The mess we're in

We are in this situation because of decisions made by aggressive Republicans (and sometimes self-defeating Democrats) to allow democracy to be decided in a map room instead of a polling station. The Republican gains produced this week have their origins in a series of antidemocratic decisions, and until that changes, until Democrats work harder to fight those kinds of decisions, Republicans will come into every election with an unfair advantage.

The first culprit is the very data that gerrymanders are based on, the 2020 Census. As I explained here, the 2020 Census was broken and should have been thrown out and redone. It was a census taken during a pandemic. It was a census led by Republican forces who were actively trying to manipulate its outcome.

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The second culprit is mainstream-media darling and chief justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts. While inexplicably viewed as a nonpartisan figure, Roberts has used his influence to deliver victories in two cases critical to promoting the Republicans’ long term electoral desires. The first was in 2013, when he gutted the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder. The second was in 2019, when he allowed unfettered political gerrymandering without federal court oversight in Rucho v. Common Cause. The Rucho case ruled gerrymanders “nonjusticiable,” which means that as long as legislatures claim they drew their maps for purely political reasons, those maps cannot be challenged in federal court for constitutional violations. [...] It set the stage for red states to aggressively redraw their maps, unconstitutional disenfranchisement of voters be damned.

And red states did just that.

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Conservatives also control the highest state court in New York, which is another state that produced significant Republican gains in the House. For that, we have to thank former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. As governor, Cuomo appointed two “former” Republicans and two conservative “Democrats” to the state court of appeals (the highest court in New York). Those four tend to vote as a bloc.

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The consequence of letting conservative judges pick the districts, instead of a Democratic legislature, showed up on election night in New York. The Republicans are poised to pick up four new congressional seats, thanks to, among other things, a victory over Sean Patrick Maloney, the chairman of the DCCC (sorry, not sorry).

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The GOP needed to net just five seats to flip control of the House, and seven were nearly handed to them by New York and Florida alone—because one court stepped in to force a pro-Republican gerrymander and another court refused to step in and stop one.

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If losing only a little feels good, it’s because the system is designed to make Democrats lose by a lot.

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Republican governors, legislatures, and judges have stacked the deck so that a merely good night isn’t enough—Democrats need to have great nights to stay in the game. And if they want to do even more than stay in the game, they have to wipe the floor with Republicans.

  The Nation

Which, so far, isn't happening.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.