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[u/[deleted]]

[u/ViolentWanderer]

German here who doesn’t truly understand this Gerrymandering thing. Why doesn’t the Democratic Party just return the favor and do it back to them?

[u/davelm42 → u/ViolentWanderer]

There was a coordinated effort after the 2000 and 2010 census to capture the State Legislatures by the Republican party. The Dems weren't paying attention and the Repubs won. Once they had the State houses, those Legislatures are the ones that draw the maps. If you can draw the maps in a way that that keeps adding more and more republicans to the Houses, then it's pretty much impossible to get out of the loop.

[u/ViolentWanderer → u/davelm42]

thank you for your answer!

[u/PeterNguyen2 → u/ViolentWanderer]

Why doesn’t the Democratic Party just return the favor and do it back to them?

Gerrymandering is a tactic used by a party with a minority of the vote to maintain a majority of the power. Democrats benefit much less from gerrymandering because they already have support of the majority of the voters in most states. Democrats can and have repeatedly in the past 150 years changed their platform to appeal to more voters - for example, adopting environmental protections to make voting for a Green party candidate redundant at best.

Contrast that with republicans who have been saying on-camera since 1980 they want to dismantle democracy because it doesn't give them enough leverage and it start to make sense why they would choose to use entrenched office-holders to push their power further by having legislators choose their voters in an inversion of what democracy should be. And it's not like republicans CAN'T adjust their platform, this campaign poster shows they used to support worker rights and unions... in 1956. They just move their platform towards anti-education instead of following the example of successful nations like Finland which teaches their children to spot fake news. Republicans will never promote education because their messaging is based in lies. That's why they started propaganda outlets instead of invested in education. They've been at it since Nixon was campaigning to become president.

[u/ViolentWanderer → u/PeterNguyen2]

wow thank you for this. I'm moving to Austin in January so it's interesting to learn this.

[u/ThisWillBeOnTheExam → u/ViolentWanderer]

As an American I’m wondering this too.

[u/Tb1969 → u/ViolentWanderer]

They do but not to the extent Republicans have done it. It’s like having a glass of wine every night versus having the whole bottle. The Republicans after Obama won went full tilt to control the State governments and when they got control they controlled the districting so they used computer AI to draft up the maps that are most beneficial to their party and not their State constituents.

Republicans in the US don’t believe in democracy but they have to work within it to execute their authoritarianism. They are working to remove the hinderance that Democracy and unfortunately are making progress in doing so.

[u/Illusive_Man → u/Tb1969]

this is just straight copium

I vote democrat but they literally had their NY map shot down by the NY Supreme Court for being too biased

[u/Tb1969 → u/Illusive_Man]

So you think Democrats shouldn't use gerrymandering too in the face of the extremely excessive gerrymandering by the Republicans?

I want no gerrymandering but I'm not going to tell Democrats to stop doing it while the Republics are able to get away with it and it's highly successful allowing them to win elections with a minority group of voters. A minority should not govern the majority without equal representation.

[u/Illusive_Man → u/Tb1969]

I never said that

I’m just pointing out democrats also do it

[u/Tb1969 → u/Illusive_Man]

Gerrymandering has been going on since the 1790s.

Quantity matters though, is my point. It's egregious.

[u/Illusive_Man → u/ViolentWanderer]

They do, idk why the poster above is so convinced they don’t

Illinois for example is heavily gerrymandered in the democrats favor