US House of Representatives cumulative vote results:
- Democratic candidates, 1,506,455 votes (49.1%)
- Republican candidates, 1,458,264 votes (47.6%)
- Other candidates, 101,989 votes (3.3%)
Congratulations Michigan Democrats! More people voted for you! You have ...
Yeah, if you've read the earlier posts you know the drill by now. Here are the actual results that matter:
Michigan's 2015-16 delegation to the US House of Representatives:
- Nine Republican candidates
- Five Democratic candidates
Average margin of victory in these enormously safely drawn districts:
- All candidates, 27.6%
- Democratic candidates, 43.2%
- Republican candidates, 18.9%
I reckon this is a good time to also mention the notion that is now supposedly popular in some Republican circles, that we should change Michigan law to award our electoral votes on the basis of this bizarre gerrymander instead of the current system of awarding the votes to the candidate who gets the most votes. In 2012 this would've given nine votes to Romney and seven to Obama, even though more Michiganders voted for Obama.
I'm sure that right around now some of my Republican amigos are congratulating themselves on the utter ruthless efficiency of their party's gerrymander. But the simple truth is that this is killing democracy in this country.
It's killing freedom.
If you support this gerrymander you are saying that you care more about imposing your values on others than you care about freedom. Remember that the next time you look in a mirror.
Oh, and Democrats who say, "We just need to win the 2020 election so that we control the next gerrymander" -- and you know who you are -- you are every bit as bad.
If a foreign invader came to America and imposed such a deeply warped system upon us we would all take up arms to oppose it. So why is it that nobody seems to care because it was imposed by a group of technocrats with big data?
Beats me.
But I do know this. I need a drink.
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