Elbridge and Othello

DISCLOSURE: I’m not a scholar, political scientist, or journalist. I’m completely befuddled (though not surprised) that a massive decision can be made by a bunch of cloaked people appointed by some guys who did not win the popular vote. I’m trying to unravel it a bit for myself — starting with gerrymandering. I genuinely believed I could dedicate a little time to deepen my knowledge and gain some understanding. An obvious solution would appear, glittering in the distance. If nothing else, I would have a solid understanding and be able to speak intelligently about this. And I would a charming, informative, and persuasive blog to show for it! (Yay me!)

But the sad truth is, the more I tried to understand this the less clear it became. No magic solution presented itself. There isn’t a charming, informative, and persuasive blog to share. There is this blog. What it lacks in answers and coherence, it makes up for in tangents.

[awkwardly clears throat]

Ok…Gerrymandering. Let’s do this.

(Possible next stops to include the electoral college, apathy, the filibuster, and founding fathers). I highly recommend that you check out this 99% Invisible interview about The Gerrymandering Project. Or this Gerrymandering Crash Course video.

Actually, I recommend either over this post.

Just go ahead right now. No hard feelings.

Wait, you’re still here? OK, let’s do this.

Meet Elbridge Gerry.

• “Gerry” was pronounced with a hard “g” (like “gimme a break,” not like “geez”).

• Went to Harvard when he was 14; by 20 he had his master’s degree.

• When governor of Massachusetts, he came up with a redistricting plan to guarantee his party’s success. The map looked like a reptile. The term “gerrymander” is a portmanteau of his name and salamander. His foes came up with it to both make fun of him and illustrate how ridiculous his plan was.

• James Monroe met his wife Elizabeth while serving as best man at Gerry’s wedding.

• The Signer, founding father Benjamin Harrison V (father and great-grandfather respectively of future presidents William Henry Harrison and Benjamin Harrison VIII), joked that the thin Elbridge Gerry was at a distinct disadvantage if the British hung them as traitors. Overweight and 6’ 4” tall, Harrison would die immediately. Gerry, however, would “dance in the air an hour” before he perished.

  Unrelated side note about related guys: Benjamin Harrison V, two-time governor of Virgina and signer of the Declaration of Independence, became head of his household at age 19. His father, Benjamin IV (and two of V’s sisters!) were killed when IV was struck by lightning trying to close a window.

Gerry shared a “long intimacy” with Rufus King (future president Franklin Pierce’s future vice president)

• Gerry started a smallpox inoculation clinic in 1773. It freaked people out, so the clinic was destroyed.
  (Just a few years later, Washington defied the law and inoculated his troops.)

• He helped write the Declaration of Independence, but wouldn’t sign it since it lacked the Bill of Rights.

• He believed “No religious doctrine shall be established by law.”

• Served as James Madison’s second VP.
  (Madison’s first VP, George Clinton (with his sweet, sweet eyebrows), had the distinction of being both the first vice president to die and also the first vice president to die in office. The next year, Madison himself nearly died. Gerry also died before the end of the term… making Madison the only president to have two vice presidents die in office. Tangent to the tangent: Gerry shared a “long intimacy” and lived with future vice president — and third VP to die in office — Rufus King.)

NOTE: If you are of the belief that the founding fathers and old-timey white guys were all-knowing, immensely capable, and prescient, you should know the salamander had wings. So, like, maybe they didn’t have all the answers?

Introducing Othello.

No, not the guy from the Shakespeare play. (If you can believe it, I’m even less qualified to talk about Shakespeare than I am about politics.)

I’m talking about the boardgame Othello, also known as Reversi.

Have you ever played?

Players use reversible disks. One player has the black side. One player has the white side. Players try to fill the board with their color, as they take turns flipping over the pieces. (Like this.)

For this metaphor, I was going to change the colors but opted not to … for obvious reasons. But it’s important to note that districts can be redrawn for reasons beyond race. They can be redrawn to favor a particular political party, income level, or whatever. As The Gerrymandering Project points out, basically anything besides gender. (Many of us sort of self-sort and tend to live within pockets of people who look and/or behave like we do, which helps or hinders the process… depending on your point of view.)

Gerrymandering allows the politicians to select their voters, rather than the other way around. (Again, I have to credit The Gerrymandering Project for simplifying it like this for me.)

In any case, this doesn’t seem very democratic.

But back to Othello — whoever fills the board the most with their color wins. That’s basically the popular vote.

See? Clearly, black has won this game.

But what if instead we had some clever* “redistricting”?

This is gerrymandering. Redrawing the boundaries to ensure your victory. I exercised restraint on these boundaries! I could have easily made this much more obvious and widened the gap between the winner and the side that’s getting screwed.

*sneaky

If you prefer your metaphors less forced, how about this one.

I opened up the topic of The POTUS Notice to a vote. Subscribers could decide if the next issue should focus on the First Ladies or presidents and golf. A whopping two people voted for golf. The vast majority cast their vote for First Ladies. A skilled gerrymanderer could work the hell out of the results and to justify going with the minority.

NOTE: Project POTUS Pages is not a democracy, but I went along with the majority nonetheless. Here’s the post if you’re ready to move on to something less baffling.

Why do we have gerrymandering and/or the electoral college in the first place?

Seriously. I want to know.

It may have made sense in the days of Pony Express, but despite my best attempts to educate myself, I still do not understand why this is Still A Thing. In a recent Siena College poll ranking the U.S. Presidents from greatest to worst, 63% of historians surveyed leaned toward electing the President by popular vote. Only 17% favored the electoral college.

FUN FACT: Did you know the Pony Express only lasted for 18 months? I always assumed it lasted for decades or longer.

Let someone smarter explain this further.

• Listen to the podcast 99% Invisible episode 299, Gerrymandering

• Check out The Gerrymandering Project from FiveThirtyEight

• Visit history.com and learn how gerrymandering has changed over the years, depending on the use of other tactics to suppress votes (spoiler: poll taxes, for one)

• Watch this Gerrymandering Crash Course video