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jfc. Did you read the article- I mean even the headline? Do you have any context developed for your question? Or did you just fall from space and expect me to give you a run down of the previous 6 months (and especially the past week) of news on whats happening with elections and gerrymandering?
The reason Republicans are pushing so hard on gerrymandering is because they're looking at a significant loss in seats given just how abysmal this admin's policy polling is.
You're the one missing the context.
You get that this decision, which is effectively against gerrymandering, hurts Democrats and helps Republicans right?
What part of my response makes you think I didn't understand that? This decision didn't change the underlying context which lead to Republicans starting this gerrymandering contest
Your words and how you use them are what makes me think you don't understand things.
Who gives a fuck? It doesn't matter who started it at this point or even why they started it. If Republicans are allowed to gerrymander and Democrats its cooked, and barring like, statistically impractical levels of unpopularity, which no sensible person should rely on as part of strategy, there is only so much you can do when you are playing the game on a broken board.
And I fully understand the math behind gerrymandering. All of it, as in, I've had to develop and implement algorithms for doing similar process for making maps professionally. Yes gerrymandering weakens the map for the GOP, but they'll need to do far less of it because of this decision, and they'll be able to do so far more safely because of the decision earlier in the week.
Oh, I see. It's your reading ability that's holding you back. For multiple comments in a row you've responded to things people didn't say
You just want to argue and it's clear you're not even sure what conversation you're arguing IN.
jfc you are literally confusing Democratic led gerrymandering and GOP led gerrymandering in this conversation thread and then you want to make claims regarding reading comprehension.
Thank you for continuing to confirm you can't read for shit.
Because no I didn't.
They just want to be right, that's all it comes down to. They do this a lot around here, they simply refuse to consider anything but their own opinion, so when someone challenges that, they lose their mind and thus their reading comprehension. They also love to twist your words to make it seem like you're the one that doesn't understand (as they've done to several people, including myself, in this thread).
I'm absolutely right that these seats in Virginia are critical for Dems taking the house in November. I'm also right in that simply relying on voter sentiment around "how bad Republicans are" is a strategic disaster for Democrats, consistent with the manner in which Democrats have developed most of their electoral losses over the previous 3 decades. If thats the Democrats strategy for responding to continuous and ongoing gerrymandering by republicans, they're cooked. Sentiment can only carry you so far when the board is allowed to be so structurally disadvantageous towards one side.
If you have a problem with something specific I've said go pick it out instead of having a little circle jerk side bar. I'm correct both in-fact and in analysis on these issues. Parliment is literally confusing two separate but related topics around gerrymandering. You don't need me to tell you that, you can just read the words they write.
I did, did you?
Since you're apparently going off vibes and not actual math or history, here's a short breakdown for you.
The current House makeup is 217 to 212 (plus 1 independent and 5 vacancies). That's a 3-seat advantage for the Republicans.
The historical average of a party flipping midterm seats is 27, with that number being higher for less popular presidents.
In the 2010 midterms the Republicans picked up 63 seats. This was right after a recession with an Obama approval rating in the mid-40s. Trump's approval rating is currently around 36% and the economy isn't doing well right now either.
Redistricting in the South is underway with some having been finalized and some very much still up in the air. If all those hold for Republicans and - very importantly - if all those new districts vote R, that nets the GOP between 8 and 12 seats.
In an average midterm election, that wouldn't be enough to overcome the expected flip; that's without any sort of blue wave. But there most certainly will be, as it's already underway.
Democrats have flipped 30 state-level seats since 2024 and many more local ones, in some places by as many as 30 points. They have over performed by 4.5 points on average and are D+6 on a generic ballot.
So while this race to the bottom in gerrymandering is not ideal and it sucks not to gain those seats in VA, this really isn't anything to get worked up over. It doesn't mean give up but it doesn't mean not to bust your ass either.
You need to add in Texas and Kentucky.. now because of the Supreme Court decision all southern states are back on the table.
Thats a conclusion for before the SC decision this week. Those states are going to go even further with regards to gerrymandering.
I think thats a hell of a thing to say considering it wasn't until California and Virginia took up the process that we were even considering the Democrats would take the house.
Sure, and Democratic approval is basically the same. Its not like Dems are hitting it out of the park, so we can't rely on their "popularity" to get us any where.
I genuinely think this is a "break glass, pull handle" week as far as redistricting and voting rights are concerned going into this November. The panorama of decisions is that basically Republicans are going to be allowed to gerrymander to all fuck, and Democrats won't be allowed to do anything. That as a structural barrier is enough to give us pause as to whether or not its even possible for Dem's to take the house.
No that 8 to 12 seats includes all those states, finalized and not: 1 in LA, 1 in MS, 4 in FL, 1 in AL, 1 in SC, 1 in TN, and 2 maybe 3 in VA. That's 11 or 12.
Kentucky is not redistricting but that would only be 1 more if they did.
And again that's assuming they all vote R. Gerrymandering creates more districts at the expense of making them weaker, which is precisely why Kentucky GOP doesn't want to.
The House has been likely to flip Dem since the beginning of 2025, before all this redistricting started. This Congress began with a 3-seat Republican majority, 220-215. That is not a big enough margin to overcome the expected flip of an average midterm cycle of 27 seats.
Holy, I get that things are bleak to say the least, however the GOP is doing this because they're looking at heavy losses across the board, not just in VA. I think you're missing the whole picture to be honest. Plus, gerrymandering can backfire as you're diluting the voting pool. I understand dooming and all, but I think it's too soon to say that the Dems will certainly lose the house.
That's not to say this isn't a bad thing, but it also could backfire and cause higher turnout.
Do.. do you just not understand what happened in Virginia or what this decision represents?
First off. The GOP didn't do this. It was a Virginia supreme court decision about a technicality that they are saying the Virginia state legislature fucked up on some timing and details. The GOP wasn't involved. The Democrats in Virginia did this, as in, they were moving forwards with a gerrymander in Virginia which would favor Democrats. So its gerrymandering, but in favor of Democrats.
I don't think you're even in the right museum. Maybe you thought this was an article about red-state/ GOP led redistricting? Which is part of the conversation, but not what this specific, extremely disappointing article is about.
This is about Democratic led redistricting getting shut down by the courts while GOP redistricting is being allowed to proceed.
We were absolutely doomed before Dems picked up and started actually fighting fire with fire regarding redistricting. No buts about it. But we saw a genuine turn with California and Virginia taking up the mantle and deciding that if the GOP is going to re-district, that they would too. It was a genuinely good thing and its why the narrative shifted towards the Dems taking the house and maybe even the Senate.
However if only the GOP is allowed to redistrict, then we're one hundred percent doomed because with the dissolution of the voting rights act, it absolutely does put the Dems at such a structural disadvantage, its hard to see a practical path for them taking the house. Its not too soon to be able to say that. We knew that to be the case it in 1965 because we lived that reality and passed to voting rights act to address it.
A Republican majority decision. Everything after this part was irrelevant or frankly wrong. Like this but:
Crawl out from under your rock. Even decently liked presidents lose double digit house seats in the midterms, they're barely hanging onto the majority right now, with just a couple seat advantage.
Its still not the GOP. And nothing I said was irrelevant or wrong.
You crawl out from under your rock and look at the decisions being made at the SC right now. Republicans have carte-blanc to redistrict as they see fit. Democrats aren't being allowed to respond in-kind. Before California and Virginia took up the redistricting process, we were not talking about Dem's taking the house. Now were looking at facing even more structural barriers to doing so, not to mention the almost certainty of ICE fuckery around the election and the absolute certainty of court challenges whenever convenient, voter roll purges, polling place changes, and whatever else we can and should expect to happen between now and then.
You can't just keep "hoping" things will be fine by following the process, if the consequences of that process failing are that you no longer have a democracy, which is the consequence we're facing. This needs to be treated like a 3-alarm fire and responded to as such. Hope among Democrats is what has continuously led to things getting worse. Hope isn't a strategy.
Yes we were. You deciding to ignore more context doesn't make you less wrong here. But it is pointless continue this conversation because you're still unable to follow it.