If It’s Only “Gerrymandering” When They Win, You’re the Problem.

Both Parties Rig Maps. The Only Thing That Changes Is Who Cries About It. This Isn’t a Scandal. It’s a Strategy. And You’ve Been Cheering It On. Red or Blue, They All Twist the Lines—You Just Notice..

Photo by DJ Paine on Unsplash

The governor with the salon-grade blowout is back on TV, warning that democracy is seconds from combustion, because Texas might redraw its map. Cameras zoom in. Words like “illegal,” “unprecedented,” and “apocalyptic” spill out like confetti cannons.

Meanwhile, in a quiet building with fluorescent lighting and coffee that tastes like printer ink, lawyers file motions, consultants polish shapefiles, and a map that looks like a startled salamander learning to do yoga. The spectacle is upstairs. The decision is downstairs.

Here’s the part the press conference never says out loud: gerrymandering isn’t a Republican invention or a Democratic sin. It’s a habit. A reflex. A ritual performed by whoever holds the pen when the census clock chimes.

You already know the moves. Pack your opponents into a few lopsided fortresses. Crack the rest across a dozen polite defeats. Win big where it doesn’t count; win small where it does. Ta-da: a majority out of arithmetic.

And yet, every cycle, we pretend to be shocked. Texas redraws? The sky darkens. New York redraws? The sky brightens. Illinois protects incumbents? That’s “community representation.” Florida tightens margins? That’s “authoritarian cartography.” The trick isn’t the line. The trick is the label.

If you want proof that math beats megaphones, look at the seat counts. Include California’s full delegation, and the Republican edge in the House is a mere seven seats. Remove California’s 52 members, forty-three of them Democrats and the Republicans’ advantage explodes, not because angels moved districts in the night, but because one party’s safest stronghold left the table. That’s the game: turn safe votes into safe seats, then turn the camera on.

Texas, of course, is the new villain of the week. The claim floating around is a tidy +5 seats for the GOP, give or take. Maybe it lands exactly there; maybe court-ordered changes shave it down. Either way, the principle doesn’t change. When Democrats controlled the pen in Illinois, they padded blue margins with surgical elegance. When Republicans controlled it in Florida and Ohio, they didn’t exactly draw odes to symmetry. Different architects. Same blueprint.

“But this time it’s illegal,” the headlines say. Sometimes it is. Often it isn’t. That’s not cynicism; it’s civics. Federal courts largely stepped away from policing partisan gerrymanders years ago. Race-based claims still bite hard. State constitutions vary. Commissions help. Lawyers feast. And the map that matters is the one that survives the judge’s yawn.

This is why the outrage industry keeps losing to the spreadsheet. Because the linework will always outlast the monologue. Because maps are built from incentives, not adjectives. Because a district that flips from D+3 to R+4 doesn’t care how inspirational your press release sounded.

So let’s try honesty—the rarest commodity in politics and the cheapest upgrade in journalism.

Honesty says: both parties stretch the rules where they can, and both cry foul when they can’t.
Honesty says: “independent” commissions are better processes with their own politics, not miracle cures.
Honesty says: if you only hate a map when your jersey loses, you don’t hate gerrymandering: you hate losing!

None of this means you shrug and walk away. It means you grow a spine and a ruler. Measure the gap between votes and seats. Count how many districts live within five points of competitive oxygen. Track which communities gain a voice and which get dissolved like sugar in hot tea. On paper. In daylight. No slogans required.

The most powerful sentence you can publish about Texas—or New York, or Florida, or wherever the pen shakes next—is painfully simple: If it’s wrong when they do it, it’s wrong when we do it. Not because it sounds noble, but because it’s true. Try it at a school board meeting. Try it at a family dinner. Try it every time a politician switches from “ingenious” to “illegal” the moment the map stops hugging their friends.

And if you’re truly allergic to manipulation, stop worshiping at the altar of charisma. The best hair wins TV time. The best maps win decades. One of those is performance. The other is power.

So yes, let’s hear the governor thunder. Let’s hear the opposition wail. Then let’s put their words on mute and stare at the lines until the truth pops into focus: the system isn’t broken; it’s obedient. It does exactly what the hand on the marker tells it to do.

When the shouting fades, the districts remain. That’s where representation lives; or where it’s quietly strangled. If we want something better, we’ll need fewer press conferences and more constraints. Fewer glossy villains and more transparent rules. Less jersey talk. More map math.

Until then, save your panic. Save your applause. Bring a ruler.