Month: June 2017

hussianphilosopher:

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/virginia-gerrymandering-supreme-court-235565

With things looking so grim all over, I need to really stress this point: this is the most important positive thing that could happen in politics right now. It is monumentally significant that this happened now, before Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court could be confirmed. Here’s why:

I don’t know how many people know this, but as many people should learn about it as possible. Donald Trump did not get elected last year because America voted for him, and Barack Obama did not accomplish so little of his agenda because his ideas were bad or because they didn’t work. All of these things happened because after Obama was elected in 2008, Republican strategists, backed by the Koch brothers and the white nationalist movement, executed a conspiracy – and I mean an actual, real conspiracy – in which they blitzed key elections in a huge number of states with excessive donations and took control of the state legislatures. There were able to do this because Obama was elected in 2008. 2010 came shortly after, and in the US, years ending in 0 are when the census is taken, which is when the legislative districts (aka how states are divided up into administrative units) are revised. Said Republicans took control of these state governments and then, in top secret conditions, redrew the districts to make it effectively impossible for Democratic candidates (or indeed any candidates) to win against them in fair elections in those states. This is why in Virginia, for example, the Democrats (who retook control in that state after 2010) control most of the state government positions as well as the governorship, but almost all of the Virginian Congressmen are still Republicans. If you want to learn more about this horrible, amoral act, get your hands on this book, or look up “Ratf**ked” (yes, really) on Google. NPR did an excellent, eye-opening interview with the author here. Send this link to your friends and family. As many people need to know about this as possible, I didn’t know about it until a few months ago!

This tactic put the Tea Party into power and is responsible for the 6 years of government paralysis that foiled most of Obama’s time in office – which in my estimation, at least, was also the biggest contributor to Trump being elected, because so many people were fed up with what they viewed as an incompetent, impotent federal government, leading them either to not vote (because they had lost faith in the institution) or to vote for Trump (because they thought he would change things). It is very unlikely that the upcoming 2018 Congressional elections will really change this; the Republican numbers advantage in Congress is too large, and too many states have been rigged in this way for the Democrats to make a meaningful difference, barring a political miracle in 2018.

Said miracle is not impossible! Many leftists, including Micheal Moore, have noted that the liberal outrage and energy against Trump is unprecedented, and a Democratic wave election may ensue. But we definitely cannot count on this.

Here’s the thing: This was going to stop.

Multiple investigations by Obama’s Justice Department were underway in several states before the 2016 election. The most significant of these was probably in Texas, where multiple courts had already found the altered legislative maps to be unconstitutional and racially motivated. A full investigation was about to be set in motion that would have finally shed light on this tactic and most likely led to the federal government initating lawsuits to put a stop to it.

And then Trump got elected. And his new attorney general, who is definitely a racist if not an actual white nationalist, shut the investigation down.

This is the true tragedy and loss of Trump’s election. Hillary Clinton, whatever her faults or virtues, would have appointed a progressive attorney general, who would have continued these investigations, setting in motion what I imagine would have a been long, bitter four years of vicious lawsuits against the various state governments that participated in this conspiracy, and most likely by the end of her term in 2020 (when the next census is taken) the country would have been in a position to return the maps to reasonable configurations, and we could go into the next decade having actual fair elections again.

As things are now, that will not happen, at least not so directly. But the fact that this investigation is still ongoing means that there is still hope. My understanding is that a similar investigation is still happening in North Carolina, where the Republican stranglehold is particularly bad – but that state now has a Democratic governor, which means that it has very limited power to oppose the investigation, so it’s entirely possible that something will happen there.

Donald Trump is not the king, despite what he and his hardcore base seem to think. He does not control everything. There are still people of great conscience and moral fiber in positions of power in this country, as demonstrated by the courts in their resistance to his travel ban. He cannot dismantle everything that is attempting to shed light on the immoral policies that put him in office.

I can’t say what will happen in the next four years. Next year is absolutely important, the Republicans must be prevented as much as possible from gaining even more seats and doing even more damage. But the year that truly matters is 2020, the year of the next census. The side that controls more state governments in that year is the side that will decide the future of the United States. That is when the wave election needs to happen. That is when we must unleash all of our energy and take back our country. It’s also very possible that there will be a political shift – four years is a long time, and when Trump’s promised aid to poor Republican voters fails to materialize, the energy he has stirred up may run out of control, at which point the GOP’s redrawing of electoral maps could have unpredictable results. A lot can happen in politics in four years. Look how fast Trump exploded onto the scene, and hell, look at how fast Obama appeared eight years ago!

Things are bad. They may get worse. But there is a way to fix this, and the Democratic Party, whatever their faults, are absolutely aware of it. Support them and keep fighting, because we have no alternative. Resist!