4 ms·

> A bunch of fairly Republican districts and a few heavily Democratic districts Something I just realized is that it will always be that way! Democrats do bet

by ars 6y ago

> A bunch of fairly Republican districts and a few heavily Democratic districts Something I just realized is that it will always be that way! Democrats do better in cities (in general heavily democratic), while Republicans do better in rural areas (typicaly Republican, but not in a dense way like a city would be). So if you divide districts naturally by geography they will always appear gerrymandered in Republicans favor.

sudosysgen 6y ago
That's why democracies generally divide districts by population. Geography is largely irrelevant. This was actually a deliberate choice in order to skew the electoral advantage into landed men.
- ars 6y ago
  > That's why democracies generally divide districts by population. Geography is largely irrelevant. That's kind of my point: No it is not. Districts are meant to be contiguous geographical areas. Even if you adjust the geographical size of each district to have similar population sizes (which was your point), my point still stands: Because of the geographical nature of districts, cities will always have a larger Democratic percentage, and it will always look like Republicans have gerrymandered things.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    .... Which is why most democracies have multiple districts per city. It won't look like Republicans gerrymandered it to their advantage, because they won't have the advantage.
jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
The rural vs urban partisan divide is not some exogenous thing. It's only existed in the last couple of political alignments in the US, basically since FDR. It's entirely possible things realign.
- edgyquant 6y ago
  The rural/urban divide has existed since the birth of the US. See Jeffersonian v Hamiltonian economies.
  - hamolton 6y ago
    Yes, but the partisan divide based on political parties historically has been far more along the North/South divide than the rural/urban divide.
  - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
    The rural/urban divide may have existed since the birth of the U.S but the division has not aligned with the same political parties all the time, which would be anyway impossible as some parties no longer exist.
watwut 6y ago
Have you seen those maps? They quite clearly are not geographic city vs rural. Nor geographic anything, they sometimes even ressemble abstract drawings of four legged animals.

by ars 6y ago

sudosysgen 6y ago

That's why democracies generally divide districts by population. Geography is largely irrelevant. This was actually a deliberate choice in order to skew the electoral advantage into landed men.

ars 6y ago
> That's why democracies generally divide districts by population. Geography is largely irrelevant. That's kind of my point: No it is not. Districts are meant to be contiguous geographical areas. Even if you adjust the geographical size of each district to have similar population sizes (which was your point), my point still stands: Because of the geographical nature of districts, cities will always have a larger Democratic percentage, and it will always look like Republicans have gerrymandered things.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  .... Which is why most democracies have multiple districts per city. It won't look like Republicans gerrymandered it to their advantage, because they won't have the advantage.

jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago

The rural vs urban partisan divide is not some exogenous thing. It's only existed in the last couple of political alignments in the US, basically since FDR. It's entirely possible things realign.

edgyquant 6y ago
The rural/urban divide has existed since the birth of the US. See Jeffersonian v Hamiltonian economies.
- hamolton 6y ago
  Yes, but the partisan divide based on political parties historically has been far more along the North/South divide than the rural/urban divide.
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago
  The rural/urban divide may have existed since the birth of the U.S but the division has not aligned with the same political parties all the time, which would be anyway impossible as some parties no longer exist.

watwut 6y ago

Have you seen those maps? They quite clearly are not geographic city vs rural. Nor geographic anything, they sometimes even ressemble abstract drawings of four legged animals.