Gerrymandering is anti-democratic no matter who does it. But it is the GOP that has been so grossly obnoxious about it across the country since 2012. North Caroline is a perfect case study for the what is happening everywhere:
- The GOP immediately approved a redistricting plan that was widely understood as racially gerrymandering. It concentrated black voters into a small number of districts, thereby diluting their electoral weight and maximizing Republican seat gains. These changes enabled Republicans to capture nine of the state's thirteen congressional seats in 2012, despite Democrats casting more votes statewide. <---- This is not democracy. This is rigging elections.
- In 2012, Republicans began passing a series of electoral reforms making it harder for voters to cast their ballots and so obviously slashed the number of polling places in several key counties (guess who's) that the federal appeals court declared that it was an act of targeting "
African-Americans with almost surgical precision."
- When, despite these efforts to rig, a Democrat won the governorship in 2016, the controlling Republican Senate granted itself the authority to confirm gubernatorial cabinet appointments in order to pack the executive branch with their own, thus trying to render the new governor somewhat powerless.
- They also passed to shrink the state court of appeals by three seats, thereby stealing three judicial appointments from the new governor.
So we saw court packing, cabinet packing, negative election board reform, and obnoxious redistricting. The reform of the election boards, as well as the cabinet stacking, were later struck down as unconstitutional. But the sad thing here is that the GOP actually pulled this crap. So much for caring about the "rule of law," constitution, and democracy. This crap has been going on throughout the nation wherever Republicans win control. Why? Because they know that they represent less and less of the population every year. Their extremist tactics help them manipulate the feeble minded into compliance. And so they rig while sad little characters like this "Rusty34" applaud because he is far too ignorant to understand that this is destroying our democracy.
