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Every decade, states gerrymander districts to make them "safe," to support whichever party is in power in that state. Thus, there are fewer districts each year where the Congresscritter has to work to make voters happy. Instead, they have only to make their own party happy, and to Hell with the minority of voters in their district. Thus, politicians are rewarded for extremism, not for concensus-building. So Congress is made up increasingly of politicians who toe one line or the other, and who find it against their self-interests to compromise in any way. You can see that on DU, obviously, where even the most beloved politician is castigated for compromise, and rewarded for obstinate votes that accomplish nothing.
Whereas all politics used to be local, now it is all ideological. People vote for parties, not candidates. While there is good reason to do this, it adds to the problem created by safe-district gerrymandering. So candidates vote for their party line, rather than the needs of their districts. Democracy's greatest strength is its ability to respond to the needs of the people. When people start to get hungry, they switch their vote, so government responds to empty wallets and empty bellies. But with an increasing number of "safe" seats, where ideologues vote for abstracts instead of for what they are feeling or experiencing, this strength of Democracy is weakened, and government becomes less responsive.
Add to this a corporate structure and a media that favors one party, and the problem is compounded.
The good news is that when things get bad enough, they will still change. Even in safe districts people can tell when they are unemployed, when things just aren't working anymore. Katrina helped a lot of people understand that, and I think Katrina may be an historical turning point in national politics. Certainly that's when Bush's numbers began to plummet, and that's when people began to turn on the Republican Congress.
The bad news is that they may to get really, really bad before things change enough.
This is no reason for us to give up our ideology or to try to vote for moderates. It just means that redistricting laws need to be changed, and they need to be challenged in court--as they have been here in Texas, with DeLay. We need a return to national balance, but that doesn't mean we need to aim for a moderate Congress. It just means that districts should have more balance, so that either party's candidate has a chance to convince the voters the are the best. I think we'd wind up with more liberals, more moderates, and fewer conservatives if the redistricting was more neutral.
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