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Originally Posted by goofyballer
Right. And the GOP would still have advantages here (e.g., Democrats remain packed in urban areas, GOP voters more geographically diffuse). And -- assuming federal laws mandated the use of algorithms to ensure compactness and we roll back majority-minority districts, you might get less AA representation In Congress. The result then is a potential (not definitive) return back to something like the pre-Civil Rights Era (not exactly, of course) with perhaps more Democrats and even bi-partisanship but a less racially diverse Congress.
From your article:
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Many analysts incorrectly blame this partisan tilt on the extreme gerrymandering of legislative districts for partisan advantage. While gerrymandering contributes a bit to this bias, its impact is marginal -- the big culprit is single-seat, winner-take-all districts themselves, combined with the over-concentration of Democratic voters. These partisan demographics have made it far easier for GOP map drawers in Georgia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere not only to pack Democratic voters into fewer districts but also to pick off many white Democratic House members and "racialize" the Democratic Party.
In the end, I think this is correct. Un-doing these effects likely means a bunch more white Democrats from the Rust Belt and the South; what is the result in the Democratic Party when *that* happens? Remember the radicalization of the GOP and increased partisanship is as much a story about racist southern and midwestern whites leaving the Democrats for the GOP over the last 50 years, as what was left behind in the Democratic Party after the FDR coalition broke down: white liberals and racial minorities. They left behind a more leftist party, a party willing to consider socialism and speak far more openly about social justice as a priority. *That* kind of party has had a specific set of priorities and ideals that are markedly different from your grandfather's Democratic Party. Frankly I think they're better, but this is a tricky area to prognosticate all of the effects of varying policies to roll back gerrymandering.
But I'm confident a lot of liberals who are like END THE GERRYMANDER 1) have their heart in the right place but 2) overestimate the effects and 3) under-appreciate that certain solutions result in a possible retrenchment of a sort of white supremacist bi partisan detente as a solution to the current Cold Civil War or whatever pundits are calling it these days. Your effectively cracking the GOP hold on suburbia, exurbia, rural areas and creating geographically mixed districts. The *kind* of Democrats who can win in these kinds of districts might create a voting bloc that could push the party in a certain direction and collude with the GOP for stuff.
I'm not saying it's axiomatically a bad idea but I'll reiterate I don't see gerrymandering as a primary proximate cause of what we're seeing here, and so solving it doesn't feel especially urgent.