Bob wrote:I was just watching Morning Joe and I think Nichole Wallace had a valid observation about what it is that led to this, seaoat.
And I think it also helps explains Bernie Sanders' early popularity (which it seems is now fading however).
I think very many out here (including me) just did not like what we were seeing in the beginning. The stage was set in the beginning for this to be a contest between another damn Bush and another damn Clinton.
I realize you and Sal and your ilk love these Clintons. And Markle and his ilk love these Bushes. And it's going to be impossible for any of you to understand this. But not all of us were in love with the idea of it having to be another damn Bush or another damn Clinton.
This all goes back to house district gerrymandering. The election process is supposed to work such that voters select their politicians. The politician then represents the voter's interest in government. Periodically, voters have the opportunity to continue on with the same representative if they like the results, or they can vote for a new representative if not. The result here is that politicians must always be accountable to their constituents.
With house district gerrymandering, however, that process is reversed entirely. Now, in the house at least, politicians select their voters. If I'm a politician being paid by XYZ pen company to pass legislation that favors XYZ pen company, I can do some polling to get a sense of my states demographics and then I can selectively redraw my district - select my voters - such that it is impenetrable. Once redrawn, I can effectively do and say whatever I want with no consequence. There is no longer any counter balance that holds me accountable.
And that is precisely why we're seeing the republican party fall apart. They have gerrymandered the house to such a degree that they can literally lose the popular vote but still maintain dominance - purely due to gerrymandering. And the result is that we have impenetrable house republicans who are exposed to much less political risk than senatorial republicans. While house republicans can do and say whatever they want without fear of losing elections, senate republicans are accountable to their entire state's voting population. This is why the house is currently bat-shit crazy and the Senate is less so.
This gap between the house and the senate has cause two republican parties to emerge. The bat-shit crazy, knee-jerk reaction, tea-party wing in the house and the less all-of-the-above so in the Senate. With that gap comes competing narratives. We're seeing that in the current GOP primaries.
This is why the GOP is going to produce a candidate who offers a narrative that would only work in an impenetrable, gerrymandered house district. That type of narrative doesn't win general elections, so that is I why I can guarantee you that a republican will not win the upcoming general election. Republican voters in gerrymandered districts have been fooled into believing that their politicians were broadly elected by the voting population, as opposed to the politician selecting their voters. Republican voters in gerrymandered districts have a false sense that what their elected representatives say is actually palatable nationwide. They don't realize that they were specifically selected as a district because they themselves are ignorant. There again, that's not going to fair well in a general election.
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