Voting’s Neglected Scandal
26th June 2008
David Broder is an idiot. Proof:
Meanwhile, they have paid much less attention to what may well be a larger problem: the way that district lines are drawn to create safe seats for one party or the other, in effect denying voters any choice of representation.
The point of representation is not choice; the point is representation. “Safe seat” means that voters like the guy currently in place and will vote for him forever. That’s what representation is all about. If the sitter in a safe seat didn’t please the overwhelming majority of the voters, it woudn’t be a safe seat. Drawing lines to create safe seats means that there are fewer losers (people who didn’t get the representative they prefer) in each election than in so-called “competitive” seats. “Gerrymandering” makes democracy work better.
But journalists (and others in the Brahmin class) don’t want democracy to work better, they want exciting election contests that generate news (and, in the case of columnists, provide chin-stroke fodder). And they have the typical Brahmin arrogance that thinks everybody must want the same things they do. (“But how could Nixon win? I don’t know anybody who voted for him!”) They are mentally incapable of realizing that “safe seats” are a feature, not a bug.