Reflections on the Gerrymanders

 

The original gerrymander

I was confused by reports on the latest Supreme Court outrage.  A decision that allows states to gerrymander to reduce minority representation but not to increase it???  How does that work?

It appears that the answer is that the Supreme Court held that states may not take race into account in drawing voting districts may may consider partisanship.  The practical effect of this was to remove the last barrier to Republican gerrymandering in southern states.  Up till now, Republican legislatures in the South were not allowed to deliberately break up Black districts.  They are now free to do so, so long as they claim to be setting boundaries for partisan, rather than racial, reasons.  Presumably Democratic states could do the opposite -- maximize minority representation so long as they claim partisan motives.

Naturally Republicans are cackling gleefully, boasting about redrawing their districts to ensure that Republicans have permanent control of Congress.

Just last week, Republicans were outraged that Virginia had redrawn its districts to move Democrats' advantage from 6-5 to 10-1.  And given the general makeup of the Virginia electorate, that move, taken by itself, would be egregiously unfair.  But Republicans are ignoring their own behavior leading up to the Virginia move, redrawing electoral maps in Texas, Missouri, Ohio, and North Carolina, with Florida next in line.  

And no, this is not two children on the playground yelling about who started it, or a game of tit for tat. This is about whether Democrats will unilaterally disarm, giving Republicans a complete free hand to draw districts to their advantage while Democrats refrain.  Last week Republicans were denouncing how unfair the Virginia gerrymander was and pointing out other Democratic states that were gerrymandered (sometimes even denouncing states with just one Representative for not having a proportionate share of Republicans!) while totally ignoring the gerrymanders in Republican states.  Now Republicans are boasting about redrawing districts so as to ensure that Democrats can never hold Congress again.  

Sigh!  I know Republicans don't read my blog.  (Neither does anyone else, really).  But simply put, the options are like this:

No one gerrymanders	Republican gerrymander Democrats don’t
Democrats gerrymander Republicans don’t	Both parties gerrymander

So far as I can tell, Democrats, given the opportunity to rank their preferences, would do it as follows:

1. No one gerrymanders	4. Republican gerrymander Democrats don’t
3. Democrats gerrymander Republicans don’t	2. Both parties gerrymander

Republicans, by contrast, appear to rank their preferences as follows:

4. No one gerrymanders	1. Republican gerrymander Democrats don’t
4. Democrats gerrymander Republicans don’t	4. Both parties gerrymander

It is not even clear to me that Republicans are able to distinguish among the other three options.

On the Other Hand

Consider:

August, 2025:  Former DOGE staffer "Big Balls" injured in a carjacking.  Trump deploys the National Guard to Washington DC and an immigration crackdown, even though the carjackers were natural born US citizens.

September, 2025:  Charlie Kirk assassinated.  Stephen Miller pledges an "all of government" crackdown on the opposition.  JD Vance and others urge people to comb the internet for criticisms of Charlie Kirk and have the people making them fired.  Talk of a "Reichstag Fire moment."

November, 2025:  Afghan National drives from Washington State to Washington, DC to shoot two members of the National Guard.  Trump Administration cuts off asylum applications from 19 Muslim countries and starts arresting lawfully present Afghan asylum seekers when they check in.

December, 2025:  Investigations of fraud by the Somali community in Minnesota lead the Trump's biggest and most brutal immigration crackdown to date.

April 25, 2026:  Attempted assassination of Donald Trump, JD Vance and much of his Cabinet at the White House Correspondent's Dinner.  Trump and his followers respond -- with an all-out push to approve the proposed White House ballroom.

Honestly, if that is the worst thing to emerge from the latest assassination attempt, I would consider that very fortunate indeed!

About That Southern Poverty Law Center Indictment . . . .

 

In all honesty, I was starting to feel ready to declare victory in the Charlie Kirk matter and say that it had not, after all, turned out to be our Reichstag Fire moment.  No political opponents or organizations had been charged.  People fired in the wake of the assassination were starting to sue to get their jobs back.  Instead of a government attempt to bring down the Great Leftwing Conspiracy that killed Charlie Kirk, rightwing conspiracists were pointing the finger at each other.

Oh, yes, and Ed Martin was fired from the "Weaponization Working Group," supposedly for failing to do any actual weaponization.  At the time (February 2) the report was that it was supposed to get results within two months.  Well, two months have passed and all it has produced is a report criticizing the Biden Administration for prosecuting protesters blocking access to abortion clinics.  And then there was the prosecution of anti-ICE protesters who really did set off fireworks outside an ICE facility and shoot a police officer.  Some have complained about over-charging.  I was less concerned because (1) there really was a crime and (2) like it or not, federal over-charging is nothing new.  Don't bring guns and fireworks to a protest seems like a sound rule to me.

Well, just when you thought it was safe to get back in the water, the Administration released an indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center for paying informants in the groups it was investigating.  It seems at least plausible that the Law Center identifying Turning Point USA as an extremist group may have been a factor in the decision to indict.  Honestly, most critics I have read about the indictment are dismissing it as propaganda, to justify the far right marchers in Charlottesville.  I am inclined to think it is more for two reasons.  One is that this may be just the beginning.  Other such indictments may be coming.  The other is that the purpose of this indictment is obvious -- to chill any other organization that may express views the Administration dislikes.

Anyhow, back to the signs that Trump's power may be waning:

1. Media outlets bought by Trump allies are willing to criticize or oppose him:  CBS continues to run worthwhile stories on Trump, as do the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post, so I am hopeful on this score.
2. State Republicans defy Trump.  No real change from last time.
3. Republicans in Congress splinter and Trump cannot bring them into line: This clearly happened on the SAVE Act.  It may be happening on funding as well.
4. Attempts to target opposing organizations through taxes or RICO are thrown out, or never materialize:  The latest indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center is a bad sign.
5. Universities, high power law firms, and other institutions targeted by Trump start consistently defying him:  Not much changed from last time.
6. The Supreme Court makes a meaningful attempt to reign Trump in:  He lost on the National Guard and tariffs, although he keeps threatening to ignore the tariffs decision.  Prospects on birthright citizenship do not look good.
7. Democrats win control of the House and Trump cannot stop them:  Too early to say, obviously.  But Trump acknowledging that the President's party tends to lose during midterms may be an encouraging sign.
8. Democrats win control of the Senate and Trump cannot stop them: Ditto.
9. Growing numbers of state and local jurisdictions reject cooperation with ICE, putting more strain on the organization:  No.  This might happen after midterms, but not before.
10. ICE starts losing personnel faster than it can recruit them and begins shrinking: No.
11. Big money interests start standing up to him:  Anthropic has, anyhow.
12. Trump supporters stop making death threats and harassment against people who he criticizes:  Maybe I should drop this one because there are just too many crazies out there.

 Donald Trump has always made his fortune ripping off the gullible rubes.  And it appears that there is not a more gullible set of rubes than the ones on Wall Street.

What Is It About Ultra-Nationalists and Treason?

 This one isn't even thinking outside the box.  It is a widely observed phenomenon.  

In the first half of the twentieth century, a wave of extreme rightwing movment arose all across Europe.  Invariably, their claim to legitimacy was in their nationalism.  They mocked the liberals with their universal human rights and the socialists with their international brotherhood of labor as unreliable and not truly devoted to their country.  When the chips were down, could these groups really be counted on to stand up for their country, or was it only the far right who could be trusted.

And then Hitler showed up, and the far-right nationalists all proved to be a pack of traitors.*  

For a while, we might dismiss this as a historical curiosity, something unlikely to repeat.

And now here we are.  Another rightwing nationalist movement is sweeping Europe, and the US.  And once again, they are turning out to be a pack of traitors.  As Orban's cronies frantically shred documents to conceal the full extent of their collaboration with the Russians, we really need to give some thought as to why this keeps happening.  Because at some point it starts looking less and less like a coincidence and more and more like something innate to the ideology.

_________________________________________________
*One might make a exception for Lindberg's America First movement that looked like a potential pack of traitors but ultimately rallied to the Allied side during WWII.  On the other hand, one can also argue that America First never became traitors because they never had the opportunity.

Everyone Makes Mistakes

 

Me oh my!  Looking back at my November 30, 2025 post on which would be a worse President, Trump or Vance, I gave the advantage to Vance in most categories, but not all.*

The main categories that I saw as advantage Trump were weaponization of government (Trump has been too personal and petty; Vance would be more competent), immigration (Trump might be willing to carve out exceptions; Vance will not), and foreign policy.  Obviously, I was wrong about foreign policy.

My assumption was that Trump's foreign policy was based mostly on impulse rather than any ideological principles.  If his foreign policy has the practical effect of favoring authoritarianism over democracy, it is not because Trump has any principled preference for authoritarians, but just because they bribe and flatter him better.  Vance, by contrast, seemed to have a firmly principled opposition to liberal democracy and a principled preference for rightwing dictatorships.

My focus was on Europe in general and Ukraine in particular.  Given the choice between Vance, who appeared to have the goal of placing Europe under Russian control, either by puppet governments or outright military conquest, and Trump who seemed to be working for a similar outcome more by accident than by design, I preferred Trump, who might accidentally oppose Putin over Vance who was firmly committed against such a thing.  While I generally wanted to see Trump have an incapacitating stroke or wig out so badly that even his Cabinet saw no choice but to invoke the 25th Amendment, I sort of hoped that could wait until things got better for Ukraine.

And things did.  In fact, I am beginning to wonder whether Trump actually did Ukraine a favor in cutting off US aid.  His actions had the result of (1) pressuring Europe to step forward sufficiently that our actions matter much less; (2) forcing the Ukrainians to innovate, and (3) removing whatever restrictions we placed on the Ukrainians.  All of this seems to have rebounded to their favor.  Withdrawing support erratically and inconsistently proved useful because it gave both Ukraine and Europe time to adapt.  So, we just may have reached the point where we can safely turn over European policy to Vance.**

In the meantime, Trump has made a massive blunder starting the war with Iran.  While he has agreed to an indefinite ceasefire and clearly wants out, he also appears to be doing everything he can to make meaningful negotiations impossible.  Vance, in the meantime, had the sense to oppose the war and would be a basically normal negotiating partner who would at least not blow things up with erratic behavior that left no one knowing what his actual negotiating position is.  

So, on foreign policy advantage Vance.  And that alone is reason to say advantage Vance overall.

________________________________________
*To say nothing of the numerous categories where it was really hard to say. 

**Or we may not. If Vance is really determined to see the Russians win, he has a few cards left to play.  He can cut off intelligence sharing with the Ukrainians.  I have no idea whether the Europeans would be able to fill the gap.  It is also my understanding that the clear turning point in Ukraine's favor was Elon Musk denying the Russians access to Starlink, while allowing it to Ukrainians.  Vance's strongest card is probably to pressure Musk to reverse course.

Umberto Ecco on Trump

On the same topic, I am reminded of Umberto Ecco's piece on the characteristics of "Ur-Fascism."  Ecco grew up in Italy under true Fascism and acknowledged that it may not duplicate in full detail.  He nonetheless presented 14 characteristics of "Ur-Fascism" that he said to look out for.  A sufficient number is at least somewhat fascistic, and even one can allow fascism to "coagulate around it."

Some of Ecco's traits may be present among certain rightwing influencers, but seem too intellection for Trump.  I do intend to go over them at length some time in the future, but at present the third one seems the most important:

3. Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action’s sake. Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.

Bingo!  This was a major failing of GW Bush.  It is also a major failing of Donald Trump.  Seeing the same flaw repeated so closely in both administrations makes me think it is endemic to the rightwing outlook.*

And that is a serious problem.

__________________________________________________

*At least in the US.  I can't speak so much for other countries.