Ohio voters just took firm positions on abortion and reproductive rights and adult-use recreational marijuana Tuesday, but gerrymandered Ohio lawmakers are already planning to flout, ignore, challenge, and abuse the voters’ wishes. This is what gerrymandering brings. This is why it’s a fundamental poison in the lifeblood of our republic.
Mere hours after Ohio voters passed the Issue 1 reproductive rights amendment with 56.62%, according to unofficial results, and the Issue 2 recreational marijuana law with 57% (both getting nearly 2.2 million votes), Ohio Republican legislative leaders signaled they would not respect the will of the people.
You’re conflating the impossible and the improbable/exceptional.
You’re acting like either there’s no control from the party or there’s total control. It’s the kind of flawed logic called a false dichotomy.
Think of it like this: if one runner is chained to a post and the other is unhindered, the first runner has no chance. That’s what it’s like if the Democratic Party has TOTAL control of the contest.
Imagine, on the other hand, one runner has weights on her wrists and ankles totalling 4 pounds and the other is unencumbered. While it’s not impossible for a MUCH better runner to win, it’s not a fair competition and only exceptional runners will overcome the unequal treatment and still win.
The latter example is how Democratic Party primaries are. Progressive candidates are wearing the weights, even incumbents.
My whole argument has been that more people should vote. That more people should engage politically. Meaning they educate themselves and they vote in every election they can. Do you sincerely think that if voter participation rose from 2022’s 46% to 60 or 70% that we would have better politicians or worse politicians? I think we’d have better people running for office and being elected to office. That’s the bottom line of my argument.
And the bottom line of MY argument is that, while we should definitely vote, voting alone doesn’t fix the broken system that lead to the perpetual lesser evil choices in most general elections.