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California moves to dismantle GOP map — and Trump’s grip
(www.politico.com)
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this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2025
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Making California less democratic doesn't actually thwart plans to make Texas less democratic tho? It just sets up a neolib fiefdom near the fascist fiefdom so shitty authoritarians around the country can say "look the other side is doing it so we gotta."
You're playing chess. But every time you glance away, your opponent steals one of your pieces off the board. Your options are:
That's the situation we're in at this point.
Or:
You’re playing poker with someone, but every time you get a hand that’s good, they point a gun at you.
So you’re not playing poker. You’re just being robbed.
California's actions have nothing to do with keeping Texas from becoming less democratic. They are thwarting Texas' attempt to help secure republican control of the US House of Representatives and maybe stopping or at least slowing down the fascist take over of the country.
If it helps take the House away from the GOP and limits the damage Trump can do in the following two years, I'm all for it. If blue states do nothing, then the GOP could end up securing an unassailable majority in the US House of Reps just like they've done in so many state legislatures.
While true we're also in the 'do literally anything you can to stop or stall the fascists"' stage and this denies a greater Republican controlled house
I would have agreed with you three years ago. But at a macro level, we are in proxy civil war - we are in the legal phase of a coup of the Constitutional US government by fascists. They are literally deposing our ruler: democratic constitutional law. A necessary part of that coup is control of the government's three branches, and so denial of that control by any legal means necessary is itself an imperative.
I'm at the point where I accept the necessity of using the same tactics, if moves like this can help delay or avoid overt civil war.
If there's anything at all Democrats have to learn in order to win ever again it's that "when they go low we go high" and having a moral backbone is a losing strategy. Cheating and breaking rules keeps letting the other side win and they keep making it easier for themselves, if Democrats refuse to start slinging mud then they're just going to keep losing
"Democrats need to do anything they can to stop the fascists from winning."
"Wait, not that."
Sure but the moment one side doesn't, the house will likely always be one party majority. So playing the high road, can only hurt you
Then what the fuck do you suggest?
Let the midterms go how they will. This is all premised on the idea that texas' map change will secure the house in 2026, when all the signs point to a democratic blowout in 2026.
You are asking everyone to trust in the system and behave as if everything is normal when the system is on fire and about to collapse.
That's the line democrats always give whenever they want to force through an unpopular item. They said that would happen if trump got elected the first time, and when he got re elected but here we are saying that the second half of his second term is when hes actually going to destroy democracy. Don't get me wrong it's a shit situation, especially for the poor and minorities, but the system has not collapsed. This is because established powerful corporate interests don't want the country to collapse, and they're the ones who call the shots. It's why trump chickened out on the tarriffs, they won't let him run the country off a cliff.
Even if trump is an existential threat to democracy, 5 extra seats from California isn't going to stop him. We'd need a supermajority in the senate to impeach him, and that's not happening. If he is going to try to subvert the election then this sort of move only helps his case as it discredits California and allows him to call all the representatives from there invalid. In what case are these 5 reps going to save democracy?
There is more than one branch of government.
Tit-for-tat is actually a good game theory strategy which encourages cooperation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_for_tat
That game theory assumes only two agents though, the republicans and the democrats, when there is a third agent that is losing if this escalates, the democratic will of the people. If Texas gerrymanders to win 5 seats and California gerrymanders to win 5 seats then it's not just a wash as the people of California have lost there right to determine there districts democratically.
If anything both sides have a perverse incentive to gerrymander to further entrench there power in the areas they already have and make it harder for challengers, again at the cost of the people's democratic will. Tit for tat assumes there's some cost to the agents to incentivize stopping, but the democratic party of California may not necessarily care about Republicans getting elected in Texas, especially if there gonna get a majority in the house anyway, which all signs point to that outcome. They do care about getting democrats elected, and this tit for tat will help them with that, so they have an incentive to escalate.
People are desperate to stop the current regime but I agree with you. The Plan A is Texas Dems thwarting it by preventing a vote by staying out of the state, but if they then illegally arrest them then I'm not sure what Plan B can be.
However, this is only a solution if it can be used a threat to stop the gerrymandering or if it is used to push the government to regulate gerrymandering; otherwise it'll just lead to even less pluralistic democracy which will be very hard to undo because people in power generally don't let go that power. Unfortunately, it probably won't stop Texas and if it does prompt regulation, we know GOP only creates rules for others that they won't follow.
Plan C is probably a bloody uprising though so who knows.
Political brinkmanship is unfortunately part of the democratic process. If it wasn't an option that politicians wanted to hold in their pocket, then they could have legislated it away a long time ago. Having Congress be bicameral was supposed to be a hedge against this sort of behaviour, but even the senators are bat shit insane nowadays.