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Notes -
Redistricting fight
It's been in the news that Trump is pushing for mid-decade redistricting. Yesterday, the Texas house approved a new map(https://www.texastribune.org/2025/08/20/texas-house-vote-congressional-map-redistricting-democrats-trump/) which nets the GOP five seats- while not a done deal de jure, in Texas politics when something the republican party wants passes the house, it's as good as done. Texas has only in-person filibustering(that is, a filibuster in the Senate needs to talk the entire time), so democrats can't delay the map for weeks in the upper chamber.
Separately, Gavin Newsom is pushing for redistricting California to gain more seats for democrats(https://apnews.com/article/california-texas-redistricting-congressional-map-4c22e21d5d4022d33a257045693b6fd4). One problem: California law doesn't allow the legislature to unilaterally do this. They need voter approval to override their independent redistricting commission. As gerrymandering tends to be unpopular with actual voters, their odds are a lot worse than Texas'. Other solidly blue states like Colorado have the same issue that they can't actually gerrymander on short notice due to their 'independent' redistricting commissions.
The other problem for democrats in an all out gerrymandering war is that they simply have fewer seats to eek out. The most gerrymandered states in the union are all blue; red states going tit for tat isn't actually something they can escalate that much against. Combine it with red states not being dumb enough to establish independent redistricting commissions and it's pretty clear that democrats will lose in an all-out war of redistricting.
Wonderful. Another norm for the shredder. At least this time it’s closer to a tenuous gentleman’s agreement than settled law, right? Right?
From my perspective, gerrymandered districts are an insult to the idea of representative democracy. I hope CA fails in its shenanigans. I hope we Texans find a spine. Failing that, it would be nice if our leadership could pander to anyone other than Trump.
But I know how much those hopes are worth.
What part of "the most gerrymandered states in the union are all blue; there is no more gerrymandering blue can do here" don't you understand? The norm goes into the shredder when the first side defects, not when the patsy notices and finally decides to fight back.
You say that the Dems clearly started it. Others says the Reps clearly started it.
Without reading (at least) 50 years of redistricting history, how does one possibly get to the bottom of this? As time goes on it becomes increasingly obvious to me that it's a folly to believe there is anything resembling objective truth on almost any contentious issue.
I read something on TheMotte that appears to be well-argued, some guy replies with what appears to be an equally compelling argument, and some other website has information that contradicts them both. My brain feels like it's going to explode. There is no hope.
I'm really struggling not to read this comment as "without expending energy to assess the evidence, how can I find truth?" Or, alternatively "figuring things out is uncomfortably hard, therefore it can't possibly be done." Except that feels really uncharitable and I really hope that's not what you meant.
Yes, motivated argument and even honest disagreements exist. It's true of most things, not just politically/culturally controversial ones. That doesn't absolve you - or any of us! - of the burden of assessing things for yourself as best you can. What hope is there for democracy, the idea that common people can be trusted to manage their own affairs and be entrusted with political power, if the default attitude when confronted with dispute and contention is "welp, no way to determine who's right here, fuck it!" That's not the attitude of a citizen; it's the resigned fatalism of a slave.
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