So...I'm not gonna lie, striking down this section of the VRA does suck for us. I mean, it does cost us potentially 10-12 districts. However, we gotta remember, there are 435 districts, and those districts are all in southern states where democrats are largely uncompetitive anyway. Like...I get that it's a loss for us, but people act like OMG WE'RE DOOMED FOR A GENERATION. BS. Dems can come back from that, just gerrymander a few more blue states.
I mean, that's the game the republicans seem to be angling at, gerrymandering the fudge out of everything, so...in the short term, so must we. Again, I'm not really a fan of gerrymandering. I support changes to the house that would make this behavior darned near impossible and ACTUALLY lead to an era of undisputed democratic party rule. I would basically eliminate the rural advantages the republicans currently have. More districts = more granularity = more democrats. In contrast, ten seats? I mean, it can make a difference, but it's not unwinnable. I mean, I currently predict around 235-200 for the house results, so this would mean what, 223-212? Not great, but not terrible. of course, I'm also expecting a huge blue wave. But still. Again, if dems gerrymander their states, we could potentially offset that. I'm more interested in finishing the fight that they started.
And on the racial implications, well, morally, I don't care. Why should race get such preference anyway? I get it, white southerners gerrymander to stop blacks from having their own districts. But then we allow gerrymandering for literally any other reason anyway, so what makes that so special? Again, this is what I think is the real problem with the dems. Their weird veneration of black voters and race politics is an achilles heel of the party. It's a crutch. And quite frankly, part of me is glad to see it taken away. Not because I have anything against racial minorities, mind you, I wanna make that clear. But because the weird pedestal dems put black voters on is weird, creepy, and offputting.
Like, I joined the democratic party in 2012 during the Obama era. I joined...as a pissed off white millennial in the rust belt who was 1) aggressively atheist at the time, 2) leaning economically progressive. But I never cared about race. I always saw those idpol people as weird.
But then in 2016, I was forced into greater conflict with them. And as a white "Bernie bro" i was always lectured about the black vote and blah blah blah, and it was always used against me as a cudgel. And I hated it. And I really feel like the dem overreliance on black voters and minmaxing identity based demographics was offputting. I mean, that was the democratic party that I grew up hating. It was based on grievance politics. It actively alienated white voters. It literally took an existential crisis on top of the worst recession in 80 years to actually get me to vote democrat. And then they...alienated me. They basically told me they didn't need my vote, and while they wanted it, they wanted me to give it freely, not realizing that hey, I literally was a conservative before this point and i dont give AF about the privilege crap.So they used that stuff as a cudgel while ignoring me. It always left a bad taste in my mouth.
Honestly, I believe the dems can do better. And again, I'm gonna say it, if this forces the dems to shape up and consider an alternative electoral strategy where they just cant count on certain racial groups to vote for them no matter what and they have to actually go out and appeal to people directly with actual ideas and policy, well, that's for the better.
Basically, what I'm saying is I hope this decision leads to a democratic party that is far less racial in the future. I have no doubt they'll retain the demographic advantages with such groups. And to be frank, and this is why I'm not sweating the decision, this was an EXTREMELY narrow decision. if striking down that one tiny section forbidding gerrymandering is all that this decision did, then we can move on with our lives. Again, I really would rather the dems drop the race stuff and pursue a different strategy anyway. I think they should appeal to rural voters, semi rural voters, and small city urban voters more. I'm not saying they can win that way, but right now, their current strategy is literally the min max strategy. And that's why we're getting destroyed anyway. Instead of going 40-60 or 30-70 with rural voters, we go like 20-80 and then the dems try to make it up by going all 96-4 or something with black voters and 66-33 with latinos. That's LITERALLY what the dems were trying to do in recent election cycles. And if you're not part of the demographics they're trying to maximize the vote share of, they hate you and dont seem to care. Like, I'm a white male. "oh well, 70% of them will vote trump anyway, so F them." Like, they dont even try. And i've had convos with liberals where they dont even wanna attempt to appeal to such voters because unless they're seppukuing themselves on the altar of white male liberal guilt, they just see them as "racist" anyway.
Again, to me, it feels like a weird cult mentality. And seeing the dems lose their crap over this like we're gonna have one party rule for a generation just tells me "GEE, YOU NEED TO COME UP WITH A NEW STRATEGY THAT DOESN'T DO THAT CRAP." And you know what? Maybe it's for the better. I feel like this stuff has been used as a shield to cover up the dems shortcomings for far too long. It's also been used as a cudgel against white progressives who actually want the dems to move in a more progressive direction for too long as well.
Really, maybe getting race out of our politics or toning it down is what we really need. I keep saying that 2016 was like the original sin of modern politics, and that the hyper identity based crapshow we've had since is why the world is falling apart. Maybe this is the first step toward fixing it and being a proper working class party again. That's what I hope happens long term. Just my view. I know my view aint your normal "democrats" views, but again, I always hated the race crap, so...yeah.
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