Beto O’Rourke’s Message to Blue-State Governors on Redistricting: “Quit F—ing Around and Waiting”
“There’s no consequence or penalty for Trump redrawing the maps in Texas mid-decade,” the former statewide hopeful tells Texas Monthly. “Stop pretending like there is.”
Create
You're viewing a single thread.
This is the game now. There are no refs; no fouls are going to be called. There’s no consequence or penalty for Trump redrawing the maps in Texas mid-decade. Stop pretending like there is.
The danger is not that Republicans will win. The danger is that the American tradition of democracy will be permanently damaged. Democrats can't avert that by becoming part of the problem. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that the only victory possible is a victory won despite refusing to resort to tactics of this sort. Anything else is a defeat.
Do you think the American tradition of democracy has not been permanently damaged and will not continue to be permanently damaged by Republicans in the future? These are completely legal tactics as adjudicated by the Supreme Court. There are no prizes for going high except watching the country descend further into authoritarianism.
The American tradition of democracy is exactly that - a set of traditions built up over centuries. It is more than just the law. Republicans have done and continue to do serious, permanent damage, and the main way in which they do that damage is by violating those traditions. If the goal is to stop the damage, the means of attaining that goal has to include the defense of traditions.
Or, uphold the law, and fuck traditions. Rules and norms that aren't a written part of the law got us into this mess. They aren't going to get us out of it.
The Democrats have been doing it your way for decades and we subsequently now have secret police putting people in concentration camps for slave labor. Your way already lost because traditions aren't legally enforcable. We have to actually win first in order to then enshrine those traditions and standards as enforcable law.
What you're missing is that these traditions only exist as a peace treaty. Your attitude is precisely why that peace treaty has been broken. Your belief is why democratic norms have eroded so much.
Every democracy depends on both sides respecting democratic norms. It is impossible to write any law or constitution in a way that cannot be abused by bad-faith interpretations and bad-faith actors. Democracy only works if both sides come together and say, "well, we know we could find some twisted interpretation of the law to meet our goals, but the other side can do the same, so we'll both just agree to follow reasonable norms. If we both keep doing this, both keep escalating, eventually we'll end up killing each other."
Democracy is a peace treaty. And you have forgotten this. It was this balance of power that enabled democracies to start in the first place. Ultimately, democracy is an alternative to civil war. We're supposed to debate things in good faith instead of killing each other.
However, in recent years, Democrats have forgotten this. It's the Obama disease, and your disease as well, the cowardly "they go low, we go high." Well Republicans have realized that the balance of power no longer exists. They can violate any and every norm, and Democrats will simply turn around, bend over and take it, and never respond in kind. It's this spineless, sniveling, submissive attitude that is currently destroying American democracy. Republicans can break norm, violate any peace treaty, and Democrats will simply tut tut and never respond in kind.
The thing about democracy is that again, it is a peace treaty. If you want democracy to survive, both sides need to be willing to escalate things all the way to the point of civil war. You need to be willing to return any escalation, all the way to the point of literally killing the other side if need be. Otherwise you just get trampled. Democracy is a balancing act. A tug of war. And Democrats like yourself have forgotten how to pull the rope.
You are responsible for the decline of American democracy.
The danger is not that Republicans will win.
We literally have a masked police squad with more funding than most armies roaming the streets disappearing people including US citizens. Get your head out of the sand.
The danger is that the American tradition of democracy will be permanently damaged
It already has been. There is no going back at this point without restructuring the entire government. We might as well do what we can now to stop what we can.
It already has been.
Ah. In for a penny, then?
Oh shut up.
Here you are being a deranged gross loser again.
If only Democrats would actually fight like they believe in something more important than "the process".
America's tradition of democracy is dead, and it was always kind of a joke anyways. If the Democrats want to revive democracy then let them start with their own fucked up primary process. They have complete control over that, and it's even worse than the electoral collage fuckery.
It would be ideal to win without gerrymandering like it would've been ideal to become a nation without fighting a war with England.
Massive nitpick: Ideally America wouldn't have become a nation at all, or at least not when it did. The reason the War of Independence happened was because Parliament massively bungled the issues the colonies had with tax policy, not because America was fulfilling its destiny of independence against the wishes of Great Britain. It was only after Britain thoroughly and consistently messed up that the independence movement started gaining real steam.
The danger is that the American tradition of democracy will be permanently damaged
Republicans gaining power does damage, likely permanent damage. People will die. There's a concentration camp. Like, what are you even thinking
What traditions? The ones where “democracy” has been a long, bloody fight for anyone isn’t a specific kind of white person to get the right to vote? The ones where people vote for representatives that largely ignore them in favour of whichever rich person bribes them? The ones where gerrymandering have led to the GOP consistently losing the popular vote and still winning? The ones that saw Al Gore get the election stolen from under him in broad daylight with no consequences? The one that allows absurd levels of propaganda to flow and poison the country like raw sewage down a well?
The US wouldn’t know democracy if it were a freight train at full steam and the country was tied to the tracks. It’s a thin veneer we all know is full of shit.
Nah, that's horseshit. Sherman showed us how to respond to these traitorous freaks.
Democrats can’t avert that
by becoming part of the problem.
FTFY
The problem is already there: always was. Government was founded on sand: the rules for allocating votes were always unsound.