Wow! Virginia referendum will hit HARD! Nuremberg ahoy!

1812 cartoon of the first "gerrymander" redistricting, favouring
Democrats, approved by governor Gerry. A dragon-like monster
later likened to a salamander, hence "Gerry-Mander".

Whaaaa? 

Have I landed on the most boring topic of the day? What referendum? Where? Why? WTF?!

Yeah, well. It was all about “redistricting”. Or, more honestly, about redistricting's evil twin: gerrymandering. 

A super quick primer: the United States lower house, the House of Representative is made up of 435 seats. The idea is that the number each party has broadly represents the country's voter split. 

So: in 2024 it was Trump 50%, Kamala Harris 48%. And that’s how the House seats broadly split: 220 to Republicans and 215 to Democrats. 

Each of the 50 states has a certain number of Representatives, based on its population, one representative for every 700k residents. So, a state with 7 million population gets 10 Representatives to the House. And it divides the electorates in the state (“districts” in the United States) so that they broadly represent the split between the main parties.

So far so good? 

Now to Virginia. With its population of 8 million it gets to choose 11 Representatives. Right now they’re split 6 Democrats and 5 Republicans. That’s in a state that voted 52% Democrat and 48% Republican in the last election. So the 6-5 split seems fair and reasonable, right? Just a bit more for the Dems. Per the overall vote.

Ok, so what’s the problem? 

It's the Gerrymander, Stupid!

Just two days ago, on 21 April, they held a referendum in Virginia to approve a proposal to change the borders of the 11 electorates. It passed by a slim margin. The result is that at the next elections, due this coming November, that the split of seats in VA will be 10-1. That’s 10 Democratic seats to just one Republican seat. 90% of the Representatives will be Democrats just 10% Republicans, in a state that’s purple, more or less split down the middle.

Plus four to the Dems; Minus four to the Reps. That's a swing of 8 right there. Enough, just by itself, to flip the House. To 219-216 to the Dems. On that one state alone. That's the HARD hit of this week's referendum. 

That's the gerrymander. The redistricting, not to get a fair outcome, but to get a partisan result. And here in VA it's been done to the max. 

How can this be fair? Is it legal?

No, of course it’s not fair. But it is legal. 

Current districts, (6-5) top, are to change to the bottom:
four divisions shifting from Red to Blue, (10-1), bottom

So what's the problem? 

If you're a Democrat, nothing. If you're a Republican, lots. 

This could be the start of other gerrymandering in other Democratic-controlled, but purple states (that is, evenly split Dem-Rep). 

The most immediate impact is on the November mid-term elections. 

This one state, this one move in Virginia, flips the House. Gives it to the Dems. That gives them leadership of all the House Committees. And of the majority vote in the House. That will stop dead what Trump is trying to do: keeping the border closed, deporting illegal aliens, reducing taxes and regulations, pushing meritocracy vs DEI, finishing Iran... 

More seriously it's the first step to the Dems winning the Trinity: presidency, senate and house in 2028. Then they will move to stack the Supreme Court with four more Justices, all Democrat, with converting Washington DC and Puerto Rico into States, giving them four more Senators and control of the Senate forever. 

James "it's the economy, stupid!" Carville, senior Dem adviser, has openly advised this. And more. 

This will lead to the Unaparty for America. A place run by a single party. This may be very congenial for Democrats, but obviously not for Republicans. It's not what we've always been told in western democracies that we're about: namely multi-party democracy. I like the fact that there's at least two parties. In my lifetime it's been one a bit left and another a bit right. And if you don't like one or the other, you can always, as Don Chipp said "kick the bastards out". What happens when you can't do that? Would even centrist Democrats like it if the only choice was a far-left Dem party, which is the way they're headed? 

Then there's the revenge. Democrats have said they're going to "go after" Republicans who "are complicit" in supporting Donald Trump and his administration. 

Nuremberg Redux?

Democrats have so convinced themselves that Trump is Hitler, that ICE agents are his Gestapo goons, and his MAGA supporters all Nazis, that they are now talking of a "Nuremberg-type" set of hearings to "bring to account" and jail all those who were "complicit" in helping the Trump administration. Including hangings, as per the original Nuremberg? Who knows. They're sufficiently deluded and filled with rage for revenge that nothing's out of court. 

They're saying it out loud. And who can doubt that any craziness is possible, in today's febrile climate?