Democrats and 2022: the good and the badly ugly

On the one hand, Democratic prospects for a tradition-reversing midterm thrashing in the House are uniquely rosy.

For one thing, the party can count on the past, present and future bewilderments of Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who in the course of recent history has: opposed Rep. Liz Cheney for endorsing Trump's impeachment and yet supported Cheney in her fellow leadership role; condemned Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for her insidious conspiratorial beliefs and yet hailed her as a right and proper member of two important committees; and criticized Trump for having been responsible for the Capitol Hill insurrection and yet relieved him of responsibility for the Capitol Hill insurrection. With leadership like that, what follows is a promising Republican thrashing.

On the other hand, there is gerrymandering.

"Republicans now expect to make gains in upcoming redistricting that could exceed the current 10-seat margin of Democratic control," observes the Washington Post. "States with Republican control over line drawing, such as Florida and Texas, are slated to gain more seats through population changes.... By one Republican estimate, the party will directly control the line drawing for 173 seats, while Democrats will control the lines for 47 seats" (bold, mine).

Democratic legal objections to Republican map creativity will ensue, of course. But hanging one's hopes for geopolitical fairness on what is now a largely conservative judicial system lies among the more precarious designs of mice and men. What awaits Democrats in state Republicans' artistic meanderings is likely to render gerrymandering's original depiction as a rather plain, straightforward exercise in goo-gooism.

We shall see. But I do hope the Dems are securing the virtuous wiles of really expensive Saul Goodmans.

Comments

[Peter G]

Gerrymandering is a subtle science. All you have to work with is existing population distributions and the degree to which you can further bend that which has already been bent to the maximum is suspect. Some good lawyering will be needed to address the more egregious attempts. But I can't help but notice that judges appointed by conservatives, and indeed by Trump, haven't been nearly as prone to ideological whimsy in their rulings as was hoped.

I am also going to put a certain amount of faith in the Republican primary process which, in keeping with the current Republican civil war, is bound to yield some very interesting candidates for them.

[Anne J]

I was wondering the same thing. Yes republicans can gerrymander but does that necessarily guarantee victory? Yesterday the republican party gave the democrats a huge gift yesterday by choosing to stand by the Q-anon lady and democrats are planning to take full and complete advantage of that fact. If Donald Trump was the drinking binge, Marjorie Taylor Greene could very well be the hangover.