My America

Political Sabotage Behind Redistricting Scheme

Posted on March 8, 2018 by CharlieClaywell

For sale signs, including $50,000 off, adorn lawn of Preble County home.

If you can only read two chapters in Ratf**cked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count by David Daley, start with the short chapter on Mapitude. It will give you a feel for how easy it is to manipulate our democracy. You will begin to understand what GOP operative Karl Rove knew years ago — whoever controls redistricting controls the country. Then read the chapter, Iowa, to see how competitive districts can be created allowing the best candidate to win (okay, except for Rep. Steve King, his district is the only automatic win in the state — so even Iowa has not perfected the task.).

As the book notes, the software program Maptitude comes with all the expected political Census data — which regions voted for which party — and that info is delivered at the city block level — which and when election maps are imported — it creates makes it a powerful tool. That, in and of itself, though is not new, it’s just more precise and easier to manipulate due to computer technology, but the program also includes marketing type data — similar to online tracking ads — that enable map makers to project expected voting patterns with increasing accuracy because

…you can create an index that bounds enough of the right people, in the right way, to guarantee a result throughout the decade, no matter the overall direction of the electorate. In states such as Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, and North Carolina, partisan mapmakers used complicated indexes like this with the intention of drawing not only as many Republican seats as they could, but seats that would remain reliably Republican even in an off-year for the party.

Partisanship On Steroids

As an Ohioan whose U.S. Congressional vote has been disenfranchised, I am well aware of the downside that the unethical redistricting maps has caused. For starters, it created an environment that gave rise to the Freedom Caucus, which has at least two Ohio members (including Warren Davidson who presides over Ohio’s 8th Congressional District where I live). The Freedom Caucus does not have a reason to compromise (which the book does discuss). This unwillingness to compromise adds to the partisanship destroying Congress — at the expense of small towns like mine which are economically deprived and filled with a tainted labor pool due to our overly-aggressive approach to drug addiction. No solutions exist at the local level and no help is offered from the state or federal level. So small communities, like Eaton, Ohio, falter while Davidson and Freedom Caucus members push an anti-safety net agenda in line with what groups like Club for Growth want instead of what constituents need.

Controlling Swing States

Although courts are now pushing back against the partisan gerrymandering, the average voter fails to understand that political operatives have more power than them. These operatives seek ways to manipulate the system to keep their party in power. The book looks at some of the key states where gerrymandering has impacted the nation. These include:

  • Pennsylvania
  • North Carolina
  • Michigan
  • Ohio
  • Florida
  • Wisconsin
  • Arizona

Daley dedicates a chapter to each of the states, interviewing and reporting on the key mapmakers in each. Of course, this could become very dry material so he mixes it up with non-state chapters.

Even though gerrymandering is not a subject most Americans care to study, the book is written in laymen terms so the casual reader can understand how it eliminates their vote. For political operatives, the American voting system is just a game of chess, complete with intense, well-thought out strategies, to control the process. The end result, when the system is not seen as fair, is a disinterested public manipulated into accepting a party’s agenda, even when the agenda does not represent what the majority of Americans want.

Ohio is a fairly evenly divided state — which is why we are considered a swing state — but, due to gerrymandering, 12 of our 16 U.S. Congressmen are GOP. And, as the book points out, when the 2010 redistricting campaign was underway in Ohio, the GOP worked hard to keep the public out of the process. Ohio state representative Kathleen Clyde, a Democrat currently campaigning for Ohio Secretary of State, interviewed in the book, comments on how the map-drawing process was handled in Ohio. Clyde notes two tactics used by the GOP, the majority party in state offices, in 2010.

  • scheduling public meetings during working hours
  • conducting meetings without any proposed redistricting maps for the public to view.

Clyde explains,

They do that on purpose, too. Chaos, confusion, trying to make government look incompetent. It’s a very cynical approach designed to keep people from having faith in their government and wanting to participate in the electoral process. When less people turn out, Republicans do better. Especially in Ohio.

REDMAP 101

For non-political junkies, the 2010 GOP REDMAP strategy may come as a surprise which, again, is to be expected due to the complicated nature of Congressional districts. Since the book is critiquing the tactic, many of the counterarguments provided are from left-leaning individuals who feel a representative democracy should, well, be representative of the population.

As Mark Sailing, resident fellow at Cleveland State University’s Levin College of Affairs, notes a level of hypocrisy from those who believe in limited government interference.

People on the right complain about big government taking away our rights. Yet the most fundamental right of a democracy, the right to have your vote count, these same people don’t seem to be worried about it. It strikes me as insane.

The Term

In order to make the book more publically accessible asterisks were used in the title. Ratfuck is a Washington D.C. term for political sabotage. If one watches shows like Veep, they learn that D.C. is filled with people who love to use a lot of ‘colorful metaphors.’

Rating 5/5. This is an excellent, easy-to-read, primer on gerrymandering and why, due to technological advances, gerrymandering is a legitimate threat to democracy.

Categories: 8th congressional district, My America, Politics

‘Dying in Vein’ Another Tragic Look At The Opioid Generation

Posted on March 5, 2018 by CharlieClaywell


Because of the depth of the heroin epidemic in my community, I tend to watch a lot of movies on the subject. Of course most of them deal with the tragedy a family endures after a death.

Dying in Vein does have tragedy, but it also follows a lesbian couple — one from a well-to-do background and the other from poverty — as they work their way through the rehab process. The story line has the expected ups and downs, but this film offer a little more insight into what first responders deal with on a daily basis. It also brings up the issue of the country’s health care inequity and how it is complicating the recovery process.

The movie is about 90 minutes long and is available on Hulu or Amazon.

Rating 4/5.

Categories: drug addiction, movies, My America, Preble County

‘Party Politics’ Reminds Us Why The Masses Cannot Be Trusted With Democracy

Posted on March 1, 2018 by CharlieClaywell

Published in 1980 Party Politics: Why We Have Poor Presidents by Leonard Lurie provides a strong argument why our Two Party political system does not work — and, according to the author, was never the intent of the Founding Fathers.

The book begins with why the Founding Fathers were opposed to a political party approach of governance and ends with suggestions on how to get back to a more democratic system of electing our presidents.

Those chapters are for people who enjoy political theory — the nuts and bolts of political machination — but it’s the chapters squeezed between the theories that more people will enjoy. These chapters are crammed full of succinct political analysis for each president from George Washington to Richard Nixon.

And, the chapters have enough sass, rumor, gossip and history to pull in even the casual reader.

Image Over Substance

With the exception of a few presidents, the author is not impressed with those we’ve elected. He is even less impressed with the political machinery that placed them in office. So even a president as popular as Dwight D. Eisenhower fails under Lurie’s microscopic examination. He notes Eisenhower’s political indifference, wasted opportunities, obsession with golf and the president’s inability to take on Party powers to remove Richard Nixon from his ticket. Lurie also notes,

Eisenhower represented the replacement of substance with image — the president as a symbol, the presidency as a reward. The party philosophy of winning at any cost had resulted in mere popularity becoming a qualification for nomination.

A feeling that resonates today with the current administration.

I’m Gonna Be President

By the end of first chapter, it’s apparent that Lurie is well read and very knowledgeable. His command of U.S. political history is stunning. But, just as impressive as the obscure historical nuggets he pens are the quotes Lurie uses to open the chapters. For example, this quote from famed ACLU Lawyer Clarence Darrow:

When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become president. I’m beginning to believe.

As one reads, it does become obvious that few things have changed in the political scene — at least as far as the mechanics. One reoccurring theme is voter apathy. In the race against Republican Warren Harding and Democrat James Cox voter were so uninterested that less than 50 percent of them participated. A phenomenon repeated multiple times both before, and after, that election. But, as Lurie notes, this is not without some advantages.

Republican leaders had come to rely on the fact that vast numbers of voters saw little reason to make the effort necessary to record for themselves any candidates.

And, and one political operative from Harding’s team noted — people will take what they are given:

We live in a hard-boiled age. No man in this country is every called to the Presidency by the clamor of millions. No man is so great in our democratic society that his name excites the masses.

Harding consistently ranks as the worst U.S. president (until recently) and possibly the most interesting thing about his scandal-riddled presidency was his affair with fellow Ohioan Nan Briton — Briton alleged Harding fathered her child.

We’ll Decide, They’ll Vote

I don’t care who does the electing as long as I do the nominating — Boss Tweed

The most important theme of the book, though, is how the American public does not truly have a say in the presidency. This reality has been proven, and written about, by scores of theorists. But, as Lurie notes, one reason is the party nomination process which bypasses the average voter — by permitting a relatively small group of individuals to decide which candidates will seek the presidency. And, this works because

…people accept government, they obey rulers, precisely because as an unorganized mass they easily fall victim to the predators living within their midst.

Nothing Really Changes

As he discusses the Reconstruction Era, Lurie notes how the appeal to patriotism was strong enough to quell any decent American from supporting a Democrat — a Party that was involved in suppressing the Black vote in that era. But eliminating the Democrat vote did not bring out the best in the GOP he asserts, noting,

Without the fear of political opposition there was no need to provide decent candidates, or even candidates who projected the image of decency.

In our current age of hyper-gerrymandering, it almost feels like he is writing about today.

Rating 5 out of 5. I rarely review political books this highly simply because too many become weighted down in political theory. But, this book is a nice mix of political theory, historical facts, rumors, gossip and lively narrative. Lurie has also written two books on Richard Nixon.

Categories: Books I have read, My America