🖙Nathan J Robinson Has A Slightly Stupid Take on Gerrymandering
Recently, Nathan J Robinson posted on Twitter:
one of the things I don't understand about redistricting is: Okay, so the right "rigs" districts. But why don't you just try to persuade the voters in those districts to vote for you? If Democrats had a winning message no amount of gerrymandering could stop them.
I'm trying to keep this short because I don't want to write too many posts about bad (even slightly bad) takes. While Robinson's probably right that Democrats give up too easily and there are some popular things they could champion, it seems pretty silly to imagine that merely having the right message could inevitably overcome strong headwinds in a bunch of different areas of the country.
I don't want to say that anyone is inherently or permanently conservative, or for that matter, inherently or permanently bigoted in ways that makes right-wing policies appealing. Still, it seems fair to say quite a few people are beyond the point where a few strong campaigns will win them over. I've seen people estimate roughly 35 to 40 percent of the population, or at least the voting population, is extremely devoted to Trump1. I think it would be hard for even Democrats who have a great message and back it up with action to consistently get the 60 percent nationally. Figuring out the actual margin of success needed would probably take a ton of math and simulation, so I may be overestimating it. It probably is going to be in that neighborhood, because when you see people talk about extremely gerrymandered maps, they give advantages of like 10 percent or more.
People also intentionally split their ballot or vote against the party in power largely due to wanting change for nebulous reasons and these factors make it hard to consistently overcome a worst-case scenario gerrymander even with a great message.
So while I think it's totally reasonable to demand Democrats adopt better messages and not to just concede gerrymandered area2, I think it is an unreasonable expectation for Democrats to just overcome such strong headwinds, especially when you consider other headwinds they face, like the closure of polling places near minorities. These things are also inherently unfair, so it also just seems bad and not keeping with Robinson's usual perspective to gloss over that? I think the actual good strategy is to make ending gerrymandering part of your winning message so you don't need to hit a home run every time.
I've also seen people throw around various estimates for how much of the population are either fascists or very susceptible to fascism. It's probably lower than the Trump number because Trump seems to be more popular than the median fascist. It's probably some number like 10, 20, or 30 percent (although hopefully close to 10). I don't think it's like 1, 2, or 3 percent. Obviously there's still enough people to win a commanding margin even once you take out the fascists and crypto-fascists, but there's less extreme people who also are very unlikely to vote for you and that starts cutting into the group of people you can persuade. Bernie Sanders, whom Robinson generally likes, with the notable exception of how Sanders doesn't call the genocide in Gaza a genocide, barely breaks 50 percent approval in his best polls.↩
especially since Democrats aren't actually facing a worst-case scenario. There's a couple of places where things are gerrymandered in their favor and plenty↩