Anyone else larfing about this redistricting nonsense? Democrats always cry about it when they know they're losing seats, and to be fair both parties gerrymander, but the Democrats are particularly spooked about it this cycle.
I absolutely detest how transparent the Republicans in Texas have been this go around. There's something just absolutely vile about publicly calling for and agreeing to use bullshit map manipulation to fudge congressional seat partisanship in order to cut back competition in the mid terms. In general I find gerrymandering to be fucking gross. That being said, both parties do it, and when they do it they are pieces of shit. My personal favorite to point out is Illinois, which, in 2024, went for Harris 54 to 43, whereas in the US House, Illinois has 14 Democrats and 3 Republicans. Illinois is turbo gerrymandered. California is another great example, with 43 Democrats in the House and 9 Republicans, despite Republican representatives receiving 39% of all votes cast in 2024. Overall there are more Democrats in office in Republican states than vice versa, so overall, Democrat held states tend to be more gerrymandered on average, but the naked malice with which this is being done is pretty vile.
Overall I think it's just another nail in the coffin for the Republic as the Founders envisioned. I think it's another rung up in the polarization arms race. Republicans will do this, Democrats will retaliate in their states, and we will, eventually, get to a point where House elections will be virtually pointless, at least more pointless than they already are (only about 10% of House seats are competitive). The massively expanded executive authority will change parties every 4 to 8 years, so every 4 to 8 years, we'll rotate which half of the country is second class citizens. It is my genuine opinion that the window for a political solution is narrowing.
Anyway, it's depressing to watch. I'm simultaneously forced to watch people defend Trump for insane shit like talking about running for a third term and reallocating funding for Army Corps of Engineers flood prevention projects, slashing over $436 million from blue states while increasing funding for red states by $257 million while also watching niggers and faggots on the left defend Obama and Biden for what was obviously an attempt to use domestic intelligence agencies to undermine Trump specifically and Republicans in general.
It's a classic case of rules for thee. Everyone demands strict adherence to the Constitution and the spirit of the law and all that until they have the stick.
Yeah I agree with the vast majority of your points. In my opinion both sides have failed the American worker. Democrats have betrayed the working class by endorsing cheap immigrants to replace American working and middle class labor while Republicans have overwhelmingly sold out the American middle and working class in the interest of businesses, encouraging outsourcing of manufacturing and importing H-1Bs.
My post was more of a lament about how good things were, and how good they could be, if only we had leadership willing to do the right thing. Ethical capitalism, social capitalism, whatever you want to call it, it can work. We've seen it work in the US, but there needs to be cultural and institutional changes to facilitate it.
Don't forget they have zero military costs. The US has protected Western Europe for almost a century. I think you've outlined a very good series of points, but don't forget that Europe hasn't had to worry about a major war on their continent in a very long time. Even the Balkans Wars were heavily subsidized by the US while the EU took in minimal Balkans refugees, dumped thousands on toxic waste sites (and left some in places where there are still active mines!), and gave themselves a Nobel Peace Prize for doing fuck all.
You're not wrong. I've been extremely critical of European defense contributions for a long time. I find the state of most European armies to be repulsive. That being said, while the US military itself is in decent shape, the US defense industrial base is shot through. Unironically we need to invest a trillion dollars over ten years to come close to revitalizing it to where it should be.
What do you guys figure is the over/under on any of the Texas democrats facing any actual consequences from this sit-out bullshit kombucha session?
Virtually zero. Quorum breaking is explicitly allowed in the Texas Constitution, and the Democrats did this in 2021 with pretty much no consequences, despite arrest warrants being issued in that case as well. The only thing that makes this time different is that gerrymandering is pretty widely hated by voters of both parties. Most of the time quorum breaks are over shit which are relatively popular in those states. For instance, the 2021 quorum breaks in Texas was over a voter ID law bill which was widely supported. It isn't just Texas, either. Oregon had quorum breaks in 2023 and 2019 where the Republicans fucked off to prevent votes on stuff like abortion rights and Covid policies, which, again, were widely popular in that state.
