OT but related:
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This is what bugs me. We react with the same argument and action that the Repubs use.
What the hell happened with the better deal and argument. Are we not going to try anymore? Why would anyone vote if all they can vote for are two of the same philosophy?
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Yes, this is definitely a necessary criterionā¦ Districts should be as close to a grid as possible in any given state.
The fact that Dems are in cities and Rs are more rural does not come into play in my opinion, since the districts are based on population. The classic example here is the goofy kicking donald duck PA 7th, which is likely āstealingā a D district, if it were not gerrymandered for partisan advantage.
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You hit several times on the key problem of our democratic attempts, that of money. The US has gone from a āone person, one voteā concept to āwhoever gave me the most moneyā, a sort of one dollar, one vote, enhancing the idea that civic duty includes whatever the electee can rake in for themselves, many times while āon dutyā.
I am not just talking about simple ācampaign reformā. The entire mindset needs changing about how our representatives are compensated.
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How naive can you be? That is a question. If we fix Congressional gerrymandering we will all move onto our utopia because āthe will of the peopleā. First we are geographically gerrymandered, so how do we deal with 30% of the population controlling 70% of the senate. Second, Citizens United made sure āthe peopleā means absolutely nothing anymore.
Weāve negotiated with the idea of bridging a divide for two centuries. We are no closer to getting the work permits to build that bridge.
30% of this country is so damn stupid they elected Trump, 30% is so stupid they refuse outwardly pick a side and only recall what the TV last told them or what their racist uncle last emailed them. The other 30% stands around arguing amongst itself about what it means to be a progressive, and how to be better at being progressive and communicate better with the stupid and wretched in our society who give no fucks about logic or reason or a civil discourse.
But yes, two hundred years of reason is working great, letās go for two hundred more.
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Iām not at all naive.
Iām a Democrat who believes in being better than the Republicans.
I made no such claimāyouāve built a very poor straw man here.
Districtsāstate and federalāshould be drawn as impartially as possible and as compactly as possible under the āone man, one voteā principle.
There is no Utopia available under any circumstances. Iām talking about fairnessānot perfection.
Senators represent statesānot individual citizens, which is what the House is for. States as a whole cannot be gerrymandered in any way., since everyone can vote for Senate candidates. You seem confused by this.
For the most part, yes, it is. The failure is due to the GOPās deliberate actions to undermine the very clever system set out by the Founders. The issue is then to diminish the GOPās power, which we do by having fair, competitive districts and superior political education for the public, created by Democrats.
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First, I know the differences between the House and the Senate. I also know 70% of the population resides in the 30% of the states. Address how that is going serve the country when a Democratic President canāt seat a Supreme Court Judge becauseā¦Oh it is not like that has never happened.
Second, Democrats with your hopeful but unrealistic approach to governing are the exact group we can thank for the Gun Control bills, Universal Healthcare, Income Inequality Legislation, the closure of Gitmo, the cessation of the Iraq debacle and all the other problems we solved when President Obama held both House and worked tirelessly to expand the party.
Third, your party affiliation means nothing to me. Compromising with unreasonable people has never fixed anything in this country, ever. Education is not an option. The problems these people have comes from their core beliefs. You do not educate that out of people. You defeat them and feel no remorse for it. Our kids are dying in schools now, letās compromise on guns. Black men are being disportionately murdered by public servants, letās have a reasonable discussion on race relations and how we can fix it with affirmative action and education and retraining. Howād 3/5s work out? How about ignoring Jim Crow, the need for the 19th Amendment. We now recognize companies as people, weāve been on the wrong side of two suspect elections.
Technology has made all arguments equal even when they are not. It has given everyone the ability to curate their own reality. I would love, love for us to be able to do this the right and just way. To make voting districts that have no slant and let the people decide.
But havenāt the people been deciding. Is this not what they chose? Why give them the benefit of the doubt, assume they were bamboozled. Some people want it this way. They, made it like this. They would prefer to be worse off with white man in charge, than better off with a black man, or a woman or anything else in charge. You do not re-educate that out of person.
Iām running out of time waiting for us to reasonably solve this.
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Kennedy says that he would be willing to vote against gerrymandering if there was a way to standardize it. Read this article. It makes me hopeful.
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Iām with you. Your use of the phrase āunilateral disarmamentā is apt, since the only way that the GOP (including its judicial wing) will hesitate to gerrymander is if they fear that the whole business of partisan redistricting will blow up in their faces. Electoral politics has been turned by the GOP into a zero-sum game. Either they hold power or you do. Exemplary conduct by Democrats has not resulting in a single reciprocal gesture from the GOP for at least a decadeāthe story of the Obama administration, as you say, is that any upfront concession made by Democrats in the democratic spirit is systematically exploited by the GOP with precisely the intention of undermining the democracy. So long as partisan redistricting is legal, Democrats would be irrational and immoral not to do it or threaten to do it.
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āGoing high when they go lowā has been utterly self-defeating for progressives since Ronald Reagan.
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Your views negate the possibility of solving this.
You present yourself as an all-or-nothing kind of person, and that is a death knell for any solution.
Congratulations!
Your application to join the GOP has been approved.
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This is a long gearing up since they canāt do anything until after the next census in 2020.
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You want us to be the best version of ourselves, with a reasonable, measured approach that is based off of all of us being the better versions of what we could be under the rules of the game as they should be interpreted.
I wish we could, and for my kids I hope it is so.
I want us to stop having a centuries long one-sided debate with a group that cares not for reason or justice or equality and I donāt believe the system that exists, currently, is able to afford us the opportunity to reach that while maintaining the best versions of what we can or should be while we work to get there.
When the civil war ended we tried reason. We welcomed them back into the fold. We didnāt ever have our Nuremberg moment. We never pointed at them in court and said your philosophy and actions are illegal and bankrupt, and anyone who sides with them is the same. We let them rewrite that moment and vilify us. We screwed that moment up and we pay for it today.
I hope your way wins. I teach my kids reason, logic, history, the ugliness of all of it, I ready my kids for my way while being open and prepared to act with reason and logic and persuasive arguments. But Iām not going to let them be bullied by a bankrupt corrupt way of thinking that tellls them itās ok, things will change, we must work within their system and respect their ideology.
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I agree that you cannot play by the Marques of Queensbury rules when you are getting kicked in the groin.
That said, in this case I do not believe the Dems need to play by the exact way Repugs are playing. That is when it comes to redistricting Dems can be fair and still win. In fact, it may even be good politics to be fair.
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This kind of open stealing of the democracy, like the withholding of Obamaās SCOTUS nominee, is what sickens me the most. They do it right in the open, they brag about it, it is funded by untold millions by all of the bad actors, and yet the majority of the American voters are blithely accepting or lost in the pseudo-intellectual cynicism that āboth sides do itā.
Our country and our government has been sold right in front of us and the people who benefited from the sale are now purchasing permanent corruption to make sure it stays in place. My overwhelming concern in the face of this is that all of our wishes come true - we win big this November, we take back the presidency in 2020 (whether from Pence or Trump) and we start actually paying attention to local elections, and nothing much changes, because the rules of our government are hopelessly outdated and unable to cope with obvious corruption and venality on a massive scale.
I will never get over the SCOTUS nomination freeze that the Republicans did - never. Lifetime appointments are an anachronism from an age where the average life expectancy was less than 40, and it is just one of the many outdated aspects of our government that is killing our democracy. We are stranded on an island of principles and norms that are being ignored and trampled every day and despite the tremendous backlash of caring people we just seem so fucking powerless.
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Seriously, do you really think that Democrats should accept a chronic electoral handicap? That sounds much closer to a GOP position than mine.
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Lifetime appointments to federal courts was a solution the founders came up with for over-politicizing the courts. If you can come up with something that you think works better, letās hear it.
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The Republicans stole the election in 2000 and the Democrats stood by and watched.
Eight years later, the 2000 Democratic nominee for Vice President is speaking at the Republican convention in favor of the Republican nominee.
Many of the people in leadership roles then are still in leadership roles now. They need to go. They donāt know how to fight and they donāt know how to win.
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Term limits.