There are a lot of people signing up via email for this blog. Thanks. If you want to sign up, there is an email sign up form. It’s free!
I am using Illinois as an initial example, but what I am writing about is a nationwide issue. I grew up in Illinois so I know it. Maryland, California, and any other state have the same issues.
What’s going on right now is toxic to America and American life.
Gerrymandering allows extreme candidates from both parties to rise to the top. That means extreme ideas work their way into law. Gerrymandering also nationalizes elections. Rather than be accountable to local constituents and their needs, candidates can ignore them and bend the knee to their political party. Gerrymandering also saps the hope of voters. When voters realized that it just doesn’t even matter if they cast a ballot because the race is rigged before they show up, turnout goes down. The only race that matters in some states is the primary and if we are being honest, the cigar chompers in the backroom have already rigged that race even though it looks “competitive” from the outside. The media dutifully carries out their orders and makes it look competitive, even though it is not.
Gerrymandering allows for kingmakers and political machines to arise. It centralizes power in the hands of a few. It allows them to make decisons for you. Instead of being a citizen with rights, you are a number that contributes tax dollars to their best interests.
Gerrymandering allows kingmakers to develop patronage armies that enforce the gerrymander. Those patronage armies are always there to get the vote out, to fill out ballots, and to commit small frauds which lead to big frauds which can swing elections. There is a reason gangs aren’t really dealt with in Chicago and it’s because they get the vote out for politicians that need it. We have unsafe neighborhoods because of gerrymandering. Gerrymandering begats crony capitalism. If you need to do something in some politicians district, they can make life extremely tough for you unless you go to them and bend the knee. Gerrymandering kills the vitality of the business community because it eliminates competition via crony capitalism.
Competition is a hallmark of America. It’s what made us great and continues to spur innovation to make our lives better. Competition is what ended slavery in the United States. In the competitive and transparent public debate of ideas, slavery lost out. Competition makes us great and allows the best policies to move forward that benefit the most people. Gerrymandering is anti-competitive.
Primaries in heavily gerrymandered states aren’t competitive, they are moving chess pieces around the chessboard.
The Democratic Machine has run Illinois politics for at least the last twenty years, if not the last thirty. It used to have a countervailing force called the DuPage Country Republican Machine. The DuPage County Republican Machine was as crooked as the Chicago Democratic Machine, just in different ways.
My old professor at Chicago Booth, Mike Gibbs, did a lot of research into the culture of companies when Company A acquires Company B. The culture of the acquiring company always dominates at the end of the day.
The Chicago Democratic Machine culture was more dominant than the Republican Machine, hence the total abject failure of Republicans in Illinois. They are a feckless, hapless, rudderless party. The Washington Generals of the political court if you will.
Illinois is incredibly gerrymandered and the map is 1000% controlled by the Democrats. The Republicans aren’t even in the same building when they draw it, let alone room. Here is an Illinois Congressional District.
Notice the clean lines.
The US had a census, and in the census the entire national representation map was re-jiggered. Places like Illinois, California, and New York lost representation. Florida and Texas gained representation.
That leaves it up to the states to redraw all their maps and states have been busily doing that.
In my new home state of Nevada, the Democrats heavily gerrymandered the new map. They are deliberately disenfranchising millions of voters. They are artificially suppressing the vote via gerrymander. New York, Illinois, California and all the Democratic-run states are gerrymandering their districts to ensure local, state, and national control goes to their party.
That brings me to my next point.
There are two Americas today. We are in a cold Civil War. It’s being fought at the ballot box, but mostly it is being fought in courtrooms, in the media, and on social media. You got a taste of that Civil War recently as parents across America went to school board meetings to make their voices heard.
Once you realize that we are in a cold Civil War, you have to decide if you are going to win it or not. You see what the other side is doing. For example, the trillions of new spending has nothing to do with bettering American lives. It’s all about entitlements and currying favor with voting groups. It’s straight patronage and it is about setting up new groups.
The Nevada gerrymander is an integral part of this cold Civil War. It’s bowing the knee to the national party in order to enforce its will over the subjects in a state.
Hence, any Republican-run state that doesn’t gerrymander the heck out of the Democrats is doing a disservice to Americans. Why? Because a national force needs an opposing national force. They not only need to be gerrymandered at the national level, but right down to local levels.
Once the gerrymander in a Republican-run state is complete, they need to rapidly enact policies that show what they stand for. These policies need to be relevant. Radical abortion policies are not the right strategy despite the fact that as Republicans we respect life. It turns out, if you go after other policies, the abortion issue will likely take care of itself as people make different choices in their lives. They’ll make choices based on hope if they see a future for themselves.
Go for policies that make a difference in the average person’s life. Any government union is your enemy. Take away their power by taking away their money and influence
For example, school choice. Have money follow the family and student, not go to the bureaucratic Teacher’s unions that run government schools.
Become a Right to Work state if you haven’t. Deregulate businesses and ensure that your state is hypercompetitive.
Lower the costs to run and operate a business and take corporate taxes to 0%.
Redo your government pension system to be “defined contribution” instead of “defined benefit”.
Get rid of tiered progressive income tax schemes and go to a flat tax.
Modernize your governments with software and online automation, getting rid of paperwork and people
End state entitlements except to the truly needy.
Be prepared to fight legions of attorneys in court, and the media is not your friend. They will amplify the Socialist Democrats arguments.
Dig in. Leftists never compromise. They never go away.