Re: General Politics
Posted: Wed Apr 22, 2026 3:30 pm
Conservatives are mad about Virginia's imminent redistricting, even going so far as to call it "gerrymandering" (of course, without seeing the new districts first). They didn't have any problem whatsoever with Texas redistricting in service to Trump (without a referendum, of course - because who cares what the people say)
I've never heard such bull in my life. Conservatives LOVE gerrymandering and always have, from the three-fifths "compromise" to poll taxes under Jim Crow to the districts that look like chinese dragons of today. They love it when early voting is restricted, mail-in voting is restricted, when voters have to jump through extra hoops in order to vote (especially if those extra hoops aren't free), and when voter rolls are purged and fake flyers are sent out to discourage voting. They love it when they lose the popular vote and somehow still get their guy in office. They love it when the Supreme Court chooses the president. And they especially love it when they can send a mob to the capitol in an attempt to violently change a vote they don't like.
And I can reveal this anti-democracy attitude with a single very simple question: Do you think the citizens of the United States should choose the President of the United States directly? (aka choose the country's leader by popular vote, like they do in many other countries). They always say no. And they give a variety of reasons in public, but the real reason is always the same, because their guy would lose and they know it.
Free and fair elections TERRIFIES them because on some level, they know their ideas are not popular and because they support an oligarchy, not a democracy. When Republicans lose elections, they don't change their policies or message, they change election laws. They have it backwards, starting with their goal of oligarchical rule and then figuring out how to change the law to make it happen rather than building policies that people like and figuring out how to translate that to electoral victory. Ultimately, they care about one thing and one thing only - power. Power for power's sake. It's sickening.
I've never heard such bull in my life. Conservatives LOVE gerrymandering and always have, from the three-fifths "compromise" to poll taxes under Jim Crow to the districts that look like chinese dragons of today. They love it when early voting is restricted, mail-in voting is restricted, when voters have to jump through extra hoops in order to vote (especially if those extra hoops aren't free), and when voter rolls are purged and fake flyers are sent out to discourage voting. They love it when they lose the popular vote and somehow still get their guy in office. They love it when the Supreme Court chooses the president. And they especially love it when they can send a mob to the capitol in an attempt to violently change a vote they don't like.
And I can reveal this anti-democracy attitude with a single very simple question: Do you think the citizens of the United States should choose the President of the United States directly? (aka choose the country's leader by popular vote, like they do in many other countries). They always say no. And they give a variety of reasons in public, but the real reason is always the same, because their guy would lose and they know it.
Free and fair elections TERRIFIES them because on some level, they know their ideas are not popular and because they support an oligarchy, not a democracy. When Republicans lose elections, they don't change their policies or message, they change election laws. They have it backwards, starting with their goal of oligarchical rule and then figuring out how to change the law to make it happen rather than building policies that people like and figuring out how to translate that to electoral victory. Ultimately, they care about one thing and one thing only - power. Power for power's sake. It's sickening.
