TPM’s Khaya Himmelman has a report here on the state of the Trump White House’s national gerrymandering campaign. The upshot is that it’s not going great. Republicans have had a series of reverses of late, each with its own backstory ranging from legal difficulties to lack of legislative votes to resistance from established officeholders in very conservative states. Meanwhile Democrats’ counteroffensive is going surprisingly well. All told, the whole thing may end up as a wash.
There’s a second order part of this story I want to highlight. If you’ve been watching politics for a long time you know of a basic feature or pattern of American politics. Republicans are generally willing to act more boldly, audaciously, or even borderline criminally than Democrats are willing or able to do. The examples are legion. Because of this difference in how the parties operate, Republicans are almost always rewarded for this norm-breaking behavior. That’s how their strong-arm gerrymandering push looked likely to turn out. But now it looks like it won’t. Most analysts figure it will end up as more of a wash. Some of this is due to these contingent setbacks, the most recent of which is an apparently decisive court reversal in Utah. But the game change is how aggressively Democratic governors have moved to gerrymander their own states.
We’ve discussed at earlier points how it’s not surprising that the most aggressive opposition is coming from Democratic governors rather than Democrats in Congress. I’m as down on the Reps and Senators as you probably are. But the pattern tells the story. It’s not that the governors are better or more courageous people. They have executive power. It’s hard to act powerful when you are not powerful. A gifted politician can be creative. On average, this pattern will bear out. But this is still sea-change type behavior from elected Democrats. It’s an analog — I think part of the same arc — to what led to the five-week shutdown standoff.
You do something like the White House did because you think the other side won’t be able or willing to match it. So you net out ahead. If they will match it, there’s no point. The whole exercise is a waste. Republicans are used to counting on Democrats not to be able to match that kind of behavior. So it makes sense they do these sorts of things frequently. But if you know you’re going to be matched, there’s not much point. And because there’s no point there’s a good catch you’ll stop eventually. Because, again, why would you do all that for no gain?
What’s more, as a general matter, blue states aren’t as aggressively gerrymandered. Some definitely are. But on average they’re not. Blue state America has a lot more untapped potential there than Red State America. And that feature of untapped or potential political and power resources is something that applies to the cleavage between blue state and red state America generally. Realizing that untapped potential is key to establishing a new constitutional modus operandi for the American Republic. As Ronald Reagan said, peace through strength. (I know, I know…)