Triumps of Gerrymandering Geometry from around the United States./Image: Courtesy of Abagond and the Washington Post.
Ahoy, right-wing travel aficionados!
Sometimes, you really need to stare something in the face to get a good handle on what it is and, more importantly for the purpose of this article, what it could be. Gerrymandering is becoming a tried-and-true practice of the let-it-all-hang-out depravity party known as the Republicans. And we at Spread Your Right Wings (SYRW) like to think we play a vital role in keeping the “I Can” in Republican by doing all “we can” to help you do all “you can” to help our side dominate, dominate, dominate. In that pursuit, we’d like to review some principles of Mandering Our Gerry and then figuring out where we need to hit ’em and hit ’em hard to make sure we remain in control in Congress.
What It Is–and What Could Be
In our diligent research, we discovered a fascinating factoid. That is, the point of gerrymandering, the practice of redrawing district lines to create new voter pools in a given state, can be one of two: to “crack” or to “pack,” according to Redistricting Game. “Cracking” seeks to water down an opponents advantage by decreasing the number of voters likely to vote for her, while “packing” seeks to drown a district in the number of voters likely to vote for you.
Gerrymandering is at least partly to blame for the lopsided Republican representation in the House,” wrote Christopher Ingraham in an indispensable article in the Washington Post–complete with detailed analysis–on this topic. Eight out of the ten most gerrymandered districts were drawn by Republicans, according to Ingraham.
Honestly, it seems like a lot of trouble to go to for an exercise in voter manipulation that isn’t guaranteed to result in a win, as evidenced by the fact that in the six of ten districts mentioned above, Democrats won. But whatever floats your boat–or sinks democracy, as the case may be.
Related: See some products you can buy to tell your kids you love guns more than them.
Snakes, In District and Human Form
The above handy-dandy article notes that Indiana and Nevada are the least gerrymandered states. Well, what are we waiting for?! Let’s haul ass and get to the lands of prostitutes and poker and Hoosiers and Mike Pence!
Before we go, let’s think about some amusing shapes we can make districts into, because a fun way to gerrymander, we at SYRW think, would be to work from shapes backward to district lines. Sound confusing? Well, in case you hadn’t noticed, democracy is a recipe for chronic migraine two or more days per week. Luckily we have Big Pharma to charge us all to poorly-treat inside-head-banging Anyway, obviously, our main concern in this People’ Geometry Redistricting Geometry Project here is to get Republicans into office, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun in the process, now does it? For example, Pennsylvania’s Seventh Congressional District is shaped like “Goofy kicking Donald Duck,” as told to Penn Live. The only thing that could have made it more fun, Repub readers, is if it were shaped like Goofy shooting Donald Duck, right? How about a man kneeling pray-the-gay-away? Or a woman’s uterus after a botched abortion because there are no legal ones? Or lines crossing out regulations in the U.S. Federal Code? Hold on a minute–lines are far too simple. Forget that one.
Think about it: cleverly-shaped districts could even bring tourists to weird and wonderful districts. For example, a family of four might pile into their station wagon one summer to take a cross-country trip to see that Nevada district shaped like an AR-15. Or that Indiana district shaped like a woman in hijab being barred entry into the U.S. at JFK.
That being said, people who live in Gerrymandered districts aren’t generally amused, it seems. Poor things–still left with the capacity to feel shame, which seems to be a non-existent faculty in most Republicans, both elected and civilian, these days.
“Have you seen what we look like? We’re a joke,” said Bonnie Marcus, who lives in Pennsylvania’s infamous Seventh District, told Penn Live.
Twisted Truths
What can be some of the untoward results of gerrymandering? Let’s look at the aforementioned district, also known as Montgomery County, Pennsylvania (well, parts of it, we assume, but parts of it must fall in other counties–why legislative districts aren’t all the same as counties–or vice versa–is something we can’t help you understand, dearest readers, because we don’t really get it ourselves) and what the chair of its Board of Commissioners, Val Arkoosh, said about it in an article last year on the subject on Penn Live.
First, let’s just note that Pennsylvania is the most endlessly fascinating sate on Earth. Don’t you always associate it with cosmopolitanism (Philadelphia), erudition (its many top-notch universities), liberty-and-justice-for-all (Benjamin Franklin’s hometown)? Then you go to pay for your gas and the yokel in a stained t-shirt ordering chewing tobaccy with a gun slung over his back tells you he’s from Pennsylvania. Suddenly the question that’s plagued you for decades–what the hell is the point of the vast expanse that isn’t Philadelphia?–is answered, if unsatisfyingly. And you think, “Oh–so that’s where all of Maryland’s rejects go!”
“Montgomery County,” Arkoosh is quick to point out, is more populous than four states—Alaska, North Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming—yet none of its five congressmen reside there. A majority of voters in the county are Democrats yet three of their five congressmen are Republicans,” said Arkoosh.
The main reason gerrymandering is the opposite of democratic, a concept that’s based on representative government. is that it makes the already tenuous, at-first-glance-probably-impossible job of transferring constituent needs through sound policy-making into better lives via the actions of elected officials…well, it makes it into a joke. But why find a quote about that to reference when we can just reprint the above one, one that’s totally irrelevant!
Also, when the county needs Congressional approval to take certain actions, Arkoosh’s office has to work with five different Congressmember’s staff. In a time when getting a parking ticket ironed out can take days and reams of paperwork, this seems like a recipe for inaction, deadlock, and everyone’s modern-era favorite, torturous wait times.
And: Why the Rob Porter resignation was more shocking than you think!
Why It Needs to Continue
We may ask ourselves, why should we demand that lawmakers continue gerrymandering aside from cartographical aesthetic beauty? Fair Districts Ohio has a handy-dandy list of four main reasons they say it should stop. As Repubs, we obvi think it must continue. Read our re-listing of it below, but visit that site for a detailed and well-explained run-down of the problems caused by gerrymandering:
- 1. It brings out partisan extremes, because even though lawmakers-in-the-running know they’re going to win in certain districts they still fear primary challengers. A Republican in fear of being voted out will act more Republican to win the primary, instead of behaving like a “legislative pragmatist.”
- 2. Makes votes not matter. “Skewed district lines consolidate the power of the party in control and leaves voters with less accountable elected officials, with less pressure to solve the problems facing all voters,’ according to Fair Districts Ohio.
- 3. “Tears communities apart,” which waters down the power of any one vote.
- 4. “Too few voters” have “too much power,” exacerbating all three previous problems.
Take a Deep Breath
We know, we know, SYRW readers. You’re thinking, “How is the conservative voice going to be heard in a nation moving to the center–even the left–of the political spectrum, Well, may just have to play fair and accept some losses. Do we really want to win this way, by cheating, especially when the stakeholders are actual people with a lot to lose or gain? This isn’t a game, it’s real life, where our actions have real-world consequences. This hasn’t seemed to move many Republican voters so far, as they elected the worst person on Earth for the job of the president last November, but maybe all we’ve pointed out above will have some effect in terms of changing minds a little at a time.
Surely, we Republicans, despite not having proven ourselves to be the people most concerned with moral or ethical behavior in the last year since we elected Donald Trump to office, are better than gerrymandering. Let’s start acting like it.
Also: Oblomov’s Syndrome–the new affliction targeting the right-wing community.
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© 2018 Akbar Khan
