Census
I hope Obama does not lose Congress to the Republicans in 2010, because 2010 is the year that a new census of the US population will take place, and gerrymandering will ensue.
If the Democrats lose Congress again in 2010, it may be the fifth lost chance. In 1970, Nixon was in power. In 1980, Reagan won, and the Republicans in power could gerrymander the districts to keep themselves safe. In 1990, Bush was in power, and again the districts were gerrymandered to favor the Republicans even further. In 2000, a second Bush won. And now, it will be the first Democratic president's chance to influence the apportionment of the population since JFK was elected in 1960. At least, I think to the president belongs the power to appoint a counsel that will rejigger the districts. Unfortunately, he was cowed by Republicans' putting fear and terror into the hearts of the racist Nativists.
For the Nativists have always been with us, from slaves being 3/5 of a person (not to give the slaves the rights to vote, but to allow slaveowners to have greater influence on the census, to--what else--ensure slavery could continue), to John Adam's signing the Alien and Sedition Act (with a sunset provision ensuring it would end when Adam stepped down), to the Missouri-Kansas Compromise, to the squatters' rights where Southern state residents moved westward to claim more slave states and prevent the northern states from being able to outlaw slavery, to the Southern states being eager to start the Civil War, to John Wilkes Booth assassinating President Lincoln, to creating Jim Crow laws that continued to guarantee that African Americans, while no longer slaves by law, would remain slaves de facto, to laissez-faire capitalism, to opposing desegregation and abortion and fighting violently to that end by creating the Ku Klux Klan, to assassinating Martin Luther King Jr., to speak repeatedly of race war, white supremacy, and making various racist, xenophobic, and homophobic attacks on the different.
They all quieted somewhat when we had a string of Republican presidents who had to promise loyalty to them by the usual wedge issues like prayers in school, government encroachment, attacking secularism, demonizing the Democrats, while not actually doing anything about them. In effect, those right-wingers were what people called their "useful idiots."
American history is a string of backward people always winning.
If the Democrats lose Congress again in 2010, it may be the fifth lost chance. In 1970, Nixon was in power. In 1980, Reagan won, and the Republicans in power could gerrymander the districts to keep themselves safe. In 1990, Bush was in power, and again the districts were gerrymandered to favor the Republicans even further. In 2000, a second Bush won. And now, it will be the first Democratic president's chance to influence the apportionment of the population since JFK was elected in 1960. At least, I think to the president belongs the power to appoint a counsel that will rejigger the districts. Unfortunately, he was cowed by Republicans' putting fear and terror into the hearts of the racist Nativists.
For the Nativists have always been with us, from slaves being 3/5 of a person (not to give the slaves the rights to vote, but to allow slaveowners to have greater influence on the census, to--what else--ensure slavery could continue), to John Adam's signing the Alien and Sedition Act (with a sunset provision ensuring it would end when Adam stepped down), to the Missouri-Kansas Compromise, to the squatters' rights where Southern state residents moved westward to claim more slave states and prevent the northern states from being able to outlaw slavery, to the Southern states being eager to start the Civil War, to John Wilkes Booth assassinating President Lincoln, to creating Jim Crow laws that continued to guarantee that African Americans, while no longer slaves by law, would remain slaves de facto, to laissez-faire capitalism, to opposing desegregation and abortion and fighting violently to that end by creating the Ku Klux Klan, to assassinating Martin Luther King Jr., to speak repeatedly of race war, white supremacy, and making various racist, xenophobic, and homophobic attacks on the different.
They all quieted somewhat when we had a string of Republican presidents who had to promise loyalty to them by the usual wedge issues like prayers in school, government encroachment, attacking secularism, demonizing the Democrats, while not actually doing anything about them. In effect, those right-wingers were what people called their "useful idiots."
American history is a string of backward people always winning.
posted by Alan at August 16, 2009
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