How did we get all this gerrymandering? A short history of the Republican redistricting scheme

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/09/gerrymandering-republican-redistricting

151 points · 9 comments · view on lemmy.world

9 Comments

crystalmerchant@lemmy.world · 26 pts · 1y (3 replies)

Lmao the first sentence: "15 years ago". Uh huh sure.

My friend, you need to think of this as a long-standing continuation of the Jim Crow South, which in turn was a direct extension of chattel slavery. You can draw a straight line from there through to today's gerrymandering: the whole point is to disenfranchise as many people as possible, taking away rights and power. This is really not that different, and it SURE AS FUCK ain't 15 years old.

unmagical@lemmy.ml · 14 pts · 1y

1000007712

undefined@lemmy.hogru.ch · 8 pts · 1y

While politicians have gerrymandered since the dawn of the American experiment – even before it got its name from then Massachusetts governor Eldridge Gerry’s party crafting state senate districts around Boston that looked like salamanders

Quill7513@slrpnk.net · 1 pts · 1y
devolution@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 1y (3 replies)

The south never stopped fighting. They just got dirtier. If we can't own people, let's segregate them and invalidate their votes by weakening specifically where they reside.

Kirp123@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 1y

They always tried this kind of shit since the Civil War in one form or another. Lynching, literacy tests, poll taxes, gerrymandering, incarceration and probably a few others I'm forgetting. They even use the same excuses from 150 years back.

Dlayknee@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 1y (1 reply)

I don't necessarily disagree, but I feel like its worth pointing out that gerrymandering was first used in Massachusetts.

devolution@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 1y

I never said the North liked black people.

FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 1y

Where do we draw the line?