Will You Accept the Findings of the Muller Probe?

[Harambe]

1. I feel like we’ve never seen such an immoral narcissist, like trump, in any public office. The guy literally doesn’t give a **** about the office he holds or about the country. All he cares about is himself and the present moment. No thought of the greater good or future. Even Nixon, Hoover, Harding, Johnson, and Jackson weren’t this corrupt.

2. Never before has there been such a well established apparatus of disinformation in America. If Nixon had cover from am radio, Fox News, and social media, he would’ve never been impeached. The echo chamber that feeds 35 percent of Americans crap news and intimidates republicans from speaking out against Trump emboldens (Republican) politicians to do what was unthinkable just a few years ago.

I don't disagree with you on either of these statements. But both of these statements are more pontificating, and less doing something.

 

[Deleted member 365]

Changing a culture is a long, terrible process. Dancing with Elephants(I guess donky's too) is not an easy, or simple task. None the less, it's imperative that we follow through.

Getting rid of gerrymandering would help change a lot imo. Right now so many republican districts are so red that candidates must climb over themselves to out extreme the other in primaries or otherwise be labeled a “cuck” or “RINO.” This creates the climate for extremism and corruption. Create fair districts and candidates must maintain balance and moderation

 

[colton]

Prime example of hyper partisanship.

Collapse that wall of text, and ask yourself "Do I want to see someone telling me what they would do, or lie about it and do it anyway"

False dichotomy.

 

[Deleted member 365]

Interesting.

 

[Deleted member 365]

False dichotomy.

It was mostly a bad attempt at humor since we’ve discussed the details of the Mueller investigation ad nauseam. Cmon no need to rub it in.

 

[colton]

Getting rid of gerrymandering would help change a lot imo. Right now so many republican districts are so red that candidates must climb over themselves to out extreme the other in primaries or otherwise be labeled a “cuck” or “RINO.” This creates the climate for extremism and corruption. Create fair districts and candidates must maintain balance and moderation

This.

 

[framer]

Getting rid of gerrymandering would help change a lot imo. Right now so many republican districts are so red that candidates must climb over themselves to out extreme the other in primaries or otherwise be labeled a “cuck” or “RINO.” This creates the climate for extremism and corruption. Create fair districts and candidates must maintain balance and moderation

Overwhelmingly "Red" Districts aren't the problem with Gerrymandering. The problem is when you create districts that are too red or too blue while carving out a "competitive" district that only leans like 5-10% in the direction you want. By doing that you can split two seats in an area that would lean 75-25 if you just split the boundaries by communities of interest. Anytime you see a district that is weighted 80% to one party, it is not to help that party. It is meant to isolate the influence of those voters to a limited area.

I'm not even going to touch the fact that you seem to think that Gerrymandering is solely a Republican problem.

 

[Deleted member 365]

Overwhelmingly "Red" Districts aren't the problem with Gerrymandering. The problem is when you create districts that are too red or too blue while carving out a "competitive" district that only leans like 5-10% in the direction you want. By doing that you can split two seats in an area that would lean 75-25 if you just split the boundaries by communities of interest. Anytime you see a district that is weighted 80% to one party, it is not to help that party. It is meant to isolate the influence of those voters to a limited area.

I'm not even going to touch the fact that you seem to think that Gerrymandering is solely a Republican problem.

Yeah I’m familiar with what gerrymandering is. The republican goal two years after Obama’s election was to gerrymander districts so that democrats had wasted votes and republicans had safe seats. While it isn’t solely a republican problem it is mostly a republican problem. Why? Data:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ander-but-only-one-of-them-is-any-good-at-it/

"In the 26 states that account for 85 percent of congressional districts, Republicans derive a net benefit of at least 16-17 congressional seats in the current Congress from partisan bias," the researchers found.

Most of that bias is concentrated in just seven Republican-controlled states: Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania exhibit the most extreme partisan skew, while bias toward Republicans is also strongly evident in Florida, Ohio, Texas and Virginia.

Take a look at the chart from Brennan below, which estimates the net seat benefit to Republicans or Democrats in the 26 states they analyzed via the "wasted" votes method.

And

Democrats aren't innocent in this whole affair either, but two factors severely limited their ability to redistrict themselves to a majority: for starters, more statehouses are now controlled by Republicans. Post-2010, there are simply fewer opportunities for Democrats to gerrymander

Finally

the Brennan analysis suggests that a minimum of 16 to 17 seats are in Republican hands because of partisan gerrymandering alone. There's one huge piece of damning evidence in support of this notion: "All of the states we found to have extreme partisan bias had maps drawn solely by one party," they found. Specifically, the Republican party.

And we wonder why they’re so afraid of speaking out against trump? By creating such gerrymandered and Safe districts, republicans have eliminated the threats from their left flank. Their primary threat is someone primarying against them hoping to “out trump” them.

That, among other factors, is what’s leading to such a sharp increase in extremism in the Republican Party. Of the two parties, one has gone off the rails.

 

[JazzGal]

My theory: Trump didn't want to be president (other than the ego-boost of campaigning and then actually being elected). He has been trying everything he can to get kicked out of office, but nothing happens. So he keeps getting more and more outrageous, assuming that at some point he'll cross a line that will not be tolerated. There apparently is no such line.

We get the government we deserve.

 

[framer]

Yeah I’m familiar with what gerrymandering is. The republican goal two years after Obama’s election was to gerrymander districts so that democrats had wasted votes and republicans had safe seats. While it isn’t solely a republican problem it is mostly a republican problem. Why? Data:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ander-but-only-one-of-them-is-any-good-at-it/



And



Finally



And we wonder why they’re so afraid of speaking out against trump? By creating such gerrymandered and Safe districts, republicans have eliminated the threats from their left flank. Their primary threat is someone primarying against them hoping to “out trump” them.

That, among other factors, is what’s leading to such a sharp increase in extremism in the Republican Party. Of the two parties, one has gone off the rails.

So you are saying that Republicans have disproportionate representation because they won more statewide races? If given the chance, Democrats gerrymander without guilt it's just that, in the last decade, they have received less votes to do so. Look at your Democratic congressional delegation. How many Blue Dogs do you see? In your world, nothing is EVER the fault of Democrats, every evil and inconvenient thing in the world is the fault of someone OTHER than the group that you belong to.

And yet you sit here complaining about political extremism? Self aware much?

 

[Zombie]

So you are saying that Republicans have disproportionate representation because they won more statewide races? If given the chance, Democrats gerrymander without guilt it's just that, in the last decade, they have received less votes to do so. Look at your Democratic congressional delegation. How many Blue Dogs do you see? In your world, nothing is EVER the fault of Democrats, every evil and inconvenient thing in the world is the fault of someone OTHER than the group that you belong to.

And yet you sit here complaining about political extremism? Self aware much?

He pointed out a paragraph explaining that Democrats aren't innocent in this either ffs.

 

[Deleted member 365]

So you are saying that Republicans have disproportionate representation because they won more statewide races? If given the chance, Democrats gerrymander without guilt it's just that, in the last decade, they have received less votes to do so. Look at your Democratic congressional delegation. How many Blue Dogs do you see? In your world, nothing is EVER the fault of Democrats, every evil and inconvenient thing in the world is the fault of someone OTHER than the group that you belong to.

And yet you sit here complaining about political extremism? Self aware much?

Thanks for ignoring the last post. Are you even going to try to discuss the points raised in that previous post? I mean, you insinuated that “both sides” seemed equally at fault with gerrymandering. Something clearly dismantled in my previous post, the one you ignored. So if you hope to proceed with this discussion, you’ll need to address those points.

Democrats are doing a better job of engaging at the local level than before. Currently, Dems have 23 governorships. That’s better than they did in 2008 and 2010.

It’s still a struggle as Democratic strongholds are where the most population base centers are, the coasts. That leaves a lot of land space in the middle that automatically make it more difficult (not impossible) for democrats to compete. Additionally, there are cultural and economic shifts that are leading to polarization. However, gerrymandering is one of the leading causes of dysfunction in our democracy as it hinders representative democracy, discourages moderation, and shields legislators from accountability. Why work with the other side of you know you’re in a gerrymandered district and will be protected by extremism?

In 2008 and 2010 republicans owned a majority of state legislatures and governorships.

This effort led to the most blatant gerrymandering we’ve seen which has led (no surprise) to an extremist congress that’s afraid to stand up to Trump. Now be careful with your next post, it’ll determine whether this discussion continues or ends with me blocking you.