this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2025
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If you want to play soccer, and someone else picks up the ball, you're not playing soccer. If you too pick up the ball, you're still not playing soccer. If you somehow successfully forced the other team to return to kicking the ball (how does that work?) then you will be the one not playing soccer.
I want something to happen! I want to live in a democracy. It's not a question of "should we do something extreme to save our country?" It could very easily destroy it. Doing "our own gerrymandering" is antidemocratic. That's why I said something time bound or explicitly/legally tied to a bad action on the other side is at least a little better. Because otherwise how do we ever get back to "democracy"?
Even when a regime is overthrown by violence (another action that's inherently undemocratic but sometimes in service of good) for the next administration to be recognized it's expected they have elections. There has to be some consent from the governed, some legitimacy.
Yes, you're no longer playing soccer. That's the point. The game has changed. You can change with it or you can literally die. Those are your options.
So what's the point of the metaphor about soccer? Just say "this guy is threatening my life. It's me or him." That's a different conversation. And like I said, when force is used to displace a ruler, if the people who do it are like "we've rigged the elections so that we win every time moving forward" then they're not generally welcomed as liberators.
I'm saying that supposing there was such a dire situation that cheating in an election or even shooting a gun to end the situation was necessary, I'd want to know what's the plan to get back to a democratic order. Because otherwise we're cheering for oligarchy. Sure, less immediately threatening than the current oligarchy. But ultimately people who answer to party elites rather than the public.
Even with a trifecta under Biden, Democrats didn't make DC and Puerto Rico states. They didn't pack the supreme court. They didn't imprison Trump and his lieutenants responsible for Jan 6. (Yes, they got rank and file rioters) I'd like to see people who are talking about "gerrymandering for Democrats" also talk about what they'll do to ensure MAGA never returns to power. I'd like to see them explicitly lay out a timeline for when they reverse gerrymandering for all states. And I'd like to see them advocate for policies that people actually want - healthcare for all, universal childcare, free higher education. So that people might want to vote for them, not just against the other guys.
Democrats rightfully trumpeted that Trump was a threat to the country in 2020, Biden won, they got a majority in Congress and the Senate, and then what did they do with it? They didn't prevent Trump from coming back. I want to elect people who genuinely see Trump as a mortal threat, not just people who say that and then fuck around for four years until things are worse the next election. If we gerrymander, we're making our democracy worse. And if it's to elect the same type of people we got in 2020, then there will be no urgency to fix the nationwide problem of gerrymandering, or to really change the conditions that allowed MAGA to take over.