One for you and seventeen for me
It’s all so…Hitleresque. Emily Badger in the Times:
In much of Wisconsin, “Madison and Milwaukee” are code words (to some, dog whistles) for the parts of the state that are nonwhite, elite, different: The cities are where people don’t have to work hard with their hands, because they’re collecting welfare or public-sector paychecks.
Da big city, where all the Jews are.
That stereotype updates a very old idea in American politics, one pervading Wisconsin’s bitter Statehouse fights today and increasingly those in other states: Urban voters are an exception. If you discount them, you get a truer picture of the politics — and the will of voters — in a state.
Thomas Jefferson believed as much — “the mobs of great cities add just so much to support of pure government,” he wrote, “as sores do to the strength of the human body.”
Wisconsin Republicans amplified that idea this week, arguing that the legislature is the more representative branch of government, and then voting to limit the power of the incoming Democratic governor. The legislature speaks for the people in all corners of the state, they seemed to be saying, and statewide offices like governor merely reflect the will of those urban mobs.
We have the same split here in Washington state: east of the mountains is where the real people are and over here on the west side it’s all granola-munching libbruls.
Robin Vos, the Republican speaker of the Wisconsin Statehouse, drew this distinction even more explicitly after the midterm election.
“If you took Madison and Milwaukee out of the state election formula, we would have a clear majority,” he said. “We would have all five constitutional officers and we would probably have many more seats in the Legislature.”
Hmm, yes, and if you took California and New York state out of the US you would have far fewer cities; if you took Chicago and Detroit out, white people would be a bigger majority; if you took every city over 100,000 people out probably everyone left would believe in god. Or something. But we don’t take cities out, because guess what, cities are not frivolous extras or plots against pale people, they’re places where a lot of useful activity happens, alongside a lot of nonsense but there is nonsense everywhere.
Republican gerrymandering in states like Wisconsin, Michigan and North Carolina have pushed the limits of how much the urban voter can be devalued.
In Wisconsin, Democratic candidates for the State Assembly won 54 percent of the vote statewide. But they will hold only 36 of 99 seats. They picked up just one more seat than in the current Assembly, a result of a gerrymander drawn so well that it protected nearly every Republican seat in a Democratic wave election.
That’s a jaw-dropping set of numbers: 54% of the vote but 36 of 99 seats. That is some heavy-duty cheating the Republicans did. And they did it so well it will never be undone, apparently.
Possibly not peacefully anyway.
Reason number 482 why we should teach more statistical understanding in schools…
Same in Nebraska, even this deep red state has it’s hated city. People out here in the sticks prefer to pretend Omaha isn’t really Nebraska, even though more than 1 out of every 4 Nebraskans lives in Omaha. They aren’t really Nebraska, you see. There are *gasp* black neighborhoods that elect black legislators to represent them in the legislature. Omaha gave an electoral vote to Obama in 2008 (yes, we are one of only 2 states that splits our electoral vote). Omaha is where big city elites congregate to make life miserable for poor rural farmers, who have so much voting power in the legislature that they pretty much swamp Omaha anyway…everyone in our state caters to farmers, and the farmers respond by feeling very, very persecuted.
This can be said only by someone who has never lived in a city. But a lot of people believe it, even some who live in cities and believe themselves the exception. All their neighbors are on lifetime welfare (never mind no one has been on lifetime welfare since 1997), but they, and only they of all the millions of people living in cities around the world, work hard.
As for gerrymandering: Michigan voters this year approved, by 61%, an amendment to the state Constitution placing redistricting in the hands of an independent citizens redistricting commission. Our first non-gerrymandered election will be in 2022. Unless a court case challenging the current districts is successful; then it might be 2020. I was one of about 5000 volunteers collecting signatures and canvassing.
But here too the state leg is playing lame duck games to limit the incoming Dem administration, and undermine successful initiatives like ours.
Part of this philosophy is the notion that landowners (ie, the wealthy) should be in charge. So parts of the state where there’s a high ratio of land to population should be over-represented. Unfortunately, this notion that land should get a vote is embedded even in the federal constitution–it’s both the entire reason for the Senate, and from there, it infects the Electoral College. Every Alaskan vote in a Presidential Election counts for 2-and-a-half votes in California, because of the EC.
Of course, this is further distorted by the way the states go for winner-take-all approaches for their EC distribution.
When them libbruls is not collecting their welfare checks, they’re in bed hard at it breeding up more libbruls. Or else, if they haven’t managed to find another libbrul to breed with, theyre out the back masturbating.
Something should be done about ’em.
But…they’re all on birth control and having abortions! They are having sex for recreational purposes only! The birth rate is too low! Armageddon!
Yes, it is possible to hold totally contradictory thoughts at the same time. Many of these folks can do it in the same sentence.
iknklast, I’ve heard it myself; ‘The English can’t even get work now ‘cos the Polish have taken all the work, coming over by the million, and claiming all the benefits they can.’
AoS, my brother used to simultaneously claim he couldn’t get a job because all the jobs were held by black women and all black women were on welfare!
In reality, he couldn’t get a job because even in Oklahoma they don’t want to give jobs teaching high school history to Nazis (unless, of course, they are able to coach).