In a few days, 2018 will be upon us, and before long we'll start seeing ads for the 2018 elections. While a lot of liberals are excited about the Democrats' chance to take back control of Congress, other liberal insists that Democrats chances are doomed because of Republican gerrymandering. The naysayers feel gerrymandering efforts by Republican-controlled state legislatures have created so many safe Republican congressional districts, that it will be nearly impossible for Democrats to take control of Congress.
Well, I'm here to tell you that those naysayers are wrong. I believe that these Republican gerrymandering efforts will lead to a huge Democratic wave in 2018.
Why? Well, let me start by reviewing what gerrymandering can or cannot do for a political party.
Gerrymandering CAN be used to make legislative districts more safe for a political party.
Gerrymandering CAN be used to help a political party win more legislative districts.
However, gerrymandering CANNOT be used to help a political party win more districts AND make districts more safe. It's mathematically impossible to accomplish both these goals at the same time.
I'll illustrate this by going over a few theoretical examples. For these examples, we'll assume that there are 10 districts, and 1,000,000 voters, and that the Republican party has the power to gerrymander these 10 districts any way they want. Based on those parameters, let's look over a few scenarios.
Scenario 1 : Gerrymandering to make districts more safe.
Let's say that in an average year, the vote totals in these 10 districts are approximately the following:
District
GOP Votes
DEM Votes
GOP %
DEM %
1
52,500
47,500
52.5
47.5
2
52,500
47,500
52.5
47.5
3
52,500
47,500
52.5
47.5
4
52,500
47,500
52.5
47.5
5
52,500
47,500
52.5
47.5
6
47,500
52,500
47.5
52.5
7
47,500
52,500
47.5
52.5
8
47,500
52,500
47.5
52.5
9
47,500
52,500
47.5
52.5
10
47,500
52,500
47.5
52.5
So, in a normal year, the GOP wins 5 districts by 5 points and loses 5 districts by 5 points, and the GOP wins 50% of the overall vote. However, let's say the GOP becomes aware that upcoming election will be far from normal and that Democrats are expected win about 55% of the vote on average and thus win a normal even district by 10 points. In that case we would expect that 550,000 total votes would be cast for Democrats and 450,000 total votes would be cast for Republicans. If this happened, and the GOP did not try to gerrymander these districts, we would expect the vote to go this way ...
District
GOP Votes
DEM Votes
GOP %
DEM %
1
47,500
52,500
47.5
52.5
2
47,500
52,500
47.5
52.5
3
47,500
52,500
47.5
52.5
4
47,500
52,500
47.5
52.5
5
47,500
52,500
47.5
52.5
6
42,500
57,500
42.5
57.5
7
42,500
57,500
42.5
57.5
8
42,500
57,500
42.5
57.5
9
42,500
57,500
42.5
57.5
10
42,500
57,500
42.5
57.5
... and the GOP would lose all 10 districts.
However, the GOP could prevent this loss of 5 districts by gerrymander the districts. For example, the GOP could gerrymander these 10 districts in a such a way, that in a normal year ( when there are an equal number of GOP votes and DEM votes ), the election results would be as follows ...
District
GOP Votes
DEM Votes
GOP %
DEM %
1
57,500
42,500
57.5
42.5
2
57,500
42,500
57.5
42.5
3
57,500
42,500
57.5
42.5
4
57,500
42,500
57.5
42.5
5
57,500
42,500
57.5
42.5
6
42,500
57,500
42.5
57.5
7
42,500
57,500
42.5
57.5
8
42,500
57,500
42.5
57.5
9
42,500
57,500
42.5
57.5
10
42,500
57,500
42.5
57.5
So, in this scenario, GOP gerrymandering has turned districts 1 - 5 into "safe" Republican districts in which a Republican would be expected to win by 15 points in an average year. In a year in which Democrats were expected to have a 10 point advantage over Republicans, we would expect the election results to go this way in the gerrymandered districts ...
District
GOP Votes
DEM Votes
GOP %
DEM %
1
52,500
47,500
52.2
47.5
2
52,500
47,500
52.2
47.5
3
52,500
47,500
52.2
47.5
4
52,500
47,500
52.2
47.5
5
52,500
47,500
52.2
47.5
6
37,500
62,500
37.5
62.5
7
37,500
62,500
37.5
62.5
8
37,500
62,500
37.5
62.5
9
37,500
62,500
37.5
62.5
10
37,500
62,500
37.5
62.5
So, in this scenario, gerrymandering would help Republicans keep control of half of the districts, even though Democrats won 55% of the total vote.
The gerrymandering I've described here is what I like to call defensive gerrymandering.
Scenario 2 : Gerrymandering to win more districts.
Let's say that in the area covered by 10 districts, the Republicans win 54% of the vote in an average year. The population is spread across these 10 districts in such a way that Republicans usually win 6 out of the 10 districts.
District
GOP Votes
DEM Votes
GOP %
DEM %
1
60,000
40,000
60
40
2
60,000
40,000
60
40
3
60,000
40,000
60
40
4
60,000
40,000
60
40
5
60,000
40,000
60
40
6
60,000
40,000
60
40
7
45,000
55,000
45
55
8
45,000
55,000
45
55
9
45,000
55,000
45
55
10
45,000
55,000
45
55
In this scenario, the GOP decides to gerrymander these 10 districts in such a way, that they will win each of these 10 districts by about 54% to 46% in an average year.
District
GOP Votes
DEM Votes
GOP %
DEM %
1
54,000
46,000
54
46
2
54,000
46,000
54
46
3
54,000
46,000
54
46
4
54,000
46,000
54
46
5
54,000
46,000
54
46
6
54,000
46,000
54
46
7
54,000
46,000
54
46
8
54,000
46,000
54
46
9
54,000
46,000
54
46
10
54,000
46,000
54
46
This is what I like to call offensive gerrymandering. The Republican Party has been using offensive gerrymandering quite a bit over the last decade to help win extra seats in the House of Representatives. However, as is illustrated in the two tables above, the GOP gerrymandering effort has turned 6 extremely safe districts into 10 fairly safe districts. That's great for a GOP in a typical, year, but in an election cycle in which the Democrats are much more popular that Republicans, "fairly safe" districts are no longer safe at all. In the gerrymandered scenario above, if the national electorate swings more than 8 points in the Democrats' direction, the Democrats could potentially win all 10 of the districts above.
If you look at the latest congressional generic ballot, you'll see that Democrats currently ( as of 12/29/17 ) have a 12.9% advantage over Republicans.
You can click here for the most recent generic ballot results.
Of course, these generic polls are no guarantee that the Democrats will have such a large advantage come Election Day 2018, but I think there is a very good chance that the Democrats will be able to win a lot of those "fairly safe" Republican districts that were created by gerrymandering. The Republicans may think their gerrymandering efforts will ensure that they'll keep control of the House of Representatives for years to come, but I think they are sitting on a gerrymander bomb that is about to go off in 2018.
I usually try not to write about the same topic for two blog posts in a row. However, as I sit here writing this sentence today ( November 29, 2017 ), Matt Lauer and Garrison Keillor have been added to the list of sexual harassers who have been exposed, and I'm sure a few more men will be added to the list by the time you read this. There may be more important things going in the world right now ( the GOPs horrible tax bill and the looming threat of a nuclear exchange with North Korea come to mind ), but I don't think anything else captures the climate of our nation right now more than our long-overdue national discussion about sexual harassment.
With that in mind, I like to propose an idea I have for limiting all this reprehensible behavior from men. It's a completely impractical idea, that would be almost impossible to put into practice. In fact, it's more of a dream than a practical idea, but sometimes dream is all we have when the real world seems hopeless. So, I invite you to suspend your disbelief a little bit and dream this dream with me.
Back when I was a child, my mother told me about Sadie Hawkins Day. Sadie Hawkins Day doesn't hold much cultural currency today, but back in my Mom's day, each November 15th marked the day when woman were encouraged to break cultural norms by asking men out on dates.
So, assuming you've decided to dream along with me, let's dream of a world in which every day is Sadie Hawkins Day. Let's dream of world in which it is the cultural norm for women to ask men out on dates, and it is strongly frowned upon for men to ask women out on dates or to ever make the first move in initiating a romantic relationship. I believe that such a world would have far fewer incidents of sexual harassment than our world today.
It would also be a far less sexist world. There is something inherently sexist about the idea that men are expected to pursue women, as if men are hunters and the women are their prey. There is something inherently objectifying about the idea that women are prizes to be won.
I know that some people might argue that if woman and men switched traditional courtship roles, we'd just wind up with a world in which women regularly sexually harassed men. However, I believe that argument can be shot down with just one letter - Y, as in the Y chromosome.
Due to genetic differences, a man will almost always be significantly taller, heavier, and stronger than a women he might have romantic interest in. Of course there are some exceptions to this, and there are certainly some well-trained female martial artists who could kick a much larger man's ass, but in general, a man would more physically intimidating than a women he might be attracted to. So, when a man makes an unwanted romantic or sexual advance on a woman, I've got to imagine that the woman must sometimes sense the potential for physical intimidation. I'm not going to pretend to understand how often a woman feels the threat of physical violence when she rejects a man's romantic advances, but based what I've heard women say about cat-calling, I'm got to imagine that an unwanted romantic or sexual advance can sometimes produces the same feelings of fear that cat-calling can.
So, there's almost always the potential for fear and intimidation when a man makes a romantic advance on a women, but this is almost never the case when a woman make a romantic advance on a man. That potential for fear and intimidation gives the male sexual harasser a kind of power over his female victims. A female sexual harasser would have the same kind of power over a male victim. Women certainly can sexually harass men based on financial power ( "financial power" in this context includes the ability to fire a person or damage a person's career prospects ), but I don't think a woman with financial power is as likely to sexually harass the opposite sex as a man with financial power, because I believe that people are more likely to act terribly towards another person if they are confident that the other person will not respond with physical violence. For that reason, I believe that men in positions of power are far more likely to harass members of the opposition sex than woman in positions of power are. For similar reasons, I think women would be far less likely to commit sexual assault against the opposite sex than men, even if women adopted men's traditional aggressive role in initiating romantic relationships. This isn't necessarily because women are more noble than than men ( although they almost certainly are ), but simply because there are not many ways a woman could sexual assault a man. To borrow a term from Todd Akin, a man would always be able to "shut that whole thing down" if a woman tried to rape him, but a female victim of sexual assault would never have that option.
So, if we lived in a Sadie Hawkins Day world, I believe thing would be better for everybody. Women would have to deal with less harassment and would almost never have to worry about creepy unwanted suitors, and I think most men would be just fine with the idea of women initiating all romantic relationships. I don't think I know a single man who was ever upset about being asked out by a woman. On the contrary, being hit on by a woman gives a man a huge ego boost ( regardless of whether the man is attracted to the woman or not ), and most men just love to have their egos stroked.
Of course, we don't live in a Sadie Hawkins Day world, and I doubt we ever will. However, I think it would be good if society took some steps towards that ideal. Even if men continued to ask women out, I think it would be very beneficial if more women asked men out. I'm well aware that plenty of women in the 21st century have no problem hitting on men, but there are still plenty of women who stick to traditional gender norms when it comes to dating. It would be great if our society got to the point were women were just as likely as men to make their romantic intentions know to the people they were attracted to. As things stand now, I think a lot of women still believe in the traditional idea that a woman should give a man "signals" and "hints" if she is interested in him, rather than directly approach him. The problem with this state of affairs is that it gives some men an excuse to look for romantic signals that are not really there. I believe that some sexual harassers invent romantic signals that are not really there, and convince themselves that those invented signals gives them license to aggressively pursue and harass woman. Of course, these men who sexually harass women based on romantic signals ( real or invented ) are simply monsters who don't know how to treat other human beings with respect. These monstrous types of men are going to be terrible people regardless of gender conventions and courtship roles, but it would be nice if our society was structured in a way they would reign them in some more.
The more I think about it, the more depressed I fell about the sad stare of affairs in when it comes sexual harassment. Here I am suggesting that we think about making major changes to our courtships conventions, because I don't really feel believe men will stop sexually harassing woman unless societal conventions make it more difficult for them to do so. Who know, maybe the prevalence of dating apps will fix this all someday in the future. Maybe the people of the future will rather just swipe left and right rather approaching the people they are attracted to directly. That loss of human connection would be really sad, but would it really be much worse than what is going on today.
Oh, by the way, now that a day has past since I started this post, I might well add Russell Simmons to the list of sexual harassers. No matter what day you read this, you could probably add a new name to the list every day.
October in the USA is generally a good time to talk about scary monsters. Most years, these monsters are just part of the Halloween fun, but this year, a different category of monsters has been in the spotlight. These monsters have existed throughout all of human history, but only recently have we paid enough attention to them. These monsters aren't goblins, ghosts, and ghouls, but instead go by names like Weinstein, Toback, and Halperin. As scary as these monsters are, what's even more scary is the realization that so many more of these monsters are still lurking in the shadows.
While it's horrible that these men did such horrible things to women, it's great that so many of their victims have decided to speak out, and that millions of other woman have joined them in the #MeToo social media campaign. Sexual harassment is a gigantic pervasive problem in our world, and I don't think it is going to get any better unless more people are willing to accept how gigantic and pervasive this problem is.
Let me be clear; when I say "more people" need to accept how big the problem is, I'm almost exclusively talking about men. It's clear from the #MeToo campaign and the stories women have told me, that the vast majority of women understand how big the problem is ( unfortunately, the majority of woman understand this on personal level ).
From what I've seen on social media, a large percentage of men don't believe that sexual harassment is a big problem. Rather than trying to do anything constructive to deal with the problem of sexual harassment, a lot of men defensively make the "Not all men" argument.
Well, I'm here to tell you that it is all men. I'm not saying that all men sexually harass women or even that all men have the potential to harass women. What I am saying is that all men have a monster inside them - a monster that each man needs to acknowledge and manage in order to keep himself from turning into the kind of a man who could sexually harass women.
There is no doubt in my mind that the monster is inside of me, and you'd have no doubt too if you could read my mind. On a purely rational and and intellectual level, I'm against the objectification of women and understand how it damages the lives of women, but my libido doesn't agree. My libido objectifies women all the time - every day, multiple times a day. My libido has never filled my head with thoughts of sexual assault, sexual harassment, or anything non-consensual, but I've objectified women in my head in every other way imaginable. I'm confessing this not because I'm proud of this, or because I'm going to enjoy the blowback and judgement that might be coming my way, but because I feel it needs to be said - not just by me, but by all men.
I have no way to know what's in the minds of other men, but I'm almost certain that all men have the same type of monster inside them that I have. I believe this partly because I've heard my share of "locker room talk" in my life, and mostly because I believe natural selection makes it inevitable.
I'm certainly no evolutionary biologist ( so feel free to correct me if you think I'm way off base here ), but I do understand and believe in the basic principals of natural selection, and I believe that millions of years of natural selection has shaped the kinds of people we are today.
From the time our human ancestors first started walking upright, millions of years passed before anything close to a civilization emerged. The vast majority of human evolution occurred in those millions of years before civilization developed.
During those millions of years there obviously wasn't any birth control and there wasn't any widespread cultural expectation of monogamy ( There were certainly couples that were monogamous and I'm sure there were some human tribes that prized monogamy, but without civilization, there could not have been widespread cultural expectations of monogamy. ( because there would not have been much of a culture) ). In the pre-civilization, pre-birth control years, it seems like common sense to me that the men genetically predisposed to be promiscuous would impregnate more women than men genetically predisposed to be monogamous. So, if we assume that some of the genes that might make a man more promiscuous are on the Y chromosome, it follows that the genes of the Y chromosome that lead to promiscuity would become more common in men over time, because the promiscuous men would have more offspring.
In any case, all my theory is really asserting is that men are genetically predisposed to be horny. Whether are not you agree with the way I came to this conclusion, I think we can all agree that I'm not breaking any ground by asserting that nearly all men tend to by horny ( BTW, if I'm not already completely out of my depth by proposing a natural selection theory of libido, I'd be even more out of my depth if I tried to figure out if my theory applies to gay and bisexual men as much straight men. I do believe that both libido and sexual orientation are strongly influence by genetics, but I'm not even going to try to theorize how all those genes would interact. ).
Of course, being horny isn't a bad thing in of itself. It is bad if it leads to deception and emotional pain, but I think open promiscuous relationships and polyamorous relationships are perfectly fine.
So, while I think men's libido is part of the "monster" within all men, I don't think it is what makes "the monster" so monstrous.
The real "monster" is the male tendency towards sexual violence and sexual intimidation. Not everyone will want to hear this, and I'm sure many of you reading this will disagree with me, but I believe the genes associated with sexual violence are baked into every man's DNA. I'm almost afraid to say this, because it is such a horrible image to evoke, but it seems to me that in the millions of years of human evolution that preceded birth control, the men who were genetically predisposed to rape and sexually intimidate woman would have impregnated more women than men who treated woman with kindness and respect.
In short, I'm saying that the "monster" lurking in every man is his genetic code, a genetic code passed down from a pool of ancestors who almost certainly included men genetically predisposed to commit acts of sexual violence.
Let me make it clear that I'm not making this argument about natural selection and sexual violence to suggest in any way that the evil men who commit these acts of sexual violence are somehow not responsible for their own horrifying actions. On the contrary, I'm trying to make the argument that men need to be far more responsible ( for themselves and for other men ) than they've ever been on the past. I'm making the argument that there is a monster in every man, because I want every man to be wary of that monster. I want to make sure every man understand that it is his responsibility that this monster does no harm.
Back in the 70's there was a television show called "The Incredible Hulk", based on the Marvel comic of the same name. After spending hours thinking about the "monster" inside of each man, I couldn't help but think of Dr. Bruce Banner and the intro to the TV show ( Note: The TV show called him Dr. David Banner for some reason. For the sake of clarity, I'll just call him "Dr. Banner" going forward. ):
Dr. Banner has a monster inside him, a monster he can't completely control. At times, this violent monster has complete control, and Dr. Banner cannot do anything about it.
And, yet, as violent and dangerous as this monster is, the monster never kills anyone. The TV show always made a point of explaining that the monster could never kill anyone, because Dr. Banner would never kill anyone. Even when the monster was in complete control of Dr. Banner's life, the monster would never commit evil acts, because Dr. Banner was an essentially good person.
Well, I think the same thing applies to the monster that is in every man. If a man is essentially good inside, the monster inside him will do no harm. The monster might express itself as extremely powerful libido, but as long as the man has the right positive traits, that monster will do no harm.
Unfortunately, as the #MeToo campaign has illustrated, far too few men have developed the positive personality traits to keep the monster at bay. I afraid that some men are just lost causes and will never change, but I hope that more men can lean to live their lives based on principles like the ones below:
1) Be good to people.
2) Don't hurt anyone ( physically or emotionally )
3) Consider the feeling of others.
4) Develop your empathy enough that you can imagine the feeling of others.
5) Don't be an asshole.
Principals like these were drilled into me as a child by my parents, so they are second nature to me now. Any parents with sons should focus on teaching their sons principles like the ones above to make sure the next generation of men are much better than all the previous generations of men.
I know this blog post has been far than my most optimistic one. After all I've said that all men have monster inside them, and that these monsters can do horrible things. I've indicated that we need to create a world in which men are better people, but I haven't offered any practical solutions for how we can get there. Still, I think a good first step to making things better it for men to admit that have a problem, and that they need to do something about it. Nothing is ever going to get better if men stick their heads in the sand and say "Not all men". All of us who are men need to understand the horrible things men are capable of, and more importantly, what we are capable, even if we've never had a sexually violent thought in our lives. Much like Dr. Banner, we need to be vigilant "until we can find a way to control the raging spirit than dwells within us".
A few weeks ago, Jemele Hill tweeted that Trump was a "white supremacist", and the Trump administration reacted predictably. If you've read at least a few of my political blog posts, you know I'm on Jemele's side here, but I also found myself playing a little devil's advocates inside my head regarding the specific charge in Jemele's tweet. Specifically, I wondered if it was technically accurate to call Trump a "white supremacist". Now, I firmly believe that anyone who calls participants in a Nazi march "very fine people" deserves to be called a "white supremacist", but the pedantic part of me ( which is a pretty damn big part of me ) couldn't help but wonder if Trump is really a white supremacist deep in his heart, or is he is just pretending to be a white supremacist to secure the votes of white racists ( Because let's face it, Trump can't be re-elected without the enthusiastic support of white racists. I'm not try to say most Republicans are racist, but I am saying that most white racists in this country vote Republican, and if those white racists stay home on election day, Republicans have no chance at wining a national election. )?
I also spent some time thinking about if there is any practical difference between being a white supremacist in one's heart or pretending to be a white supremacist, and this led me to the following thought experiment:
Consider a wealthy white man from New York City who owns a large national chain of restaurants in the 1960s. This man grew up in a multi-racial neighborhood, has many close Black friends, has a multi-racial board of directors at his company, and considers himself to be a supporter of Dr. King's movement. This man eventually gets wind that the operators of most of his restaurants in the South have placed "Whites Only" signs in the windows of his restaurant. The man decides that he should do something about that, and he instructs his regional managers to get those signs out of the restaurants windows. He faces great resistance from these managers, but after he make it clear that the regional managers jobs are on the line, he soon finds that about 10% of his restaurants have had the signs removed, and his managers have assured him that they can get the rest of the "Whites Only" signs removed within a year. He knows that a lot of those regional managers are just stalling, but he's happy with the progress he's made and he vows to himself that he'll keep pushing and prodding his regional managers until all his restaurants are integrated.
However, a month later the first financial reports arrive from his integrated restaurants in the South. He learns that the revenue from those restaurants has dropped precipitously. The white patrons left those restaurants in droves as soon as they noticed Black people were allowed in, and there were not enough new Black patrons in those restaurants to make up for the lost revenue from the loss of the white patrons.
After learning this, the wealthy owner decides he doesn't want to lose any more revenue, and indefinitely suspends his program to integrate his restaurants in the South. He complains to his friends that the South is full of backwards white supremacists who are not ready for integrated restaurants yet.
Now with all that in mind, who do you think is a bigger white supremacist. Is it ...
1) A racist patron who refused to go to one of the restaurants the wealthy owner was trying to integrate.
OR
2) The wealthy owner himself.
In my mind, despite his personal feelings about race relations, the wealthy owner is the much bigger white supremacist, because his actions have done more to promote that institutional supremacy of the white people than the actions of an individual that refused to enter a restaurant because he saw a Black person it it.
Applying the same kind of logic to Donald Trump, I believe I can now confidently say that Donald Trump is a white supremacists without any reservations. Regardless of what he might feel deep down in his heart, his actions and his words during his presidency have given comfort and support to white supremacists.
If you are using you power and influence to help white supremacists, then you're a white supremacist in my book, regardless of what your personal feelings may be.
So, to make a long story short, Jemele Hill was right, and a lot more of us should be echoing what she wrote in that tweet.
