If the Extreme Court rules against Gerrymandering, it will stop the red states from doing it, and that has been their modus operandi for ages. Q.E.D.

If the Extreme Court upholds Gerrymandering, then big, big, UUGE blue states like CA get the 🛤️ clear track to do it.

Anyway, that’s how I see the strategy beyond the obvious one.

It wouldn't surprise me if the "Extreme" Court decided in favor of Gerrymandering in Texas but against Gerrymandering in California, because whatever.

I believe that they adopted that with the Bush vs Gore in Florida when we just rolled over and played dead.

they knew we would with the Bush-Gore Florida vote. They were absolutely positive with the Clinton - Trump vote. The Pizza gate thing, the Seth Rich killing. The fake bombs planted. They knew that we would just write sternly worded letters. They knew the party would just play dead because after all the extreme wealthy in both parties would greatly benefit like they always do.

“President Johnson had at the time a habit of recording all of his phone conversations, and newly released tapes from 1968 detailed that the FBI had “bugged” the telephones of the South Vietnamese ambassador and of Anna Chennault, one of Nixon’s aides. Based on the tapes, says Taylor for the BBC, we learn that in the time leading up to the Paris Peace talks, “Chennault was despatched to the South Vietnamese embassy with a clear message: the South Vietnamese government should withdraw from the talks, refuse to deal with Johnson, and if Nixon was elected, they would get a much better deal.” The Atlantic Wire:

In the recently released tapes, we can hear Johnson being told about Nixon’s interference by Defence Secretary Clark Clifford. The FBI had bugged the South Vietnamese ambassadors phone. They had Chennault lobbying the ambassador on tape. Johnson was justifiably furious — he ordered Nixon’s campaign be placed under FBI surveillance. Johnson passed along a note to Nixon that he knew about the move. Nixon played like he had no idea why the South backed out, and offered to travel to Saigon to get them back to the negotiating table.

Though the basic story of Nixon’s involvement in stalling the Vietnam peace talks has been around before, the new tapes, says the Atlantic Wire, describe how President Johnson knew all about the on-goings but chose not to bring them to the public’s attention: he thought that his intended successor, Hubert Humphrey, was going to beat Nixon in the upcoming election anyway. And, by revealing that he knew about Nixon’s dealings, he’d also have to admit to having spied on the South Vietnamese ambassador.

Eventually, Nixon won by just 1 percent of the popular vote. “Once in office he escalated the war into Laos and Cambodia, with the loss of an additional 22,000 American lives, before finally settling for a peace agreement in 1973 that was within grasp in 1968,” says the BBC.”

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/nixon-prolonged-vietnam-war-for-political-gainand-johnson-knew-about-it-newly-unclassified-tapes-suggest-3595441/

Nixon would’ve lost if Johnson would’ve spoken up.

They one where he was ordering up (talking to the owner of the company I think) some pants for warm weather was fucking hilarious!

I need a little more room around my bung hole.....

Bwahahahhahhahaahah!!

I refer that as …. Bringing a box of cookies to a gunfight fight.

Time to change the strategy. Do it for the constituents of your party.

Fight Fire with Fire. Make it so republicans are scared shitless of the democrats… maybe try some LBJ tactics.

Maybe they should try sending "sternly worded" e-mails instead of letters next time.

I agree that both are issues... I'm just attempting to connect the dots...

Might you lay out the particulars of how you see those to issues meeting up?

Happy Friday BTW!!

________________________
(Unrelated Snark...)

I’m old enough to remember LBJ… in his full term, although somewhat young at the time. My father talked about him all the time… he even said he hoped Clinton and Obama would be like LBJ…..

Lyndon B. Johnson was known for his tough and aggressive political style, often using his considerable influence and forceful personality to push through significant legislation. His approach included a mix of charm and intimidation, which he believed was necessary to achieve his ambitious goals.

His approach would work today. He had ZERO problem pushing a senator, or house Rep, democrat or republican up against the wall and letting them know how it is… THIS IS WHAT WE NEED. Someone willing to get his hands in the mud and shoving it in faces to get things done.

They of course..won’t!

Coalition minority-majority districts were ruled as not relevant to the VRA.

Houston has several. BIPOC candidates win because they're mostly BIPOC, but the VRA doesn't cover "BIPOC", just African-American, Hispanic, etc.

With that ruling, the Houston districts were suddenly recast as not required gerrymandering--they're rather notoriously gerrymandered, to be honest, and the VRA required this horrendous thing we're all against except when we're in favor of it, this "gerrymandering" that depends on the polarity of the gerrymandering for value judgments. Now that they were required, it was just racial gerrymandering that counted as pro-(D) gerrymandering.

Which, to be honest, is how many left of center viewed it. Yes, it protected minority-yet-guaranteed-(D) seats. Which meant that the entire 2019 argument was recapped in the ".". The justification is now that the gerrymander preserves (D) seats--which we want. Unless we don't.

No disallowing coalition districts, no issue.

What's intriguing is when you look at recent (R)/(D) splits in voting versus (R)/(D) splits in state-level representation. The new TX districts makes TX something like 18% skewed (R) versus the last few general elections. Many states are far worse. Not justification, but not all the "far worse" states are red.

Our founding fathers created this problem, and there’s no constitutional way to fix it.

Especially the equal number of Senators per state. Thanks founding fathers.

Texas' move will likely flip 5 seats to Republicans.

California's move can potentially flip 10 to Democrats if they can flip them all.

If this starts a domino effect of other states following suit...
Republicans ultimately come out ahead.

There are 23 Republican trifecta states (full Republican control).
These are states they can gerrymander however they like.

These 23 states have 114 Republican seats in the house and 49 Democratic seats in the house.

There are 15 Democratic trifecta states (full Democrat control).
These 15 states have 130 Democrat seats and 32 Republican seats.

If all the trifecta states Gerrymander to the point there are none left and all seats are flipped, Republicans stand to flip 49 seats and Democrats stand to flip 32.

This game ultimately is a win for Republicans.

We need an end game...

go along with that.

The media continually frames it as Democrats leaving and becoming Independents/Unaffiliated whereas in reality, they are leaving both parties (for whatever reason - in some cases to impact primaries in their states) and becoming Independents/Unaffiliated.

You can tell by the minuscule turnout in states that have closed primaries. And those that have open primaries have slowly been converting to "Ranked Choice" or some kind of "Jungle Primary" type of system.

I am definitely not a Gallup fan (they fucked up during the 2012 election) but here were their stats - https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx

Similarly Pew did theirs - https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/fact-sheet/party-affiliation-fact-sheet-npors/

I also would also love to have greater insight regarding this unknown so as to sharpen our clarity of purpose.

Here's to winning the battles along the way as we fight for our very right to exist, in addition to our freedoms.

that is either apolitical or "politics" is just not important to them or on their radar.

If some issue comes up that *personally* impacts them and/or captures their attention, then they will vote. But otherwise they don't bother. You see that statistic during not just "mid-years" but "off years" from the mid-years/Presidential election years. I think most if not all states have some kind of election (whether municipal/county/state) EVERY YEAR. Yet you are lucky to get any significant % turning out to vote in those elections (except maybe the smaller towns).