Gerrymandering illegal or even requiring a rebalancing of districts to keep the representation of the state close to the state-wide political demographics. Based on this evidence, one could conclude that there is one party that is out to win at all costs, while the other sees politics as a service to the people. Who knew? 
8 Likes
I look forward to the end of Gerrymandering. California has voted to do so. But there is no false equivalence. All your numbers just re-inforce that Republicans are “better” or “more agressive” if you prefer.
And let’s not blame all of the Republican’s success on Gerrymandering, either. 33 states have Republican governors while 16 have Democrats (including PA and NC). No one has ever figured out how to Gerrymander a whole state. Republicans hold a slim majority of US Senators as well, including 3 out of 4 from NC and PA.
If NC is all about Gerrymandering then why are both their Senators Republican? I cannot argue that their House delegation and their state legislature are badly manipulated such that the legislature is 60% republican and the Congressional delegation is 12:1.
The urban concentration of Democratic voters is a natural gerrymander, if you will. While NC has slightly higher overall Democratic voter registration, Democrats are a minority in most of the counties in the state. They are a massive majority in the urban counties.
This is echoed around the country. Democrats concentrate heavily in Democratic districts, leaving a majority of districs to the Republicans - without meaningful Gerrymandering. There’s a meme going around that if the Democrats really want to get rid of Trump, some of them should move to Ohio from the coasts. 20,000 people leave San Francisco and set-up in Cincinnati, and the next election will look very, very different in Ohio, but not in California.
Again, it depends on how you define “better.” I don’t happen to agree that “more aggressive” = “better.”
I will re-assert that there is a fundamental difference in what drives most Republican politicians vs. most Democrats. Based on most recent evidence, most (R) politicians are perfectly happy to help the whole country burn, as long as they can escape the catastrophe with one of their billionaire benefactors. While there are (D) politicians who do it for the money and favors, it’s also clear that the majority are in it to serve their constituencies rather than line their own pockets.
Edited to add:
Simple: Voter suppression. It’s pretty well documented in North Carolina. Consider it “economic and racial” Gerrymandering.
8 Likes
The Dems do it too, of course, but they don’t depend on gerrymandering (and disenfranchisement, and gaming the broken Electoral College, etc.) to the degree that the GOP does to remain relevant. Whether you’re talking about voter age, religious belief, choice of where to live, race, and more the demographics are going against the Republicans (at least in their current incarnation). For a party as desperate as the GOP, it’s not a surprise that they’ve had to get better at cheating – such is the price of being on the wrong side of history.
10 Likes
Hoo boy, that’s some loaded language. There’s nothing “natural” about the concentration of POC in chronically underfunded and otherwise neglected urban areas. It’s instead caused by decades, centuries even, of all sorts of racism.
13 Likes
And, of course, guess what happens to many of those working class POC once those cities become desirable destinations for hip, young whites… But many of those people also vote democratic (except for the weird right wing contingent of millennials).
11 Likes
No harm done.
I didn’t actually know what your gender was. I’m slightly surprised that you (apparently) know mine.
I don’t, of course. As for me, I figured that my name and the avatar I picked sort of signaled my gender?
1 Like
It signaled that you are a GoT fan. However, yeah, I should have read ‘Mindy’ as signaling feminine. English is a second language—obviously—and I’ve never really gotten a hang for names and genders except by brute memorization.
I think there are a lot of liberal to moderate Republicans (as defined back in the 1970s, say) posing as Democrats – but perhaps that’s what you mean by Liberal Democrats?
1 Like
That’s a contradiction in terms. “Gerrymander” is a deliberate act to form a convoluted district only to preserve a seat – one that follows no natural boundaries. If the Republicans are worried that districts in cities lean the other way, then it’s up to them to form policies that might appeal to at least some of the people in those districts. They might, to take an example at random, dump the appeals to racism.
ETA the word “in” above.
4 Likes
Understandable. I’m sure there are plenty of languages that I wouldn’t get the gender of names.
Good call. I should have added a pure moderate group, maybe Neo-Liberal/Neo-Conservative. Heck, there’s already a group forming across party lines along that trajectory: No Labels.
1 Like
Well, if No Labels can split the republican party without hurting progressive causes, I’m all for 'em.
2 Likes
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
