Give the GOP the Gerrymandering Arms Race It’s Asking For
Because nothing gets fixed unless the good guys knuckle up and win for once
Before I begin, let me say this: I wish none of this was necessary, but it is. And the only way we can set things right is by winning. And how we win no longer matters.
Last week, the Roberts Court cemented itself as the most illegitimate court since Reconstruction, and it looks to be well on its way to becoming the most illegitimate Supreme Court in American history. The Court gutted the Voting Rights Act last week and declared open season on black voters and Democrats in general. And the GOP has responded immediately, starting procedures in almost every red state to lock out anyone who isn’t a reliable Republican voter. They have declared a war on voting rights, and our response can’t be our typical cry-babying about fairness followed by a flooded inbox full of fundraising asks. That ship has sailed.
One thing Republicans know and we need to learn, is that voters respect strength. It doesn’t even have to be real strength, only the appearance of it. Trump has turned “fake tough” into a brand, and that more than anything explains his rise to power. We need to steal that brand, and now is the time to do it.
To begin, it’s time to go back to the drawing board on our gerrymandering efforts, and there’s no time to go to the voters for permission. Many states, like California for example, already have that permission after taking redistricting to the voters for approval. Virginia did the same. But both efforts should be redrawn, and right now. California, for example, has 52 members in the House of Representatives, with 43 Democrats and 9 Republicans. If there’s a way to make the math work, that number needs to be 52-0. And every blue state should follow suit, not because we want to, but because it’s necessary. It’s exactly what the GOP will do. Louisiana is actually canceling their May primary due to another republican “fake” emergency, just so they can try to draw out the only majority black districts in the state. The announcement came just hours after the anti-American Roberts Court sold us out to the Epstein Class.
And so far, the only Democratic response has been whiny cable news hits. We announced nothing, because we had no plan, even though everyone knew what the Court would do, just like we did when they overturned Roe. Like always, we surrendered in advance, and it’s way past time for our representatives to stop doing that.
It’s time to put it all on the table. DC statehood. Statehood for Puerto Rico. The dismantling of the corporate-owned Judicial Branch. Judicial term limits. Legislative age limits. Presidential age limits. Senate reform so people matter more than geography. All of it. Tear it all down right to the bones and rebuild it. It’s what the voters want. It’s even what Trump voters thought they voted for when they elected the swamp creatures under the false pretense that they would somehow drain themselves. And once that’s done, then it’s time to get some new arguments into our public bloodstream. For example:
Why are there two Dakotas, and why are we so scared of pissing off the tiny number of people who live there? Put them together and they still don’t have the population of the DC metro area, and DC isn’t even a state. Erase the line. Take back the Senate seats. Remove one more toxic Republican governor. And then laugh when the outrage comes. Take it as seriously as Republicans take mass shootings. Treat them like they treat us when one of theirs gleefully attacks and kills Democratic legislators. We won’t lose a single vote. Might even gain a few because, like I said, voters respect strength a lot more than they respect fairness or any other liberal ideals. We might even pick up votes in the process.
That’s just one idea, and it’s not likely to happen, but kick it around for a bit and most people have to admit it makes sense. And there are dozens of viable possibilities we have always been too cowardly to attempt, and that is why we live in a country in which a red hat in Idaho, where only 2 million people live, has 20 times the voting power in the Senate as a resident of California, which is the 4th largest economy in the world all by itself, and where 40 million Americans live and work. The math just isn’t mathing, and we should put it right. Now is the time to do it.
This will all be called “radical,” by just about everyone, but it isn’t. Radical is a president threatening to end entire civilizations just because he doesn’t want anyone to know what’s in the Epstein Files. Unabashed corruption is radical, and it’s everywhere. People in the richest nation in the history of history not being able to buy gas or food or medicine … that’s radical. Radical is stealing from working families so rich people can buy more yachts, senators, and judges. Radical is the stone sober hypocrisy of people who can’t get a sentence out without the word Jesus in it refusing to live and love as He did. Our understanding of the word “radical” is as broken as our politics.
And none of it gets better unless we win, and win right now. And even if we did everything I suggest above, it wouldn’t come close to matching the aggressive greed of the anti-American coalition of billionaires and paid-for politicians that is running America into the ground as we speak.
Working Americans are tough. Always have been. We get up, punch the clock every day, and take care of our own. Cross us, or be cruel to those we care about, and we’ll drag you into the street and sort it out. But we’re being cheated more and more every day by a rigged system, and we just want a chance to punch back. And it’s Democrats, not Republicans who are stealing that punch from us. They’re soft. We’re not. And it’s time for our representatives, and those running to be our representatives to get off the sidelines and get their heads in the game. America is down a touchdown in the 4th quarter with two minutes left; it’s time to put the ball in the air.
I’ll end how I started. I wish none of this was necessary, but it is. And if we don’t knuckle up and fight right now, we won’t get another chance. Lose now, and it’s two more years of Trump, and then eight more under Don Jr. or whoever Trump names as his successor. Won’t matter much what happens after that.
Brett Pransky is a writer, a teacher, a father, and a husband, but rarely in that order. He spends his days amplifying the voices of freedom and democracy as an Editor right here at The Political Voices Network, and he spends his nights trying to fix the world one clever sentence at a time.