In the battle over whose fault it is that there are so many teathuglicans

[cali]

in the House, I have one word for you:

Gerrymandering.

that is all.

[liberal N proud]

1. Thanks to gerrymandering, we will never get rid of these assholes.

[JHB]

2. The finger-pointing is about the gerrymandering

The thing that made the extreme gerrymandering possible were the gains made by extremist Republicans in the state-level elections of 2010. That decided who would redraw the districts based on the results of the 2010 census.

It underscores that all elections are important. The dispute is over who needs to learn that lesson and act accordingly.

[kelliekat44]

3. Gerrymandering has been around for a long time. It's just the way it was done that really hurt Dems

And the way it was done could only happen when there are a majority of Rethugs elected to STATE and LOCAL positions starting with GOVERNORS! This has been my cry forever....since Clinton was in office. If the Dems refuse to do the leg work and funding work that educates and incites Dems to vote in state and local elections, IT WILL NEVER CHANGE. We are vigilant but we must be SMART! Maybe now the GOP has done much of our work for us with this Congress at the helm. Maybe now, we will get serious about rocking the real vote that matters.

[KG]

4. it's 20 years of 'bi-partisianship'. I been working last few yrs on assembly lines last few years.

the dem party has totally failed to communicate to enough working people why they would be the better choice.

i'm not sure which will happen first - the country recovering from reagan, or the dem party recovering from clinton.

[Violet_Crumble]

5. Dumb question...

As you know, I'm not an American, and while I'm trying to read as much as I can on the shutdown, some things about the political system over there confuse me.

I understand gerrymandering, but what I don't understand is if there's only 30 or 40 lunatics amongst the Republicans who are driving this shutdown, why didn't other Republicans who aren't as crazy work with the Democrats to pass a clean appropriation bill? Or is it because that speaker of the house is one of the crazies as well, and he controls what bills get tabled in the lower house?

Anyway, from an outsider's perspective, for what it's worth, I don't think the battle over whose fault it is that there's so many crazy team party types in the lower house is the battle that should be fought now. People should be fighting to make sure budget bills are treated the same way as in other democracies (we're one exception because it happened once here back in 1975) and are sacrosanct and don't get fucked around with to play political temper tantrum games...