skittering

If the Georgia Democrats gain an unlikely trifecta after the midterms, it's possible for them to draw a SAFE 11D-3R GERRYMANDER This map doesn't even flip in the 2022 Secretary of State race, where the GOP won statewide by 10 POINTS

Breaking news: US Supreme Court vacates Alabama district court order requiring the state to draw a congressional map with two majority-Black voting districts in 6-3 decision. Alabama can now draw a more Republican friendly map.

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SCOTUS is about to hear argument in the 303 Creative case- you may have heard of it. It's a case involving a website designer who refuses to design websites for same sex weddings. What you probably don't know is it is a completely fake, cynically designed case. 1/

Elections in Singapore are a couple days away so this NYT op-ed by Lee Kuan Yew’s son is potentially explosive. I’m sympathetic to some of Lee Hsien Yang’s arguments (especially on some of Singapore’s illiberal policies) but what this really stems from is a family feud between two brothers (one is the former Prime Minister and the other, the author) played out on a national and international scale. It’s really sad that this is part of the Lee family legacy now. Singapore may seem like an autocracy judging from outcomes (one-party rule since 1965); one could make the argument that elections are therefore a mere formality. But what if the ruling party, LKY’s People’s’ Action Party (PAP), is what the people continue to choose? What if this does actually reflect the will of the people? To characterize Singapore as an autocracy is to basically consign one of the wealthiest, safest nations (GDP/capital) into the same bin as China or North Korea. This kind of op-ed does little to change the minds of Singaporeans. The whole “Democracy™ vs. Evil Autocracies” framework doesn’t work outside of the W.E.I.R.D (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic) orbit. Partly it’s because the Western media warning about the “dangers of autocracy” rings hollow. Is it really true after all, that it’s only autocracies that have unchecked power, rampant corruption, and politics that serve the elite at the expense of the people? Outsiders can see that the US political system - controlled by billionaires, lobbyists and special interests - functions more like a corporate oligarchy than a democracy. They’ve seen two-tier systems and weaponized lawfare. They’ve seen how wielding the wrong opinions can get you debanked and canceled from your job and exiled from polite society. They’ve seen how the US can’t even maintain basic infrastructure, let alone solve social crises. So kvetching about authoritarian doom in Singapore on the pages of the NYT has the same effect as threatening to annex Canada and incorporate it as the 51st state, I’m afraid. It will only stoke nationalistic sentiment. It will backfire. Or it just won’t matter at all.