The fire started around 1968, then Tom Delay napalmed America.
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No, it’s not the same. One of those positions is internally consistent. The other isn’t. And the voters can tell, which is why Republican voters, who revel in the ‘victory at any cost’ ideology, support theirs, while nominally-Democratic voters who want integrity start looking at the greens, or just get demotivated.
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Which doesn’t refute anything I’ve said, now does it?
How quaint that you still believe that a single Republican voter can be convinced that Democrats have principles. Biden keeps a Trump independent prosecutor in place to investigate and force a plea bargain from his son, Garland stays entirely out of the Trump business in the name of an independent DOJ, and there’s not a single Republican voter left in the world who doesn’t think that Biden is every bit as corrupt as Trump. What we do doesn’t matter anymore. Only winning makes a difference. Yes we want to stay true to our own sense of ethics because that’s who we are and what we believe, but it’s not about convincing the country’s 5 remaining swing voters of anything. Not anymore.
added later: so the key question is: do Democrats lose more voters to apathy and fringe parties because we do things like gerrymandering to win, or do we lose more voters to apathy and fringe parties because we don’t aggressively push our advantages and constantly lose? I don’t know the answer for sure but i have my suspicions.
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Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving Mike Lawler
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We can’t take away their guns until we have enough seats and time to rebalance legislatures and courts. So, yes, arm ourselves to the teeth, gerrymander the fuck out of every district we can, drive these traitors out of power and then pass sensible laws.
There is, of course the problem of Frodo with the Ring at Mount Doom. All the good intentions in the world don’t steel you to resist the lure of ultimate power after you’ve been beaten nearly to death.
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Show me again where I said that’d get Republican voters to vote Democratic? Oh, wait, I didn’t, I said acting like Republicans just makes our voters not want to support you… so some don’t.
So you lose.
This war was started over 40 years ago when the rich sold the public utilities to themselves to cut the financial throat of the Democratic Party. This is just the part where the boiling frog loses its life altogether.
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Well, you enjoy that defeatism. I’m sure it inspires plenty of people to want to get out and fail to do anything.
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Gerrymandering has been around a long time and used by both parties.
It’s part of the tool kit. Only a fool would complain.
With that being said making a law reining it in would be nice. Don’t see that happening anytime soon.
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Then there seem to be a massive amount of fools around. That said, I refer you to my original statement:
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I posted before I saw your post. This is what I added above in response:
The key question is this: do Democrats lose more voters to apathy and fringe parties because we do things like gerrymandering to win, or do we lose more voters to apathy and fringe parties because we don’t aggressively push our advantages and constantly lose? I don’t know the answer for sure but i have my suspicions.
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Now watch them fuck this up too.
I agree, it is an interesting question. I suspect the answer is somewhere around… ‘yes’. As in, there’s probably a chunk of voters out there who are demotivated and frustrated and feel like everything is futile because on the one hand, the Democrats suck at messaging and don’t follow-up every advantage, but also feel like both parties are just playing power-games and embracing ‘win at all costs’ methods.
Because people are like that. Cognitive dissonance hits everyone in a lot of small ways, because the world itself is often contradictory. After all, just in politics, it’s not like Democratic officerholders and candidates are a monolith. So there’s some off-putting for one reason, some for another, and it combines into this general malaise of ‘FFS, why do you suck at this? What’s even the goddamned point?!?’
And let’s face it, there’s always gonna be the Purity Pony Team Unicorn crowd. They used to hit both sides, but the Republicans have run a decades-long program of aggressive, angry tribalism. They embraced the Purity Patrol and turned it around to make that the core of the party. Which, you know, you’d think would help us… but it’s like high school.
It doesn’t matter that most people will never be part of the ‘popular clique’, they’ll still suck up to them in a ton of quiet ways, just because they want to believe it’ll make a difference. Or, to put it in a more American way:
Millions of people who will never have a million dollars over the entire course of their lifetime oppose making the top 1% pay a 90% income tax because they’ve convinced themselves that they, too can break through and be a billionaire. After all… all it takes is a dollar and a dream.
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Something my wrestling coach told me when I complained about an opponent slipping something into the outer padding of his headgear that we was rubbing into my scalp when we locked up; “you can’t play by the Marques of Queensburry rules when the other guy is kicking you in the groin.” So the next time we locked up I grabbed hold of the back of his neck, ducked like I was going for a take down and instead pulled his face over the back of my head, flicked my head up and broke his nose.
Okay, I was disqualified but I got out of all the extra push ups and laps several others had to do at the next practice.
The point being you play by the rules in effect, not the rules you want to be in effect. Playing by the rules you want to be in effect when other rules in fact govern, is a great way to make sure you never get to make the rules.
If you want to end gerrymandering, a goal I agree with, you must first get the power to end gerrymandering and for now when gerrymandering is being done by the other side where they have the power, you must gerrymander where you have the power.
Gerrymandering where you have the power accomplishes two important goals, the first is it equalizes the playing field and the second is it gets Republicans in states they do not control to agree with you about ending gerrymandering.
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Which is why you lost.
The rules in effect were that people who aren’t you (the ref, the voters) get to call points, and even if the other guy gets away with something… when you try it, you’re inviting disqualification.
I mean, just look at your own example: He did something subtle. You did something blatant. That’s what happened in NYS: Democrats tried to be blatant. They were too damned obvious about it. So the ref called them on cheating.
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SCOTUS will appoint George Santos to be in charge of redistricting in New York. He will then proceed to win 100% of the seats himself.
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I can’t possibly compete with all the back-and-forth jabbing, but just wanted to insert that this is a positive development.
Lots of hurdles remain, including that the Democratic-led state legislature might screw things up. But if there’s a chance to reverse some of the self-own from a year ago, it starts with this ruling.
Can we celebrate that for a moment before we go at each other again?
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Though I did, SCOTUS has repeatedly left redistricting to the states. Dudes like D’esposito are welcome to run this to Justice Roberts, but they might not like the result.
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The solution is to pass federal legislation requiring the use of neutral criteria for congressional redistricting, as Dems attempted to do in 2021-22. What that looked like in the Senate version of that bill is here. In the meantime, more guns.
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