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There is an enormous paradox at the heart of American democracy. Congress is deeply and stubbornly unpopular. On average, between 10 and 15 percent of Americans approve of Congress - on a par with public support for traffic jams and cockroaches. And yet, in the 2016 election, only eight incumbents eight out of a body of 435 representatives were defeated at the polls.

If there is one silver bullet that could fix American democracy, it's getting rid of gerrymandering the now commonplace practice of drawing electoral districts in a distorted way for partisan gain. It's also one of a dwindling number of issues that principled citizens - Democrat and Republican - should be able to agree on. Indeed, polls confirm that an overwhelming majority of Americans of all stripes oppose gerrymandering.

In the 2016 elections for the House of Representatives, the average electoral margin of victory was 37.1 percent. That's a figure you'd expect from North Korea, Russia or Zimbabwe not the United States. But the shocking reality is that the typical race ended with a Democrat or a Republican winning nearly 70 percent of the vote, while their challenger won just 30 percent.

Last year, only 17 seats out of 435 races were decided by a margin of 5 percent or less. Just 33 seats in total were decided by a margin of 10 percent or less. In other words, more than 9 out of 10 House races were landslides where the campaign was a foregone conclusion before ballots were even cast. In 2016, there were no truly competitive Congressional races in 42 of the 50 states. That is not healthy for a system of government that, at its core, is defined by political competition.

Gerrymandering, in a word, is why American democracy is broken.

The word "gerrymander" comes from an 1812 political cartoon drawn to parody Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry's re-drawn senate districts. The cartoon depicts one of the bizarrely shaped districts in the contorted form of a fork-tongued salamander. Since 1812, gerrymandering has been increasingly used as a tool to divide and distort the electorate. More often than not, state legislatures are tasked with drawing district maps, allowing the electoral foxes to draw and defend their henhouse districts.

While no party is innocent when it comes to gerrymandering, a Washington Post analysis in 2014 found that eight of the 10 most gerrymandered districts in the United States were drawn by Republicans.

As a result, districts from the Illinois 4th to the North Carolina 12th often look like spilled inkblots rather than coherent voting blocs. They are anything but accidental. The Illinois 4th, for example, is nicknamed "the Latin Earmuffs," because it connects two predominantly Latino areas by a thin line that is effectively just one road. In so doing, it packs Democrats into a contorted district, ensuring that those voters cast ballots in a safely Democratic preserve. The net result is a weakening of the power of Latino votes and more Republican districts than the electoral math should reasonably yield. Because Democrats are packed together as tightly as possible in one district, Republicans have a chance to win surrounding districts even though they are vastly outnumbered geographically.

These uncompetitive districts have a seriously corrosive effect on the integrity of democracy. If you're elected to represent a district that is 80 percent Republican or 80 percent Democratic, there is absolutely no incentive to compromise. Ever. In fact, there is a strong disincentive to collaboration, because working across the aisle almost certainly means the risk of a primary challenge from the far right or far left of the party. For the overwhelming majority of Congressional representatives, there is no real risk to losing a general election - but there is a very real threat of losing a fiercely contested primary election. Over time, this causes sane people to pursue insane pandering and extreme positions. It is a key, but often overlooked, source of contemporary gridlock and endless bickering.

Moreover, gerrymandering also disempowers and distorts citizen votes - which leads to decreased turnout and a sense of powerlessness. In 2010, droves of tea party activists eager to have their voices heard quickly realized that their own representative was either a solidly liberal Democrat in an overwhelmingly blue district or a solidly conservative Republican in an overwhelmingly red district. Those representatives would not listen because the electoral map meant that they didn't need to.

Those who now oppose President Trump are quickly learning the same lesson about the electoral calculations made by their representatives as they make calls or write letters to congressional representatives who seem about as likely to be swayed as granite. This helps to explain why 2014 turnout sagged to just 36.4 percent, the lowest turnout rate since World War II. Why bother showing up when the result already seems preordained?

There are two pieces of good news. First, several court rulings in state and federal courts have dealt a blow to gerrymandered districts. Several court rulings objected to districts that clearly were drawn along racial lines. Perhaps the most important is a Wisconsin case (Whitford v. Gill) that ruled that districts could not be drawn for deliberate partisan gain. The Supreme Court will rule on partisan gerrymandering in 2017, and it's a case that could transform and reinvigorate American democracy at a time when a positive shock is sorely needed. (This may hold true even if Neil Gorsuch is confirmed to the Supreme Court, as Justices Kennedy and Roberts could side with the liberal minority).

Second, fixing gerrymandering is getting easier. Given the right parameters, computer models can fairly apportion citizens into districts that are diverse, competitive and geographically sensible ensuring that minorities are not used as pawns in a national political game. These efforts can be bolstered by stripping district drawing powers from partisan legislators and putting them into the hands of citizen-led commissions that are comprised by an equal number of Democrat- and Republican-leaning voters. Partisan politics is to be exercised within the districts, not during their formation. But gerrymandering intensifies every decade regardless, because it's not a politically "sexy" issue. When's the last time you saw a march against skewed districting?

Even if the marches do come someday, the last stubborn barrier to getting reform right is human nature. Many people prefer to be surrounded by like-minded citizens, rather than feeling like a lonely red oasis in a sea of blue or vice versa. Rooting out gerrymandering won't make San Francisco or rural Texas districts more competitive no matter the computer model used. And, as the urban/rural divide in American politics intensifies, competitive districts will be harder and harder to draw. The more we cluster, the less we find common ground and compromise.

Ultimately, though, we must remember that what truly differentiates democracy from despotism is political competition. The longer we allow our districts to be hijacked by partisans, blue or red, the further we gravitate away from the founding ideals of our republic and the closer we inch toward the death of American democracy.

---

Klaas is a Fellow in Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics and author of The Despot's Accomplice: How the West is Aiding & Abetting the Decline of Democracy.

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Gerrymandering is biggest obstacle to genuine democracy in US - MyStatesman.com

Longing for the Kennedys and the days of Americas past glory.

by Tyler Malbreaux | 2/17/17 12:30am

In a 1963 interview with Life magazine, the newly widowed Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy reflected on her husbands days in the White House. At night before wed go to sleep, Jack liked to play some records; and the song he loved the most came at the end of this record. The record she referred to was the soundtrack of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewes broadway musical, Camelot.

Dont let it be forgot / That once there was a spot / For one brief shining moment that was known / As Camelot.

There will be great presidents But therell never be another Camelot This was Camelot Lets not forget, Jackie Kennedy said.

The splendor of King Arthurs fictional realm is comparable to the magnificence that described the Kennedy Era. Unofficially, it was Americas royal family, with its most prominent member commanding from the great white mansion on Pennsylvania Avenue. At his side was the gracious and exquisite wife, descended from a lineage of wealthy socialites from the Hamptons. Together, they symbolized an America that previous first couples could not. Their lives pointed to an optimistic vision of the future, a vision in which theories of exceptionalism were finally realized. In the Kennedy era, the American empire seemed to be an unstoppable force for good, yearning to bring peace and prosperity to every corner of the world.

Most importantly, though, America was the foremost exemplary democracy. The different parts of the system would work harmoniously to create equal opportunity for every social class and racial group. The postwar expansion period was the largest economic boom up to that point, with standards of living even for blacks, women and the poor rising across the board. Political capital slowly shifted away from the hands of white males, as social justice movements gave minority populations new voting power. And even in the fog of the Cold War, the United States still commanded a nuclear arsenal unlike anything the world had ever seen. In short, Kennedys empire was vast, prosperous and protected, just like the fictional Camelot.

But like any good fairytale, there is a point where reality begins to destroy the facade of perfection. The head of the worlds empire of democracy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas in 1963. Five years later, Robert F. Kennedy, his younger brother and a leading candidate for the Democratic Partys presidential nomination in 1968, was killed in Los Angeles, California.

Indeed, the American public (at least, some of it) reflects wistfully on the Kennedy days, especially since the current president is the antithesis of grace and poise. The office of the presidency is insulted, daily, by a man President Donald Trump who refuses to respect the institutions made long before him. He is a man who cannot comprehend the importance of the words uttered at the bully pulpit. Our president is now a man who refuses to even tell the truth. This is not just the deterioration of the presidents office. This, in all likelihood, is the degradation of American democracy.

Larry Diamonds article in the Journal of Democracy best captures the threat facing Western democracy. He calls this new authoritarian trend democratic recession. Diamond describes an alarming trend in rate of global democratic growth. Around 2006, the expansion of freedom and democracy in the world came to a prolonged halt. Since then, there has been no net expansion in the number of electoral democracies, which has oscillated between 114 and 119, resulting in a decline in both electoral and liberal democracy. Particularly dangerous is that the United States lacks immunity to these global trends. Diamond cites legislative gridlock and polarization as signs of democratic recession, along with falling approval rates of Congress, low civic participation and low transparency around the impact of money in politics.

Diamonds article was written in 2015, which means it does not account for democratic recession exacerbated by a Trump presidency. But if the past month has revealed anything, it is that democratic recession could very well turn into a democratic depression. The people whose very values and aspirations are recognized in a democracy must save the institution from demise. While the constitution provides a stringent system of checks and balances, if enough politicians form coalitions that dispense with the rules, anything is fair game. Republicans lawmakers remain relatively lax on Trumps first disastrous month in office. They have not pressed him to release his tax returns, nor have they tried to discredit any of his outrageous statements. Obvious signs of potential conflicts of interest for Trump, notably his refusal to establish a blind trust, are blithely pushed under the rug. Even serious matters of national security, such as Michael Flynns communication with Russias ambassador to the U.S., are not enough to merit serious investigation, according to Jason Chaffetz, the Republican congressman whose committee would lead any such investigation.

If America still longs for the days of Camelot for the days of an exceptional America it must first ask itself if it has reached the point of no longer being exceptional. American exceptionalism has become, at times, a partisan issue, making it harder or even impossible to discuss this matter. But one thing is certain: the current trend cannot continue. Unless Congress becomes serious about checking the executive branch, or people actually exercise their civic duty, then it is only inevitable that future generations will one day look back in sober remembrance of the one brief shining moment there was an America.

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Malbreaux: Camelot and Democracy - The Dartmouth

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif. speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 13, 2013 CREDIT: AP Photo/Lauren VictoriaBurke

A group of Rep. Dana Rohrabachers (R-CA) constituents went to his office on Tuesday to deliver Valentines cards. They go every Tuesday now, asking Rohrabacher to hold a town hall meeting in his district.

But now, after a confused tussle in the hallway involving a 2-year old and a 71-year-old-woman, Rohrabacher is now accusing them of engaging in political thuggery, pure and simple.

The delegation is one of many grassroots groups around the country organizing around the Indivisible guide, which is a how-to manual for people looking to have a more effective voice in government. It was put together by former congressional staffers after Trumps victory.

Like many of the other Indivisible groups, the Orange County Indivisible group has been met with scorn and accusations of not being real constituents. For the past three weeks, at Rohrabachers office the door has been closed and locked, and they have slid their documentation underneath.

Two weeks ago, they were met with the police. And this Tuesday, as a 2-year-old girl slid a valentine under the door on Tuesday, one of Rohrabachers staffers opened it, hitting her in the head and knocking her to the ground.

According to local reporting, one of the constituents then grabbed the door and tugged on it, causing 71-year old district director Kathleen Staunton, who was on the other side of the door, to lose her footing and fall. A spokesman for Rohrabachers office told media that she later fell unconscious and had to go to the hospital.

In a video of the immediate aftermath, the little girl can be heard crying, as visiting constituents apologize, and one of them helps Rohrabachers staffer up. The door is then closed, and the group leaves.

I dont think anybody from either side was trying to hurt anybody, the mother of the young girl told a local reporter.

According to Mike Lisenbery, one of the organizers of the Indivisible group, the group visiting Rohrabachers office was predominantly composed of older retired women. This account is borne out in photographs of the group. The video shows that there were about 10 people in the hallway.

In his press release, however, Rohrabacher paints the incident as malicious and characterizes the activists as an unruly mob of thugs.

I am outraged beyond words that protesters who mobbed my Huntington Beach office violently knocked down my faithful district director, Kathleen Staunton, causing her to be hospitalized, Rohrabacher is quoted by saying.

Though the protesters think of themselves as idealists, they engaged in political thuggery, pure and simple. These people do not want, as theyve claimed, to hold a town hall meeting with me. These are unruly activists on whom the lessons of civility and democratic participation have been lost, he continues. These holier-than-thou obstructionists will be held responsible for this outrageous assault. They are exposing themselves for what they areenemies of American self-government and democracy.

Rohrabachers fiery response has flabbergasted his visitors, as did his one-sided depiction of the events. The only mention of the two-year-old is a passively-framed aside: In the tumult, a two-year-old girl apparently brought along with the crowd was also hit by a swinging door.

Everybody is taken a little be aback by his staff, really notnot trying to assume any culpability for knocking the little girl to the ground and really blaming it on us, Lisenbery told ThinkProgress. His staff should have known what was going on outside the door because they have security cameras outside the door, and theyve told us before they can see us on the cameras.

Rohrabacher posted his press release to his Facebook page. According to Lisenbery, any comments pushing back against his depiction of the events have been swiftly deleted, along with links to the video of the actual proceedings (embedded above).

This is a very hamfisted attempt by him to spin the events in his favor, said Lisenbery. Calling people political thugs, calling people activists, when its a lot of adults, mostly retirees with a lot of time on their hands, who are engaged in political action for the first time in their livesits offensive to the people he claims to represent.

This isnt the first time that Rohrabachers account has differed wildly from that of his constituents. In local media two weeks ago, his staff characterized the visitors as purposefully disruptive and from out-of-districtwhich the activists said was untrue on both counts.

While Rohrabachers response may seem hamfisted to those involved, his narrative is part of a long-running tactic of elevating small instances of violence in order to discredit larger movements. Right-wing commentators and lawmakers have long used isolated acts of violence to discredit the largely peaceful Black Lives Matter movement, for instance. And when protests in one city after Trumps election victory turned violent, the massive outpouring of peaceful protests were then lumped in as of-a-kind.

In dismissing the activists, Rohrabacher is also echoing a common refrain among Republican congresspeople who are struggling to respond to newly politically active constituents in the aftermath of the presidential election.

In Tennessee, Rep. John Duncan (R) said he wouldnt hold town halls for fear of extremists, kooks, and radicals. In Utah, Rep. Jason Chaffetz dismissed a particularly raucous town hall as more of a paid attempt to bully and intimidate. In Illinois, Rep. Peter Roskam snuck out the back door to avoid protesters, and a spokesman characterized them as national groups as opposed to local constituents.

And on the radio on Tuesday, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), even extended the logic to a justification for ignoring Democratic politicians.

These are people who have brought in anarchists to destroy this town. Of whom 240-some where arrested, with the support of George Soros and the Democrat left. This is not a cooperative environment, he told Boston Herald Radio.

Theres no evidence that George Soros is paying protesters. Anarchists did smash some windows in downtown D.C. during Trumps inauguration, but they were not connected to political groups, nor to the hundreds of thousands of peaceful protesters who marched the next day at the Womens March. Issas statistics are also misleading. The number Issa citeswhich, in reality, is 229includes both the protesters and legal observers, journalists, and bystanders who were rounded up dragnet-style by the police.

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Congressman says constituents asking for a town hall are 'enemies' of democracy - ThinkProgress

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Report: Agencies Withhold Intelligence from Trump over Leak Concerns - Democracy Now!

Until the last decade, the contributions of African-American soldiers in World War II barely registered in Americas collective memory of that war.

The tan soldiers, as the black press affectionately called them, were also for the most part left out of the triumphant narrative of Americas Greatest Generation. In order to tell their story of helping defeat Nazi Germany in my 2010 book, Breath of Freedom, I had to conduct research in more than 40 different archives in the U.S. and Germany.

When a German TV production company, together with Smithsonian TV, turned that book into a documentary, the filmmakers searched U.S. media and military archives for two years for footage of black GIs in the final push into Germany and during the occupation of post-war Germany.

They watched hundreds of hours of film and discovered less than 10 minutes of footage. This despite the fact that among the 16 million U.S. soldiers who fought in World War II, there were about one million African-American soldiers.

They fought in the Pacific, and they were part of the victorious army that liberated Europe from Nazi rule. Black soldiers were also part of the U.S. Army of occupation in Germany after the war. Still serving in strictly segregated units, they were sent to democratize the Germans and expunge all forms of racism.

It was that experience that convinced many of these veterans to continue their struggle for equality when they returned home to the U.S. They were to become the foot soldiers of the civil rights movement a movement that changed the face of our nation and inspired millions of repressed people across the globe.

As a scholar of German history and of the more than 70-year U.S. military presence in Germany, I have marveled at the men and women of that generation. They were willing to fight for democracy abroad, while being denied democratic rights at home in the U.S. Because of their belief in Americas democratic promise and their sacrifices on behalf of those ideals, I was born into a free and democratic West Germany, just 10 years after that horrific war.

Fighting racism at home and abroad

By deploying troops abroad as warriors for and emissaries of American democracy, the military literally exported the African-American freedom struggle.

Beginning in 1933, when Adolf Hitler came to power, African-American activists and the black press used white Americas condemnation of Nazi racism to expose and indict the abuses of Jim Crow at home. Americas entry into the war and the struggle against Nazi Germany allowed civil rights activists to significantly step up their rhetoric.

Langston Hughes 1943 poem, From Beaumont to Detroit, addressed to America, eloquently expressed that sentiment:

You jim crowed me / Before hitler rose to power- / And you are still jim crowing me- / Right now this very hour.

Believing that fighting for American democracy abroad would finally grant African-Americans full citizenship at home, civil rights activists put pressure on the U.S. government to allow African-American soldiers to fight like men, side by side with white troops.

The military brass, disproportionately dominated by white Southern officers, refused. They argued that such a step would undermine military efficiency and negatively impact the morale of white soldiers. In an integrated military, black officers or NCOs might also end up commanding white troops. Such a challenge to the Jim Crow racial order based on white supremacy was seen as unacceptable.

The manpower of black soldiers was needed in order to win the war, but the military brass got its way; Americas Jim Crow order was to be upheld. African-Americans were allowed to train as pilots in the segregated Tuskeegee Airmen. The 92nd Buffalo Soldiers and 93rd Blue Helmets all-black divisions were activated and sent abroad under the command of white officers.

Despite these concessions, 90 percent of black troops were forced to serve in labor and supply units, rather than the more prestigious combat units. Except for a few short weeks during the Battle of the Bulge in the winter of 1944 when commanders were desperate for manpower, all U.S. soldiers served in strictly segregated units. Even the blood banks were segregated.

A breadth of freedom

After the defeat of the Nazi regime, an Army manual instructed U.S. occupation soldiers that America was the living denial of Hitlers absurd theories of a superior race, and that it was up to them to teach the Germans that the whole concept of superiority and intolerance of others is evil. There was an obvious, deep gulf between this soaring rhetoric of democracy and racial harmony, and the stark reality of the Jim Crow army of occupation. It was also not lost on the black soldiers.

Post-Nazi Germany was hardly a country free of racism. But for the black soldiers, it was their first experience of a society without a formal Jim Crow color line. Their uniform identified them as victorious warriors and as Americans, rather than Negroes.

Serving in labor and supply units, they had access to all the goods and provisions starving Germans living in the ruins of their country yearned for. African-American cultural expressions such as jazz, defamed and banned by the Nazis, were another reason so many Germans were drawn to their black liberators. White America was stunned to see how much black GIs enjoyed their time abroad, and how much they dreaded their return home to the U.S.

By 1947, when the Cold War was heating up, the reality of the segregated Jim Crow Army in Germany was becoming a major embarrassment for the U.S. government. The Soviet Union and East German communist propaganda relentlessly attacked the U.S. and challenged its claim to be the leader of the free world. Again and again, they would point to the segregated military in West Germany, and to Jim Crow segregation in the U.S. to make their case.

Coming home

Newly returned veterans, civil rights advocates and the black press took advantage of that Cold War constellation. They evoked Americas mission of democracy in Germany to push for change at home. Responding to that pressure, the first institution of the U.S. to integrate was the U.S. military, made possible by Trumans 1948 Executive Order 9981. That monumental step, in turn, paved the way for the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

The veterans who had been abroad electrified and energized the larger struggle to make America live up to its promise of democracy and justice. They joined the NAACP in record numbers and founded new chapters of that organization in the South, despite a wave of violence against returning veterans. The veterans of World War II and the Korean War became the foot soldiers of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. Medgar Evers, Amzie Moore, Hosea Williams and Aaron Henry are some of the better-known names, but countless others helped advance the struggle.

About one-third of the leaders in the civil rights movement were veterans of World War II.

They fought for a better America in the streets of the South, at their workplaces in the North, as leaders in the NAACP, as plaintiffs before the Supreme Court and also within the U.S. military to make it a more inclusive institution. They were also the men of the hour at the 1963 March on Washington, when their military training and expertise was crucial to ensure that the day would not be marred by agitators opposed to civil rights.

We structured the March on Washington like an army formation, recalled veteran Joe Hairston.

For these veterans, the 2009 and 2013 inaugurations of President Barack Obama were triumphant moments in their long struggle for a better America and a more just world. Many never thought they would live to see the day that an African-American would lead their country.

To learn more about the contributions of African-American GIs, visit The Civil Rights Struggle, African-American GIs, and Germany digital archive.

Maria Hhn, Professor and Chair of History, Vassar College

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African-American GIs of WWII: Fighting for democracy abroad and at home - Salon