The constant stream of outrageous hypocrisy, lies, slanders, crackpottery and pure bad faith oozing from MAGA elites and their morally rotted leader is getting very hard to take. One example, djt asked the Texas legislature to redraw its House voting districts. Normally that is done every 10 years. But djt is worried about the 2026 elections. So the legislature did what he asked. The result is that five Democrats will lose their House seats in 2025. djt is pressing Republican legislatures in Missouri, Indiana and some other states to do the same. This is an example of politicians choosing their voters for partisan advantage. It is anti-democratic but legal.[1]
In response, California governor Gavin Newsom says he’ll follow suit and call a special election on redistricting if Texas approves its gerrymander. CA uses an independent commission to draw House voting districts to keep elections competitive, so a special election is needed for voters to approve the change.[2] The MAGA reaction to what CA is proposing is predictable bad faith MAGA propaganda. JD Vance unleashed this blast of insulting hypocrisy: “The gerrymander in California is outrageous. Of their 52 congressional districts, 9 of them are Republican. That means 17 percent of their delegation is Republican when Republicans regularly win 40 percent of the vote in that state. How can this possibly be allowed?”
Vance cynically ignores the fact that the new TX gerrymander will probably give MAGA Republicans 80% of the TX House delegation despite about 43% of TX voters choosing to vote in the Democratic Party primary (55% Republican), a proxy for registered voter party affiliation.[3] The 38% TX gerrymander gap is bigger (worse) than the 23% CA gap. Vance should be howling a lot louder about TX than CA. Obviously that will never happen.
Standard MAGA tactic
Insulting, bad faith politics like that is routine from MAGA elites. But it isn't just hypocrisy, lies, bullshit, cynical demagoguery and insulting bad faith that the opposition to MAGA authoritarianism and kleptocracy gets hit with every day. But to save our democracy, civil liberties and rule of law, some tell us we have to also respect and reach out to those poor MAGA voters and sympathizers. We have to treat them like adults who have suffered much injustice and disrespect. The problem is that people in opposition have suffered just as much injustice and disrespect. On top of that, the opposition also have to suffer what the elites running kleptocratic authoritarianism dish out every day.
People who oppose Trump and MAGA politics, policy and the moral rot of kleptocratic authoritarianism, have every plenty of good reasons to be deeply angry, resentful, fearful and disgusted. The MAGA rank and file, being deceived and manipulated, has excellent reasons for anger, fear and resentments. The opposition has better reasons.
From what I can tell, no one out there is saying aw geez, those poor minorities, democracy defenders, non-Christians, secularists, and rule of law advocates have been disrespected, abused, ripped off and betrayed. Well, they have been. They are entitled to be at least as pissed off and morally outraged and the MAGA rank and file. In my opinion, the opposition to MAGA has far better reasons for anger and outrage than the MAGA rank and file.
Q: Is it counterproductive or irrational for the opposition to feel at least as abused, disrespected and morally outraged as the MAGA rank and file? Who is more abusive, disrespectful and immoral here, MAGA elites and their bigoted, corrupt, authoritarian Project 2025 with its insulting bad faith and mendacious demagogic tactics or their opponents?
Footnotes:
1. Cynically but not surprisingly, TX governor and extremist MAGA authoritarian Gregg Abbott lied about it: “We will maximize the ability of Texans to be able to vote for the candidate of their choice.” What he intends but would never not say is that he wants maximize the ability of Texans to be able to vote for corrupt, authoritarian Republicans to put them in power. Abbott made redistricting part of the recently scheduled 30-day special legislative session after djt asked for redistricting.
2. FWIW, if anything, here are some relevant comments from a Feb. 2022 DP blog post: That is why I changed my mind about the gerrymander. CA alone has unilaterally conceded 10 safe Democratic House seats for the sake of voter enfranchisement. That alone could be enough to give the Republican Party control of the House in 2022 and 2024, which in turn could be enough to allow the Republican Party to mostly or completely kill American democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties.
The predictions about 2022 and 2024 were both correct.
A Nov. 2022 post raised the same issue: 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. .... 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.
Yes, the gerrymander is anti-democratic. But not gerrymandering by blue states is also not democratic. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
3. Fact-checked Pxy: Estimates based on primary participation and exit polling from recent major elections suggest that, among voters who have participated in recent primaries or general elections, about 55–56% tend to support Republicans, around 42–44% support Democrats.
Source (pre-2024 election data)
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