January 3, 2011

Gerrymandering

In VDARE this week, I compare two examples of how the press has treated two Members of the House of Representatives who have been major beneficiaries of racial gerrymandering: the media has portrayed Howard Berman's gerrymandering with appropriate cynicism but Luis Gutierrez is repeatedly profiled with near-complete credulity.

35 comments:

Formerly.JP98 said...

The WaPo reporter (along with her editor) deserves a good, public dressing-down for misapprehending her subject so thoroughly.

As for "Latinos Good, Whites Bad" thinking on the part of whites, I suspect that a lot of it -- oddly enough -- is rooted in whites' need to prove to blacks that the U.S. is not racist. I.e., if dirt poor , illiterate, Mexicans can come here and do well, then blacks will have no grounds for making whites feel guilty for blacks' relative lack of success.

Chicago said...

Gutierrez is widely viewed as a weasel like creature with little appeal outside his base of support. He's found his niche being a highly visible advocate for illegals, their legal relatives, and all things Hispanic, making a nice living at it. Where else but politics can loudmouth mediocrities make as much money, all the while strutting before the cameras as if they were supermodels?

Anonymous said...

To make the point clear in a way people will understand emotionally, you could talk about Mississippi's famous "shoestring district" in the 1870s, which was three hundred miles long and about twenty wide, and included all the densest black communities of the state.

Anonymous said...

The flip side of political gerrymandering is racial gerrymandering, where left wing courts demand low income housing be built in prosperous white majority areas -- this can destroy a city wholesale in less than a decade. So expect the Diversity Empire to strike back at the newly minted Republican congressional districts.

Anonymous said...

off-topic steve, but why did you not review "A Prophet (of a distopian future, in spite of our best efforts)", the french arab criminal coming of age flick? aren't the french getting it?

the director jokes on the commentary track about how there was no street control during filming of a long scene in which two leather-jacketed arabs walk around with guns in an upper-end parisian neighborhood.

Anonymous said...

I don't understand how the Republicans are using gerrymandering at the expense of white democrats.

Anonymous said...

steve, gerrymandering is always a good thing. For all working class peoples, of whatever color. But especially for white people.

Gerrymandering increases the unity and cohesion of the electorate within voting districts. A more unified electorate is better able to unite and discover their common purpose (to paraphrase james madison from the federalist papers). Of course the USA was set up from the start to DIS-unite, to fragment the electorate. That is what Madison wrote. The larger the district, the less united because the larger the district, the more factions therein and therefore the less united.

A poorly united political district, whether it be a city, a state or a nation, is less able to elect and hold accountable politicians who will represent them. The more in tune the voters are with each other, the more common interests they share, the more their elected "public servants" must heed them.

This is THE fundamental and founding principle of the USA. That was the 'divide et impera' phrase that james madison referred to in his letter to Jefferson.

The founding father aristocrats deliberately increased the size of the voting district by creating a federal govt. As madison wrote, the larger the district, the more factions, and the more factions therein, the less unity, and as madison wrote, the less unified the populace, the less able they are to use their own govt to seize the wealth of rich aristocrats like madison, washington, jefferson et al.

The same principle applies to racial integration, diversity, multiculti etc. The more races in the same workplace, neighborhood, city, state or nation, and the more integrated those races and nationalities are, the less united they are.

That is why the elite showed the civil rights movement down the throats of white majority america. It was not wanted by popular demand, except by the rich and powerful.

Gerrymandering is a good thing because it increases unity within the district. The more unified the electorate, the more they can elect and hold accountable a politician. You want politicians to be held accountable, right?
This is why the small, relatively non-diverse, and therefore highly unified nations of western europe have a better lifestyle--they have their own govts more under control because their electoral districts are more unified because 1) they are smaller (being both parliamentarian (which means smaller voting districts) and smaller in total population), and 2) they have less racial diversity.


You like democracy, right?
See my past posts here for cites on this:

http://www.reddit.com/user/cryofan/

Anonymous said...

From what I've heard, Puerto Ricans and Mexicans don't particularly have a lot of affinity for one another.

Sort of funny that the Democrats thought that nominating Puerto Rican-American Sonia Sotomayor would help win more of the Mexican-American vote. That's like nominating Scalia to the Supreme Court in order to win more Irish votes in Boston.

What race are Puerto Ricans anyway? Some look white, some look black, some look brown, most look mixed. Seems like they're some sort of triracial blend of Taino, Spanish, and black.

When you think about it, the two most prominent Hispanics are Sotoyamor and Congress Guiterrrez. Both of whom are Puerto Rican.

Christopher Paul said...

I don't understand how the Republicans are using gerrymandering at the expense of white democrats.

Simple. Packing all the NAMs into their own districts (where they can elect their own) frees up the white vote for its natural party, the GOP. Think about it, where is a white Democrat going to win under this scenario? Where do his votes come from?

Anonymous said...

"I don't understand how the Republicans are using gerrymandering at the expense of white democrats."

Minorities are core Democrat voters (blacks tend to vote 90% Democrat, Hispanics 65% Democrat). Whites tend to vote more even (40-45% Democrat).

If you want to maximize white Democrat votes, you put 30% minorities each in each district.

That will give the white Democrat enough minority votes to win with a minority of the white vote. But because minorities they are only 30% of the district, the Democrat congressmen is likely going to be white.

If you want to maximize the number of minority congressmen, you put 60% minorities in district X. This will guarantee a Democrat victory, in that district, and make it likely that the congressman is minority himself.

The Democrats still get district X for sure, but remember that district would have been their anyway even with 30% minority.

However making it a true minority district this requires them to strip *all other districts* of the state of minority (Democrat) votes.

The number of minorities in each state is fixed.

So Republicans can now forget about district X, but win the rest of the state, which is now more Republican because there are few minorities left.

Anonymous said...

Steve, you're like some kind of socialist and nationlist, or nationalist-socialist... it's a strange combination..

you're talking about how the rich is screwing the 'regular' folks

and about how the minorities and immigrants are also screwing the-people..

sounds familiar?

Christopher Paul said...

I have to say, Berman's district is nothing like as severe as Gutierrez's, which is about as bizarrely shaped as any I've seen. At least Berman represents a cohesive geographic district (roughly the L.A. city areas of the Valley).

Whiskey said...

First, I think it is already too late for America. Whites are no longer the majority of births in this nation, and we have flipped to Mexico Norte. So get used to being a third class citizen, in a poor nation resembling say, a slightly less violent Mexico. Or maybe a worse one, who knows?

But White America is dead forever, the future belongs to Mexico and Mexicans. Because that is who is born, and these folks are not going to be deported, ever.

But more importantly, the Dem Party is through racial and political gerrymandering becoming the rabid Anti-White party, aided in part by anti-White feelings of "original sin" over White guilt about segregation/racism. This seems to bring a far more rapid crisis coming, particularly with the collapse of budgets due to most states being filled with impoverished Mexican refugees.

California under Jerry Brown will grant aid to illegal aliens for college scholarships, over residents of other states (who are White). This will be inevitably upheld by the Supreme Court building on Grutter v. Bollinger on the theory (inevitable consequence of the Civil Rights Movement) that "Whites must be punished" (forever) in retaliation for past wrongs.

Steve Sailer said...

Right, the shape of Berman's district isn't anywhere near as bad as the shape of a lot of minority majority districts. It was finetuned to keep him from having a serious primary challenge, but it's not immediately absurd looking.

The Anti-Gnostic said...

I don't know that White America is 'dead forever.' Its current effete culture is the product of a rapidly ebbing affluence which allows such indulgences. Once that is gone they could very well revert to historical type.

Sideways said...

What race are Puerto Ricans anyway?

It was originally Amerindians, who were mostly killed off during the colonization process. Europeans moved in and brought African slaves in. These days it's mostly mixed black/white with a bit of Amerindian DNA tossed in and a few more or less unmixed people.

Sort of like Brazil would be if they had killed off almost all their Indians hundreds of years ago.

Anonymous said...

Whiskey,

The hispanic birthrate will collapse just like the black birthrate has collapsed.

The black birthrate is merely at replacement at this time. It was as high as 4.52 as recently as the 1960's.

How did we do it? We simply made the black father an uneccessary accoutrement in a black woman's life. She can have a Sec8 or HUD house out in the suburbs without him at this time. She wont get a nicer house by having a hosue-full of kids. She can simply have two. If she gets married, she loses the house.

Can you think of a better way to quell a birthrate? The black out of wedlock birthrate is at 72%. The hispanic is at 52.5%.

The extended family bonds of these people will be/are being smashed also. These kids not only dont have dads, but they don't have a paternal side of the family either. No aunts/uncles, grandparents, and cousins from dad's side of the family. No masculine family role models to be proud of.

We are entering the third full generation of single-mothers in black ghettos. Many black kids have not only a single mother, but a grandmother and great grandmother who were also single moms. As their family sizes got near replacement levels in the 80's, there aren't nearly as many aunts and uncles around, as well as cousins. How can these kids be proud of their lineage? How will they be proud of their lineage when they all start interbreeding amongst the other races, removing the one cultural touchstone (their race) that they did have?
All striving then becomes a Lexus commercial doesn't it?

Invite the world, Invade the world forgets one unmentioned development (Steve): we are culturally invading the world, espeically in regards to the folkaways between man and woman. Promoting single motherhood, and making the government provide housing for single mothers is probably the best way to destroy a birthrate/personal heritage imagineable over four or five generations. Looking at Asia, South America, Europe, and Canada, its hard not to see the global elites winning. Only the religous are holdouts natally.


--Look at the world as a disinterested observer sometime and these things become obvious

Kevin B said...

Here's his district on Google maps: 28th District

Kevin B said...

And right next door is his buddy Brad Sherman: 27th District . Note the fat finger dividing the center of the district. This is, for the most part, a concentrated Latino area of crumbling barrios.

Both Berman and Sherman have slight White numerical advantages to Latinos in their districts, with wealthy Jewish Whites in the hills providing the muscle to keep them in office.

Independent redistricting is going to cause a lot of changes in SoCal, mainly to the detriment of White Democrats.

Steve Sailer said...

Good point: the funny thing is not Berman's district in isolation but seeing how Berman's and Brad Sherman's districts intertwine in a strange fashion -- Sherman's district wraps around Berman's -- so that both white Democrats could survive.

Rohan Swee said...

Too Dull to Create a Pseudonym wrote: Steve, you're like some kind of socialist and nationlist, or nationalist-socialist... it's a strange combination..

you're talking about how the rich is screwing the 'regular' folks

and about how the minorities and immigrants are also screwing the-people..

sounds familiar?


Yeah, I'm pretty sure Steve is familiar with Godwin's Law and its corollaries.

Captain Jack Aubrey said...

Saban should get sued and deported for violating his oath of citizenship: "I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen..."

Saban, a naturalized citizen, once proclaimed "I'm a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel." Sounds like a pretty open-and-shut case for the government to make.

Anyway in some cases gerrymandering can be fun. In the 2001-2 redistricting the Republicans in my state, Utah, in trying to get rid of Demcorat Jim Matheson, actually managed to scare open borders Republican Jim Hansen into retirement because they had significantly altered his constituency. They also threw Jewish state rep David Litvack into the same district as Hispanic state rep Loretta Baca. Litvack is a self-righteous asshat when it comes to defending illegal immigrants and affirmative action (it relates to his full-time professional career as well as his part-time political one), but he chose not to generously step aside in favor of the Hispanic. He squared off against Baca in a Democratic primary, and won.

Anonymous said...

Besides benefitting from gerrymandering it should always be mentioned that fewer votes (~73,300) were cast in Gutierrez's congressional district than probably and district in the US. In many House districts the turn out is 3x that high.

Berman's district only saw 100,000 votes cast last year. In most California districts the turnout was 150k-200k. This suggests to me that his survival has much to do with the padding of his district's population with non-citizens who can't vote.

Captain Jack Aubrey said...

"Hmmhmmh—why don’t these Hispanic leaders trumpeted in the MSM seem to have as many followers as their business cards suggest?"

The latest push by the MSM is to convince racist Republicans that Hispanics are actually "natural Republicans" (though 70% of Hispanics are apparently too stupid to realize it).

One of my local papers recently did a write-up about a "major new nationwide group" for "conservative Hispanics" called Somos Republicans. A visit to their Facebook page showed them with all of 384 fans, and a visit to their website revealed an inanely amateurish page, and that the "conservative" group was obsessed about only one thing - discouraging enforcement of immigration laws. The group's website even has an enemies list, and it's comprised almost entirely of Republicans.

Svigor said...

Steve, you're like some kind of socialist and nationlist, or nationalist-socialist... it's a strange combination..

you're talking about how the rich is screwing the 'regular' folks

and about how the minorities and immigrants are also screwing the-people..

sounds familiar?


Steve, you sound like Hitler. Hitler used indoor plumbing...you use indoor plumbing...

Svigor said...

First, I think it is already too late for America.

Best way to get a guy to lose a fight is to convince him beforehand he can't win.

Or pay him to take a dive.

Whites are no longer the majority of births in this nation

Who gives a shit? We were the majority from the founding until now, and the traitors sold it all out from under us.

So what's majority status doing for us, 'cept making the lullaby easier to fall for?

Gee, I wonder WTF Mexicans were thinking in 1964? "Damn, we're never going to take over America; the whole thing is white! America's whiteness is a fait accompli; no changing that fact, no way, no how. Imposskible."

Anonymous said...

Steve, you're like some kind of socialist and nationlist, or nationalist-socialist... it's a strange combination..

you're talking about how the rich is screwing the 'regular' folks

and about how the minorities and immigrants are also screwing the-people..

sounds familiar?"


Familiar, and correct.

Anonymous said...

"We are entering the third full generation of single-mothers in black ghettos. Many black kids have not only a single mother, but a grandmother and great grandmother who were also single moms. "

Maybe it's just my imagination, but I feel Great Society handouts, having actually altered the reproductive habits of blacks, have created something, well, different. Google "African Americans 1950" (or 1940 and 1960) and then recall to mind what you saw the last time you took a metro bus or walked down a street in Oakland. The men and women look angrier and more aggressive. Facial features are more primitive. Everybody is hugely fat. It could be that I am just looking at blacks in the past through nostalgic Jim Crow glasses, but I feel the differences are genetically encoded. Likewise, Google photos of white people from the 50s. The breeding habits of whites seem to be creating a new class too: effete, self absorbed, unhealthy, incapable of physical challenge, bizarre, and intellectually shallow. Perhaps this is at the root of America's apparent decline in the globe. Maybe white privilege is real, and biologically detrimental.

Chinese are two generations or so away from their agrarian coolie labor roots so they are genetically fairly strong. But soon materialism, social entitlement, selective breeding for money making talents, combined wit late marriage and child bearing, will dampen their animal spirits, too.

Sean said...

It is probably a good thing for a state to have 20% or so non-whites. It seems to me that they act as an inoculating presence by making whites racially self aware. The south is a classic example of this but there are two other examples which also stand out. Liberal whitopias like Vermont which is far away from minorities and the 2008 Democrat primaries. Obama won two types of states; whitopias which were not inoculated and places with a critical mass of black people like Mississippi. Hillary won places like Pennsylvania where there are enough whites to win but not to many for them to be unrealistic about NAMs.

As the browning of America extends north we will likely see a very necessary development for whites; a self-identification as a people separate from an identification as American. Then I think we'll see far less tolerance for the Democrats left wing crap.

asdfasdfasf said...

If it's bad for white Democrats, Shhhhhhh, let them think otherwise.

Anonymous said...

"...Berman's and Brad Sherman's districts intertwine in a strange fashion -- Sherman's district wraps around Berman's..."

The kosher burrito districts.

Anonymous said...

Thanks. So, I take it that Puerto Ricans are more mulatto than meztizo. Which might be why their performance in entertainment, sports (baseball), and music seems to be above that of Mexican-Americans.

Anonymous said...

I think Svigor has a point when he writes, Gee, I wonder WTF Mexicans were thinking in 1964? "Damn, we're never going to take over America; the whole thing is white! America's whiteness is a fait accompli; no changing that fact, no way, no how. Imposskible."

Sometimes folks like whiskey can get too pessimistic, but you have to keep in mind that history goes in circles.

Think back 90 years ago and what it must have been like for a mohammedan in the middle east. Your big boy the Ottomans had just lost their empire and the infidels were carving up Arab territory. They were even planning the creation of a Jewish state in the middle of your lands. These infidels had flying machines and automobiles and were technologically centuries ahead. The future must have looked bleak. But today, the mohammedans think they are on the rise and technically they are the ones invading and colonizing the West.

Mexicans have been looking up to the gringos for their entire history, and now thanks to a suicidal law, are waltzing across the border and rapidly becoming the dominant ethnic group. Is there any way Mexicans could have conceived of this turn of events just 50 years ago?

The point is history is cyclical. Granted our present generations have been caught on the wrong side of the curve and will probably never live to see it swing in a more favorable direction, but it will swing. I know history is also full of peoples like the Visigoths who vanished. But I think there are too many European type peoples, spread out over several continents, to go the way of the Visigoths.

I'm not happy with the situation, but as Svigor wrote, "Best way to get a guy to lose a fight is to convince him beforehand he can't win."

Therefore, with that in mind, we should do as much as possible to lay the groundwork for the inevitable, positive swing even though we won't live to see it.

JSM said...

"Mexicans have been looking up to the gringos for their entire history, and now thanks to a suicidal law, are waltzing across the border and rapidly becoming the dominant ethnic group. Is there any way Mexicans could have conceived of this turn of events just 50 years ago?"

NY Congressman Emanuel Cellar spent 4 decades relentlessly pushing to get the 1924 immigration-restriction act overturned before he was successful in 1965, when his imminvasion-enabling law was passed.

Have any of the American White advocates looked into it to see if the Mexican gov't was funding him?
(Because under the principle of asking, "Who benefits?" the Mexican elites benefit. They get to decrease their own tax burden by exporting their welfare dependants.)

Anonymous said...

"The point is history is cyclical. Granted our present generations have been caught on the wrong side of the curve and will probably never live to see it swing in a more favorable direction, but it will swing."

Swings occur only when there is a restoring force. Unless whites push back, as Jared Taylor has been prodding us to do for 20 odd years, I believe La Raza triumphalists will indeed write our epitaph.