Gerrymandering and Geographic Sorting

A Crisis Coming

1. According to Leonhardt (2022), the first threat is the Republican party’s refusal to accept defeat in an election. The second threat is the power to align government policy with public opinion. The author suggests that a Supreme Court dominated by Republicans will do just that.

2. The author argues that causes of counter-majoritarianism include the Senate and the Electoral College. In short, people are not represented in the system. This leads to the problem.

3. Geographic sorting is the settlement of people in regions according to ideological beliefs. Liberals head to California and big cities like New York. Conservatives head for the other places.

4. It leads to gerrymandering and determines who gets represented in Congress. It determines what legislation is called. It leads to who gets elected President and who is appointed to the SC.

5. Gerrymandering is reshaping of counties so as to get more of one set of voters in a difference making county. It helps determine outcomes of elections. The author argues only Republicans benefit from this.

6. The role of media in intensifying threats to democracy, according to this author, is that it spreads lies. It all depends on who you ask, though. Someone who believes legacy media is a wing of the deep state would have a different view on who in media is lying.

7. The author represents a number of left-wing talking points. I don’t find any of his arguments to be convincing. His solutions are based on invalid premises.