Believe It Or Not, Gerrymandering Is Not The Most Effective Way To Suppress Democratic Turnout.
Steve Bannon once famously said that elections aren't about convincing people who to vote for. We already know who everybody is inclined to vote for. Elections are about driving turnout. Forget about expanding your base. Just give the existing base a reason to show up on election day.
We already know that the fewer people who turn out on election day, the more likely Republicans will win; and the more people who turn out on election day, the more likely Democrats win. The number of Republicans who turn out is usually about the same. What makes the difference between winning and losing is whether the Democrats turn up to vote or not.
Republicans always turn out to vote because they're motivated (mostly) by hatred and resentment. Thirty years of Fox News and AM hate radio have seen to that. They've been conditioned like a bunch of Pavlovian dogs to salivate at the sound of Nancy Pelosi's name.
Democrats may or may not turn out to vote because, being a fragile coalition of self-interested idealists, they have to be convinced that their vote will matter. That it will make a difference. Manchin and Sinema just blew that up for a generation. They just did more to suppress Democratic voter turnout than fifty years of Republican gerrymandering and judicial branch manipulation could ever have done. People stood in voter lines for hours, risking Covid infections just to give Democrats the House, the Senate, and the White House...for NOTHING.
When it comes to raising the debt limit, Democratic Senators are there. Filibuster be damned.
When it comes to funding foolish wars, bombs away.
When it comes to passing tax cuts for plutocrats, Democratic Senators never fail.
But when it comes to voting rights...nah. We can't even be bothered to go back to a TALKING filibuster, like we had before. Mail in voting is bad, but mail in filibusters are fine. Got it.
For years I've argued with my far left friends over their contention that "there is no difference between the parties." That argument is over. You can't use that pathetic old excuse when one of the two parties obviously doesn't even believe in DEMOCRACY anymore. But I'm still having trouble with that argument about "prove to me that my vote will actually be COUNTED; and if we succeed in electing Democrats, they'll actually vote to change things for the better."
Still having trouble with that one, thanks to our friends Joe and Kyrsten. Yes, I can point to Obamacare, and a few other things. What I can't do is tell liberals in red states, where their voices are being suppressed, that Senate Democrats at the federal level have their backs.
= new reply since forum marked as read
This issue is discouraging to us on DU because we've been following the voting rights bill since the get-go. We were holding our collective breaths, hoping some miracle would happen but sadly it didn't. We're blaming 99% of this on Manchin and Sinema who let us down and failed to support one of President Biden's major initiatives.
So we get it, but I'm not sure how many of those once in-a-while voters are even paying attention. We need to redouble our efforts and get MORE Democrats elected, especially to the Senate. Don't give up and walk away. Don't say "Oh well we tried." Instead we need to say, "This is a setback, but it's much too important to give up hope. One or 2 more Democratic Senators would have made a huge difference. We have to find a way to do this."
Obama didn't give up when the Affordable Care Act hit snags along the way. This voting rights legislation is just as important as the ACA, and we can't walk away. We need more Democrats in the Senate.
