No and no. The reality is no matter what Democrats do, President Trump and Republicans in this era are always breaking with traditional democratic norms and values to win and hold power. They were destined to gerrymander Florida, no matter what happened in Virginia. By acting in Virginia, Democrats at least minimized the damage from the redistricting process and clearly showed that the party won’t just concede on this issue to Republicans.
In short, Democrats want to end gerrymandering. Republicans love it. Mainstream media coverage of these redistricting battles largely ignores those realities, because many news outlets prioritize not seeming biased against Republicans over accurate coverage of American politics.
Considering this history, it is hard to imagine Republicans would have forgone gerrymandering in Florida if Democrats had held back in California and Virginia. They are not engaged in tit-for-tat—it’s all tit. Today’s Republicans do not believe in neutral political processes in which they can lose power or control. They wanted to redraw districts in Texas and other states last year because they feared losing the House. Trump is even more unpopular now, so the potential of Republicans losing the House is even higher.
Republicans even gerrymander in the most undemocratic way possible. Virginia Democrats presented their new maps long before the state legislature voted, allowing Republicans and nonpartisan observers to scrutinize the process. In contrast, DeSantis and his team drew the new districts with little input from the public and state legislators (reportedly showing them to Fox News before fellow Florida Republicans) and are trying to push them through only a few days after they were released.
But in the redistricting fight, so far it’s 13-10, not 13-0. Thank God. Democratic gerrymandering in Virginia and California (along with a favorable court ruling in Utah) positions Democrats to win an additional 10 seats in November, according to Ballotpedia. (Democrats will be in a much worse position if the Virginia Supreme Court invalidates the referendum, an unlikely-but-possible outcome.) What Democrats did in California and then Virginia was not accelerate a redistricting arms race that Democrats were destined to lose but instead turn a redistricting blowout into a narrow defeat. That was smart and essential.
Florida’s move also underscores the reality of today: We are in a war between the red states and the blue states. It’s not a war over a single issue, like slavery. It does not pit individual Americans against one another in the way that slaveowners and the enslaved were clearly at odds. And it’s quite one-sided. At the core, Republican politicians and activists will not accept cities, states, or the federal government run by Democrats. Nor will they allow liberal citizens to freely exercise democratic rights like voting, criticizing the government, and holding protests. Gerrymandering is just the latest part of the authoritarian playbook being used by DeSantis. He and other Republican governors were never going to accept the possibility of their states providing the winning seats for a Democratic U.S. House majority.
The road to a Democratic House that can rein in Trump will get even bumpier if Florida redraws its districts. That road is still open though. Democrats in California and Virginia have probably opened up enough seats through their own redistricting that America can have a democratic election this fall—and the people will have the votes to end Trump’s House majority.
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