| On Gerrymandering, even the article you cite has a sub-head specifically describing how the Dems are doing it defensively / responsively. You just count the maps and I think you'll find that the Dems should take any gerrymandering-disarmament deal in a heartbeat, because they are losing. They may claw their way back to parity, but you can't level the same accusation. On voting, more critically, who is trying to pass laws enabling voting, and who is passing laws restricting voting? Ds are trying to get more voting, and Rs are restricting it, restricting times, polling locations, even banning people handing out water in voting queues (which wouldn't exist if they weren't trying to restrict voting. In democracies, voters elect their leaders, in autocracies, the leaders select their voters, which is what Rs are doing. For the sake of discussion, even if I grant you 100% that NYs actions on gun control are not legal, those will get sorted UNDER THE LAW, and rolled back, and penalized. Meanwhile I do see Ds doing zero and Rs doing ALL of these pre-authoritarian steps, identical to those in pre-authoritarian Germany 1930s, Chile 1970s, & Hungary & Turkey 2000s: — Threatening to use the state to jail enemies (Trump from "Lock her up!" chants to most recently at CPAC) — Infringing 1A free speech, requiring registration of writers — Actively and pre-emptively denying valid election results — Infiltrating police departments and the enlisted ranks of the military — Taking over school boards and local boards of elections — Banning books — Burning books — Firing principals and teachers who defend multiracial, multicultural democracy while banning books that contain such “dangerous” ideas — Demonizing queer people and outlawing drag shows (again infringing 1A rights) — Demonizing Jews and blacks — Actively and completely rewriting history, in particular January 6th — Gerrymandering states so regardless of how people vote, Republicans control the levers of power — Changing election laws so they can both make it harder for city-dwellers to vote and to ignore and then change the outcomes of elections they don’t like — Building media structures that will support the authoritarian takeover when it happens — Organizing armed paramilitary militias, with back-channel connections to local police — Creating legal organizations to sanitize and rationalize ending messy democracy — Spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories about Democrats and Jews using the dog whistle of “George Soros” — Firebombing Texas Democratic Party’s Austin headquarters and threatening them that if they don’t stop trying to get Democrats elected worse will come Sorry, a4a4a4, but the Ds are doing exactly zero of this False equivalency is a lie. What you are doing is called "whataboutism", simply attempting to deflect the conversation from the crimes of your side to avoid accountability and change. Or, perhaps you really are merely fooled. Rethink, because you've got next to nothing convincing. |
1) "Look what they're doing and how bad it is" 2) "We would never do something like that" 3) Do something like that. 4) "What do you mean we're doing that? This is 'whataboutism', we were talking about how terrible the other group is!"
I hope you will come around some day. I'm equally worried about the authoritarianism of both parties, and can't decide which dystopia I'd rather live in. Option A: No right to self-defense but having abortion rights, letting violent criminals out on $0 bail. Option B: A right to self-defense but living in a country which wants to legislate based on religion.