If the GOP vote-rigging efforts succeed, should we still even run in elections?

[Ken Burch]

Would there be any good reason to nominate candidates in races where it was already decided in advance that we weren't allowed to win? Is there any point being in a legislative body where you're forced to be in a permanent minority through gerrymandering?

Would ANY good come of electioneering in such a scenario, given running-but-losing pretty much always leads to nothing gained in the future?

If we didn't, what other approaches should we use?

Should we switch, at that point, from being a political party to a resistance movement?

Just trying to work out what would make sense if things like the EC-by-gerrymandered congressional district votes, combined with a U.S. House rigged to keep the GOP in the majority no matter what the voters did(and the same with state legislatures, added to a judicial system permanently controlled by GOP appointees acting more like apparatchiks-in-robes than judges).

We may be getting near the end of even pseudo-democracy here.

What do you guys see as workable options here?

This should be a real brainstorming thread...it's not about telling people to be despondent or anything.

[JaneyVee]

1. Popular vote. That will end the GOP once and for all.

[davidn3600]

7. And how exactly are you going to get that passed? You would need a constitutional amendment.

[JaneyVee]

11. Poster was just asking for suggestions. The 15 smallest states would never let go of Electoral Colle

college anyway.

[randome]

2. A little early to be calling the party over, isn't it?

I seriously doubt Virginia will get away with what they want to do. Court cases have turned down other voter suppression efforts last year. We can stop them again.

[Ken Burch]

4. Not saying it's over as of now, looking ahead at what could happen.

If Obama doesn't get to make at least one more appointment to SCOTUS, and to fill the vacancies on the federal bench, it will be hard to stop this in many areas.

We need to be thinking now of what to do if we really end up in this kind of a Pinochet's "guided democracy" post-coup constitution(the one he brought in at the end that gave the Right and the military there a veto over everything and has made most of the post-Pinochet elections dilute of meaning).

The Right in this country has now made it clear that they don't really believe in electoral democracy...they want nothing but an internal version of what Noam Chomsky referred to as "demonstration elections&quot elections in name, but with victory for the anti-democratic austerity agenda guaranteed in advance).

It may be a question of resistance or permanent defeat, in the end..

[1-Old-Man]

3. Switch Parties and run as progressive Republicans in their gerrymandered districts

Use their own gerrymandering against them.

[Ken Burch]

5. It's a possibility. Call ourselves "Lincoln Republicans".

Imagine them having to run AGAINST "Honest Abe".

[Chathamization]

14. I know someone that's doing that

his family actually are Lincoln Republicans, they've been in the party since the civil war. His line is he wants his party back.

[Agnosticsherbet]

6. Other nations with totalitarian governments have rigged elections.

The Republican Party is trying it initiate their own version of a totalitarian government. They don't care for democracy anyway.

[bluestate10]

8. This is what I hate most about the Left. Republicans try bullshit. And the response?

IS FUCKING hand wringing. We have more votes. We can get even more legal votes if we work at it. We need to show up at the polls and fuck republicans over good. End of story.

[Ken Burch]

9. Not hand-wringing. Serious questions.

If they gerrymander every state legislature they control(which means they'll also gerrymander every Congressional district in those states)...AND they sabotage presidential elections by tying electoral vote distribution to the gerrymandered congressional districts...then it really isn't as simple as saying "we have more votes".

Gerrymandering can having more votes meaningless. So is it going to be worth running in any race where you already know the thing is gerrymandered? Do you really say "no biggie" to that?

I'm just trying to discuss how we come up with a strategy if elections are made totally illegitimate in a lot of states.

And we SHOWED up at the polls in Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania and we couldn't flip the legislatures there, even though the raw vote counts clearly showed that they wanted those legislatures flipped.

So you couldn't just leave it at "keep voting".

[Chathamization]

16. It's not just showing up

it's also organizing and doing all the groundwork. It can be done. Look at, for instance, the Virginia state senate. Most competitive races are won or lost by a few thousand people, and the turnout for many of the races is somewhere between 20-30%. For many of the races, 70+% of registered voters - not only eligible voters, but people that are registered - decided that it wasn't worth it to vote for one person or the other. If you are able to convince even a fraction of those people that your person is worth it, you can win the race, even in a gerrymandered district. If you include people that aren't registered to vote, your looking at even more potential voters.

It can be done, but it's going to take a lot of work.

[jeff47]

10. You need to show that there is a problem in order to fix it.

You need the Democrat to win the popular vote by a large margin and yet still lose. That will not be allowed to stand by the people.

W got away with it because the vote was really close - less than 1000 votes. Applying this system to the last election would cause the popular vote and electoral vote to massively diverge, which the public will not find acceptable.

[Ken Burch]

12. But you couldn't just leave it at that...the next step would be organizing resistance

There would have to be mass protests, even occupations of legislative chambers if necessary, to declare that, due to the anti-democratic terms under which the legislative bodies had just been elected, those bodies no longer had any legitimate right to govern.

You'd need a broad and continuous culture of resistance.

[jeff47]

13. Nope. There still are elections.

It screws over the election for President. It doesn't screw over state elections. And after such an event, the electorate will replace the state government, which can then reverse the change.

[DevonRex]

15. Ken I am so upset about this. My RW relatives in VA

are crowing and are going for this full bore. Tea partiers all. This is how the Republican Party plans to survive. They do not have to have a platform that attracts any more than they already have. They will cheat their way to the presidency. State by state.

[TheMastersNemesis]

17. My Prediction ---- The GOP Is Willing To Spill American Blood To Get Their Way

The writing is on the wall. The GOP is an insurrectionist party and their moves in Virginia and intent rigs elections prove it. They are now counting on the fact that the rules are on their side and cannot be stopped. And they will use force if they are truly challenged.

The gulags they spread fear about are the ones THEY will establish. I believe too many people who are kidding themselves about the GOP. The iron fist is under the radar.

The GOP did not pissed and they are angrier than a serial killer. Because they fully intend to kill this government and establish a totalitarian government of their own.

What the GOP intends to do is the most dangerous thing since the beginning of this Republic. They are a more serious threat to the US than even Hitler was as far as I am concerned. All have to do it look at their demeanor and their hot anger right now.

Obama's speech was a declaration of war in their view.