Quo Vadis GOP?

[Malthus]

Disagree. The fact that there are different ways of creating "fair" borders is not an excuse for doing nothing to change the current system which is openly and obviously unfair. That seems absurd. It's like arguing that you could use either a knife or scissors to cut the rope strangling you, and you can't decide which, so you might as well go on strangling?

In 20+ years of languish, can you identify anyone who has advocated for gerrymandering, or that it is an awesome system?

This question confuses me. What did I say that indicated I thought people on Languish thought gerrymandering was awesome?

My point was that the fact there are many possible solutions isn't a good reason not to make a change when everyone agrees the current system that allows gerrymandering is bad.

Again, why the resistance to using a solution that has been shown to work elsewhere? I get that it is politically and even constitutionally difficult, as pointed out here:

https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2014/4/15/5604284/us-elections-are-rigged-but-canada-knows-how-to-fix-them

... but that's not the debate.

Canada had the exact same problem as the US and has mostly solved it. If it were possible (and I understand why it may not be), why not copy and paste (and adapt as necessary)?

It simply won't happen. It just isn't a high priority issue for voters and the vested interests are massive. I don't see why anyone would look at the US political system and think there is a way to fix this in the reasonably foreseeable future (say before the 2040 redistricting cycle).

As I already said, there are many practical and legal challenges. That wasn't the argument though - the argument was that even if these could be addressed, adopting a solution was inherently too difficult.

My argument was that if other nations could do it, clearly it is not inherently too difficult.

[alfred russel]

As I already said, there are many practical and legal challenges. That wasn't the argument though - the argument was that even if these could be addressed, adopting a solution was inherently too difficult.

My argument was that if other nations could do it, clearly it is not inherently too difficult.

I'm definitely unconvinced. I think there is a profound bias on this forum to assuming that problems have solutions that can be implemented. Canada of the 1960s is not the US of today.

For many reasons, I think we are all aware that it is unlikely that the democrats take possession of the white house, senate, and house, plus have a filibuster proof majority in the senate. But that actually happened in the US in the first Obama term. And Obama put everything into health care reform. And the result is...well an improvement but I still think US healthcare is well outside of international health care norms for first world countries and in a profoundly negative way.

I do think health care is a topic that the US can address, but for a lot of reasons it is far more exceedingly difficult than we tend to give it credit for, and for many structural reasons, I think it is a much more likely problem to be comprehensively addressed than gerrymandering.

[Barrister]

Disagree. The fact that there are different ways of creating "fair" borders is not an excuse for doing nothing to change the current system which is openly and obviously unfair. That seems absurd. It's like arguing that you could use either a knife or scissors to cut the rope strangling you, and you can't decide which, so you might as well go on strangling?

Again, why the resistance to using a solution that has been shown to work elsewhere? I get that it is politically and even constitutionally difficult, as pointed out here:

https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2014/4/15/5604284/us-elections-are-rigged-but-canada-knows-how-to-fix-them

Okay, so Canada probably does districting better than the US.  I really never head of it as a major issue.

But I wanted to point out that the two sources linked to in this article are A: a Manitoba Law Journal from 2006 and B: JJ McCullough.

Now I went to school at the University of Manitoba and did a little bit of work on the Manitoba Law Journal.  It's fine as far as it goes but it's hardly some paragon of academic writing.  It generally has a readership in the dozens.

JJ McCullough is an interesting fellow.  I subscribe to his Youtube channel - but that just makes the point he's a Youtuber.  He mostly makes videos "explaining" different aspects of Canada to foreign audiences.  Somehow he has a once per week column in the Washington Post.  He's also a cartoonist.  He's a gay man who usually takes a fairly conservative view of things (he's critical of Erin O'Toole for being too similar to the Liberals, for example).

So the sourcing on this Vox article is weird.

[Malthus]

Disagree. The fact that there are different ways of creating "fair" borders is not an excuse for doing nothing to change the current system which is openly and obviously unfair. That seems absurd. It's like arguing that you could use either a knife or scissors to cut the rope strangling you, and you can't decide which, so you might as well go on strangling?

Again, why the resistance to using a solution that has been shown to work elsewhere? I get that it is politically and even constitutionally difficult, as pointed out here:

https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2014/4/15/5604284/us-elections-are-rigged-but-canada-knows-how-to-fix-them

Okay, so Canada probably does districting better than the US.  I really never head of it as a major issue.

But I wanted to point out that the two sources linked to in this article are A: a Manitoba Law Journal from 2006 and B: JJ McCullough.

Now I went to school at the University of Manitoba and did a little bit of work on the Manitoba Law Journal.  It's fine as far as it goes but it's hardly some paragon of academic writing.  It generally has a readership in the dozens.

JJ McCullough is an interesting fellow.  I subscribe to his Youtube channel - but that just makes the point he's a Youtuber.  He mostly makes videos "explaining" different aspects of Canada to foreign audiences.  Somehow he has a once per week column in the Washington Post.  He's also a cartoonist.  He's a gay man who usually takes a fairly conservative view of things (he's critical of Erin O'Toole for being too similar to the Liberals, for example).

So the sourcing on this Vox article is weird.

I would never have dreamed of dissing the University of Manitoba.



But seriously - I don't think the issue is all that controversial: Canada once had a concern over gerrymandering, and that concern was mostly addressed. Though challenges remain, as the current process is criticized by some as the provincial commissions having too much discretion and being inconsistent with one another ... but this hasn't been driven by institutional capture by a political party.

Here's an article from a real law school (  ) on that topic:

https://lawjournal.mcgill.ca/article/the-fractured-right-to-vote-democracy-discretion-and-designing-electoral-districts/

[Barrister]

I would never have dreamed of dissing the University of Manitoba.

[The Minsky Moment]

I'm definitely unconvinced. I think there is a profound bias on this forum to assuming that problems have solutions that can be implemented.

I don't believe there is such bias; there is a belief that certain problems have responses to them that are superior to simply accepting the status quo.

[alfred russel]

I'm definitely unconvinced. I think there is a profound bias on this forum to assuming that problems have solutions that can be implemented.

I don't believe there is such bias; there is a belief that certain problems have responses to them that are superior to simply accepting the status quo.

If you want to disagree with my assertion of a bias that is cool, but the portion of your sentence after the semi colon is not my assertion and something of a non sequitor.

[grumbler]

I'd say that the bias on the forum is towards solutions that cannot be implemented but are nonetheless interesting.

There is that minority bias towards mere contrarianism, but that's just added spice.

[Sheilbh]

I'm definitely unconvinced. I think there is a profound bias on this forum to assuming that problems have solutions that can be implemented.

I don't believe there is such bias; there is a belief that certain problems have responses to them that are superior to simply accepting the status quo.

I think that bias does exist. I think there is a bit of a view that there are answers and solutions that are correct as opposed to just different choices and options based on your own ideological preferences (some of which can be very, very bad). But I also think there can be a bit of hand-waveyness about actual politics and the operation of different interests as if it is only lack of common sense or bad faith that stops solutions from being implemented, as opposed to different political agendas or material interests to protect.

[Valmy]

I'm definitely unconvinced. I think there is a profound bias on this forum to assuming that problems have solutions that can be implemented. Canada of the 1960s is not the US of today.

I do not think this at all. We are unlikely to have solutions for anything on some kind of perfect solutions that will solve things on some permanent basis. Human nature and the struggle for political power are constants and are impossible to overcome with some system. But I mean we have 50 states just for the purpose of trying to find better ways of doing things. We do currently have states that are implementing gerrymandering reforms. Maybe one of them is better than what what we currently have. The issues is that while petty corruption and all that was an issue in the past it was something we could overcome because voters were more flexible and we didn't have scientific computer aided redistricting that just allow the electorate to be more controlled than before. I think we need to look for reforms and solutions to make it less shitty, not that I think there is some magic bullet for this or any other issue. Reasonably good enough is the best we can ever really hope for. I mean the Constitution says we are forming a more perfect Union, not a perfect one.

For many reasons, I think we are all aware that it is unlikely that the democrats take possession of the white house, senate, and house, plus have a filibuster proof majority in the senate. But that actually happened in the US in the first Obama term. And Obama put everything into health care reform. And the result is...well an improvement but I still think US healthcare is well outside of international health care norms for first world countries and in a profoundly negative way.

I do think health care is a topic that the US can address, but for a lot of reasons it is far more exceedingly difficult than we tend to give it credit for, and for many structural reasons, I think it is a much more likely problem to be comprehensively addressed than gerrymandering.

Well if any problem ever gets comprehensibly addressed I will be very happy. It seems so slow and difficult for our government to do even the most simple and popular reforms. I keep mentioning federal decimalization of weed, this is a hugely popular issue on both sides of the cultural divide but somehow the wheels turn so slowly while so many rot in prison. I know some have said WAD but it seems like it it is a dangerous situation to the long time health of our way of government. I kind of envy those parliamentary systems where the government can just do things, theoretically anyway, if they win an election. Here you can sweep into power with a majority with a big popular mandate and still nothing gets done.

[alfred russel]

I do not think this at all. We are unlikely to have solutions for anything on some kind of perfect solutions that will solve things on some permanent basis. Human nature and the struggle for political power are constants and are impossible to overcome with some system. But I mean we have 50 states just for the purpose of trying to find better ways of doing things. We do currently have states that are implementing gerrymandering reforms. Maybe one of them is better than what what we currently have. The issues is that while petty corruption and all that was an issue in the past it was something we could overcome because voters were more flexible and we didn't have scientific computer aided redistricting that just allow the electorate to be more controlled than before. I think we need to look for reforms and solutions to make it less shitty, not that I think there is some magic bullet for this or any other issue. Reasonably good enough is the best we can ever really hope for. I mean the Constitution says we are forming a more perfect Union, not a perfect one.

I think the existence of 50 states makes this far more difficult to solve than easier. You have extremely divergent trends in the parties on democratic thought: left of center voters generally want expanded voter access and gerrymandering reform, right of center voters are focused on "we were intended to be a republic not a democracy" and maximal gerrymanders.

Earlier the Brain and I concluded that proportional representation would be a better system. Massachusetts has 9 house seats. Democrats carried Massachusetts by roughly 33% last November and control all 9 house seats. If they implement proportional representation, their +9 advantage shrinks to +3.

In North Carolina, meanwhile, Trump won by 1%. It has a democrat as governor. It is basically a toss up state. But because of a notoriously gerrymandered legislative map, republicans control the legislature and have famously been using that to strip the democratic governor of powers. They drew a map that would have 10 republicans, 3 democrats, and 1 uncertain congressional district. A 50-50 state is basically set to return a 7 delegate majority for republicans.

If you put the two states together, they voted for biden by over 1 net million votes. Without reform in Massachusetts, democrats have a house of represetnative lead of +2. If they go to proportional representation in Massachusetts, that becomes a republican lead of +4. Theoretically they could both decide to get rid of gerrymanders and live happily ever after, but there is no chance at all of that happening in North Carolina. The republican party is dependent on gerrymandering for their more or less permanent control of the legislature.

[The Minsky Moment]

If you want to disagree with my assertion of a bias that is cool, but the portion of your sentence after the semi colon is not my assertion and something of a non sequitor.

In that case I'm not sure what you were trying to say.

[Razgovory]

If you want to disagree with my assertion of a bias that is cool, but the portion of your sentence after the semi colon is not my assertion and something of a non sequitor.

In that case I'm not sure what you were trying to say.

  none of do.  Ever.

[Syt]

Madison Cawthorn on the shooting range. I ... uhm ... would not want to be around him and a gun.

https://twitter.com/patriottakes/status/1474074603903463435

[Razgovory]

Madison Cawthorn on the shooting range. I ... uhm ... would not want to be around him and a gun.

https://twitter.com/patriottakes/status/1474074603903463435

You're German.  You're one of the few people who would be safe.