You will see a theme over the next several months in the main stream press of a presentation of a series of “normal” republicans presented to us as sane alternatives to Trump. They have long been propping up DeSantis this way. They got Younkin elected in VA by doing this. But in all cases when they say “normal” they don’t mean democracy honouring, non-race baiting politicians who just have a different set of priorities to the Dems they want to debate in good faith. They just mean Trump without the overt insults.
This week both Younkin and DeSantis have attacked the NY DA who has brought charges against Trump. They have described his actions as politically motivated and unjust. Yet neither have seen what the charges are or what the evidence they have for them are. Any public official commenting on the righteousness of the charges at this stage is the one politicizing the judicial system and is acting in a way that 10 years ago would have been a stop the presses scandal. This has now even been followed up by Jeb doing the same.
These people are indeed “normal” Republicans but not in the way DC/NYC talking heads want you to think. They are normal in the sense that they helped create the party Trump came to lead. There are no “normal” republicans, they are all just a variation on Trump at this point. Remember that as read the political coverage from now up through the next election
Very definitely an inflection point in the rhetoric. It also aligns with the point at which chaos started becoming the point, but I think you can make an argument that was more a case of the growth of social media which just happened to be temporally associated with Obama’s election.
However, so much of the truly destructive aspects of Trump’s presidency really does have a straight line you can draw all the way back to Nixon through the Regan and Bush administrations. We’ve recently got additional sourcing on the story of Regan’s involvement in obstructing Carter getting the Iran hostages released. Daddy Bush lied about his involvement in Iran contra and then employed Bill Barr to cover it up.
Really interesting and potentially important result in Wisconsin last night. WI really is ground zero for state level fuckery of manipulating the system to retain power with a minority vote. The vote on the state level has been a very evenly split over the past decade or so, but the levers of power have been overwhelmingly held by the GOP. They have a super majority in the legislature with a minority of the vote and were only one willing State Supreme Court position away from essentially being able to lock in that control and push through rules that would allow to them give Trump the state’s EC votes regardless of the election results.
That election was held yesterday and the anti-democracy MAGA candidate pushing this “independent state legislature” theory lost by double digits. The Dems were confident of a win, but this blew out their expectations…a state in which Biden won by less than 1%.
It’s dangerous to draw too many conclusions from one race, but the size of this win and the information obtained from the exit polls about what was motivating people does give a glimmer of hope that electorally the MAGA movement is burning out. Who knows how long the fire can stay lit, but at least right now, a reaction against restricting abortion rights and enacting anti-democratic practices are seemingly very strong motivating factors in elections right now.
Just to dampen your excitement a little, didn’t the Republican candidate win the State Senate election, thereby giving the Republicans a veto-proof majority?
Yes, there was another race, but it was not a statewide one, and the results dont really change much. It wouldnt have broken their super majority in the legislature, but adding the new Supreme Court seat would have enabled that legislature to push through the anti-democratic measures they wanted. Now not only wont they be able to, but the courts will now likely throw out the increadibly gerrymander maps that has allowed them to win a legislative supermajority
LS, as you seem very well informed about US politics, can you explain why the Democrats don’t make more of the gerrymandering by the Republicans? There don’t seem to be many stories about Dems highlighting and opposing it, although it is so blatant, and so egregious. Surely there would be something to be gained by fighting back.
I think this must just be something you missed because it was one of the most talked about political issue through the 2010s.
There have been numerous cases that have reached the Supreme Court in the period since, but it’s still still not really clear where anything lies. You cannot draw maps to purposefully disenfranchise racial groups (racial gerrymandering), but you can draw them to provide under represented groups more representation (creating a new majority black district to ensure their representation). Extreme political gerrymandering is unconstitutional, but the court keep pushing cases that require a definition of what constitutes the political gerrymandering being “extreme” so its still an unanswered question as to what is illegal.
I think we started seeing less focus on it in recent years because of Trump. Mostly its just a case of him taking up all the oxygen. But also his election ushered in electoral outcomes that undercut the most urgent claims of the anti-Gerrymander lobby. Through most of Obama’s term it had been argued the maps had been cooked by such a degree the Dems would be locked out of a house majority for a generation. And yet 2 years into Trump’s term the Dems won back the house. It’s hard to get people believe its a house on fire situation when you’ve just demonstrated that you can actually win the house regardless.
Nate Silver is a fuck, but his team at 538 did a really great podcast series about the complexities of the politics and legalities of the situation at the height of the panic. So obviously this is now several years old, but it still is a great source to understand how we’ve got here
The reality is the Dems do it just as hard in places where they are in a position to do so. This has been going on in American politics since the 19th century.
In particular, the logic of affirmative action and representation as applied to drawing geographic districts is something of a Pandora’s Box. You really see this in NC, one of the worst states for gerrymandering, where the initiative started off with a requirement to produce a district with a significant black population to ensure a reasonable chance that a black representative could be elected. From there, the GOP reaction was obvious - use that districting to produce a single district with a black supermajority, thus taking Democratic votes out of several other districts making them safe Republican seats.
This map started off as an attempt to make a heavily black district, the logic just follows the interstate, reaching into some of the poorer areas of the cities to produce that winnable district. The GOP just figured out they could continue the momentum and produce an inefficient result for the Democrats.
This was something I alluded to in my previous comment, but it’s important to appreciate this form of Gerrymandering was a requirement of the civil rights act. It was viewed as a pro-democracy action to make sure our legislative bodies look more like our population. This is very distinct from partisan gerrymandering, or even the flip side of the same racial gerrymandering coin where the district is drawn purposefully to keep a demographic out of office. It’s a complex issue, done for different reasons with different effects on democracy and our civic life.
Right, but hence my allusion to Pandora’s Box. That absurd ‘follow the interstate’ district was fine when it was 60% black, but became a problem at 90% black. At 60% black it was meant to create a district sure to elect a black representative, it was just pushed further to make another 4-5 previously close unwinnable for the Republicans. it becomes impossible to draw where the line is crossed between 60% and 90%, and the whole process is thereby discredited.
I dont see how the subsequent actions discredit the earlier actions.
You have 1 action taken with the intention of improving democracy and something mandated by the courts, and another action taken with the intention of minimizing democracy. The latter is something the court have acknowledged is illegal, but leave us in an absurd place where its practically legal because of their inability (partisan unwillingness?) to define where the line is between regular legal partisan gerrymandering and the supposedly legally extreme version of it.
The distinction is utterly arbitrary, and abuse is almost inevitable. Creating a district that is virtually assured of electing a black representative is not taking the democratic rights of others seriously. The GOP abuse in this case is actually taking a black majority district, and making it a supermajority - with the complaint being that the ‘excess’ is thereby disenfranchised. But those ‘excess’ black votes are no more disenfranchised (and arguably less) than non-black voters in the original case. It is a classic case of judicial reasoning divorced from the inevitable consequences.
That said, having lived in NC, I am not sure what the alternative was. To get black representation, there may have been no other choice but to open that Pandora’s Box, and then face generations of this sort of battling over the lines.
Thanks for explaining. Not living in the States there are things which can be missed, especially if they coincide with events closer to home.
The 538 articles are fascinating.
My superficial take on gerrymandering is that it is getting out of hand, and the Republicans are more adept at using it to their advantage, but they aren’t the only ones at it.
In the age of Trump, when democracy and the rule of law can legitimately be seen as being under threat, gerrymandering seems like a quaint problem to tackle.
It isn’t, and it needs looking at, because the fundamental issue at stake is the right of the voter to choose their politician, not vice versa.
But it is hard to see gerrymandering climbing high up the agenda in the age of Trump.
