America’s low information society
One could have assumed that most Republicans in red states would be fine with gerrymandering voting districts to disenfranchise or neuter as many non-republican voters as possible. That assumption would be based on assuming that by now Republican voters know that if they do not gerrymander good and hard, their political power will decline. After all, Republican elites have been open about their hostility toward free and fair elections for decades. There is no secret here, as this description of a 1980 speech by Republican Party elite Paul Weyrich makes clear:
Paul Weyrich, ‘father’ of the right-wing movement and co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, Moral Majority and various other groups tells his flock that he doesn't want people to vote. He complains that fellow Christians have "Goo-Goo Syndrome": Good Government. Classic clip from 1980. This guy still gives weekly strategy sessions to Republicans nowadays [2007]. The entire dialog from the clip:
“Now many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome — good government. They want everybody to vote. I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”
So, it came as a surprise to me that poll data from Feb. 2022 indicates that majorities of people dislike gerrymandering. That includes Republicans. One source commented on the poll data:
Two-thirds of Americans told pollsters for The Economist and YouGov that states drawing legislative districts to favor one party is a “major problem” with just 23 percent saying it’s a “minor problem.” But 50 percent said they do not know whether districts are drawn by the legislature or an independent commission in their own state.
Even though half of Americans do not know how their districts are drawn, a majority still is opinionated about the process.
Nearly half of respondents (48 percent) said they strongly oppose gerrymandering while another 12 percent said they are somewhat opposed. Only 10 percent said they strongly or somewhat support gerrymandering.
Bringing a knife to a gun fight
If Republicans retake the House, which is still unsettled, one can argue that it will be because two large Blue states, CA and NY, got rid of partisan gerrymandering. Both CA and NY now draw non-partisan voting districts for the House of Representatives. Both CA and NY are set to lose 3-4 competitive House seats that could have been gerrymandered into seats safe for Democrats.
The House could fall to the fascist Republican Party, where those pro-democracy non-partisan seats in CA and NY were necessary for that to happen. If that turns out to be true, was the move to pro-democracy non-partisan voting districts a good thing or a mistake? If mistake, is it one that could eventually lead to the fall of democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties to vengeful Christian nationalist theocrats and corrupt brass knuckles capitalists?
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