Destroying democracy in order to save it

On February 7, 1968, American forces in Vietnam annihilated the town of Bến Tre. The next day, Associated Press reporter Peter Arnett quoted an unnamed American major, who gave this explanation:

“It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”

The quote was was so crazy that it became instantly famous. Opponents of the war repeated it everywhere. Suddenly America's whole strategy during the war was reduced to the lunacy of destroying the thing you are trying to save ... because somehow, in someone's mind, destroying it is the only way to save it. Later that same month, Walter Cronkite aired his famous editorial arguing that the war was "mired in stalemate," and public opinion turned against prolonging the fighting.

Fortunately we've all learned from that, right? Nobody today would be crazy enough to destroy something in order to save it. Right?

You'd think so. But let's talk about California.

Tomorrow is Election Day in California (though mail-in ballots have been available for a while), and there is exactly one race on the ballot. That race is to decide Proposition 50, which is written to legalize gerrymandering.

Strictly speaking those aren't the words used by supporters. But they come awfully close.

Back in 2008, Proposition 11 created a non-partisan commission to draw electoral boundaries for State Assembly and State Senate districts. Two years later, Proposition 20 expanded their remit to include congressional district boundaries. Before the establishment of this commission, districts were regularly redrawn to benefit the state's ruling party (in this case, the Democratic Party). After, not so much. The Princeton Gerrymandering Project gives California overall a grade of B for the fairness of its districting: "Better than average with some bias." 

Proposition 50 suspends the bipartisan commission for five years, so state legislature can redraw the districts any way they like. The Princeton project has given the proposed redistricting plan a grade of F, saying that it gives Democrats and incumbents a significant advantage. And supporters don't deny this! They are reasonably open about describing this as the main purpose of the measure.

How is this possible? The basic argument is that it's all Donald Trump's fault. More exactly, supporters of Proposition 50 argue that the President wants to achieve goals which they think threaten democracy. They also point out that other states are in the process of redrawing their congressional districts, and that in at least some cases (e.g., Texas) the motive is to give the Republicans more seats in Congress. Therefore, the argument concludes, Democrats have to do the same thing to level the playing field. And since the Democrats have total control of the California legislature, that means letting them redistrict California in a way that benefits Democrats.  

Maybe it's because I raised two boys who were close in age, but I don't react well when someone justifies his own bad behavior by shouting, "He started it!" More seriously, the whole business reminds me of Peter Arnett's unnamed major. The supporters of Proposition 50 say they want to defend democracy; but in practice that means deliberate gerrymandering to defeat the will of the voters. How does that "defend democracy"? Also, like him or not—and I certainly have reservations of my own—President Trump was duly elected in 2024 according to the laws of the land. Preventing him from exercising his office is no defense of democracy. Yes, of course the system has checks and balances built in, to prevent any single individual from going crazy. And yes, of course it is fair to let those checks and balances play out the way they are supposed to. But this measure seems to reach beyond that point. It looks like California Democrats have decided that The People couldn't really have meant to vote for Donald Trump or for some number of Republican Congressmen, so it is their job to rectify The People's mistake by choosing the right Congressmen instead. I'm pretty sure that's how they handle voting in North Korea too, for what it's worth. So it's good to know that there is precedent.

We had to destroy democracy in order to save it.