Gerrymandering is what politicians do when they can’t win elections on the strength of their arguments and resort to cheating instead — by ‘changing the rules’.  Or, in the case of gerrymandering, the BOUNDARIES.

So, instead of running against an electorate that wants nothing to do with them — and certainly doesn’t want their antiquated ideas governing them — gerrymanderers resort to changing district lines so that the majority (and, in America, that majority is diverse and it’s progressive) gets split up into a bunch of minorities whose electoral strength gets diluted by inclusion into large, phantasmagorically imagined districts where there will always be just enough reliably right wing voters to render a normal turnout of regular voters almost irrelevant. The right wing voter — whose politics, whose approach to social issues and money, whose approach to values — is a minority point of view — gets to impose his or her politics etc onto an electorate that does not want them, did not want them, and will never want them — and cannot understand why whenever they (try to) vote them out, gets nowhere.

The progressive electorate seethes while the conservative politicians points to his victory of proof that he’s right and his opposition is wrong: the people told him so…

Except, of course, they didn’t say anything of the sort.

The people were never actually consulted — since their vote was diluted to the point of virtual non-existence.

Republicans — having lied to themselves that anyone likes them or their ideas — double down on the lie by telling themselves that ‘THE MAJORITY OF THE ELECTORATE’ wants what they want.  But the Majority of Americans are NOT republicans and do not regularly VOTE republican.  And America is NOT a center-right country any longer.  It ain’t.  For better or worse (Prohibition was a progressive idea) it has always been significantly more progressive than regressive (or, if you prefer, CONSERVATIVE).

And yet — the republicans act like the opposite were true.

Even THEY have fooled themselves into thinking that their victories are real though it’s not really what happened; a distorted version of the electorate voted for them — distorted so as to deliberately CIRCUMVENT their will.

We’ve arrived at our metaphor:  Love.

The republicans think We The People love them when, obviously, we don’t.  A growing piece of the electorate flat out hates them — and thinks (with good reason) that the republicans are, in fact, STALKING them.  They’re like an old lech drooling over a young thing they’ve chosen to torment with their ‘love’.  They think it’s automatic that the young thing loves them back cos they’re so naturally lovable.

Except the Young Thing is watching them, looking for a chance to escape — or turn on the lech and deliver a little Justice.

That’s our Grand Ol Party, fellow Americans.