THE CAL. REPUBLICANS' SUDDEN EPIPHANY - A BROADER ANALYSIS OF THE TERMINAL CRISIS OF THE DUOPOLY
- Gonzalo Santos
- Aug 22
- 5 min read
This "Come to Jesus" moment, explained in the attached article below, besides constituting good news for the nation reflects the dripping hypocrisy of the scheming and unprincipled Republicans of California, as usual - their sudden enlightenment notwithstanding.
Lets recap, shall we?
The California GOP back in the "aughts" overwhelmingly opposed and fought tooth and nail the creation of a California Citizens Redistricting Commission (CCRC), when then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger literally had to ram it down their throats back in 2008 & 2010 (elevated to constitutional status under Propositions11 & 20).
They quieted down afterwards, when they realized that due to the CCRC's composition benefited them - solidifying the rigid duopoly nature of the electoral system and encouraging self-serving, mutually-beneficial cooperation between the two major parties (at the expense of independents & third parties); and more importantly, after securing a sizable - albeit significantly smaller than half - number of solid red "safe" congressional districts, such as those in the Central Valley (e.g., Kevin McCarthy's, which help catapult him to House Speaker).
That's how, after the 2020 Census-based redistricting, a complete grey empty-suit and unconditional Trumpy, former McCarthy's staffer & state assemblyman Vince Fong, automatically and easily "inherited" the congressional seat in 2024 AND simultaneously won reelection for his Assembly seat (which he was no longer seeking!), after his former boss's humiliating dethronement & departure from Congress!
A vivid demonstration, if ever we needed one, of Mindless Republican-Machine Reflex Voting in those CCRC-drawn red districts! In the 2026 midterm elections coming up, Jesus Christ Himself descending on a pink cloud with Angels' trumpets blaring would surely lose to this non-entity endorsed by the GOP - IF the district remains intact, which is now a very big if!
Back to today's Gerrymandering Wars. When Trump "instructed" the pliable, ruthless, and cynical Texas GOP to openly gerrymander the state's congressional districts to "gain a political advantage" of five more districts over the already-gerrymandered map of 2020, not a single California Republicans made a peep - the customary, default stonewalling mode habitually followed after each and every unconstitutional outrage and shenanigan by the Trump administration.
Besides, Republicans nationwide said, it was perfectly legal after the 2024 U.S. Supreme Court's "Alexander v. South Carolina NAACP" fatal decision. And they had a point.
Consider this brazen decision the opening bugle blast on what will be an indefinite era of the most crass political gerrymandering warfare. Here it is in a nutshell (thanks to the Brennan Center for Justice):
South Carolina’s Republican legislators drew congressional district maps in a way that diminished the influence of Black voters in choosing a representative. The state denied accusations of racial gerrymandering, which is still (theoretically) illegal. No, South Carolina said, this was good old-fashioned partisan gerrymandering, a quaint and cherished part of our political system. It’s the American way — the founding fathers did it! To this implausible argument, the lopsided right-wing Supreme Court assented!
The Texas power grab followed, and so did yesterday's California's bold forceful response. The Gerrymandering Wars have begun!
It was only after governor Gavin Newsom successfully launched his bold and audacious countermove to redistrict California's congressional districts to "gain a political advantage" of carving out five more districts for the Democrats - exactly doing to the Republicans of California what they were cynically doing in Texas to the Democrats - that the California Republicans had a sudden "epiphany" and "found their voice," by
(a) pontificating that "two wrongs don’t make a right", which inescapably forced them to recognize that the Trump-mandated Texas power grab was, in fact, "wrong";
(b) acknowledge - finally - that this brazen, disgusting, and chaotic "race to the bottom" is no way to run the duopoly; and
(c) proposing extending to the WHOLE NATION the California CCRC model of cooperative duopoly redistricting that they so bitterly opposed, but now have come to see the wisdom of embracing!
They fool no one - it's all meant to defeat the California plan while retain the Texas plan... Republican pious duplicity is par for the course to be expected.
I already saw David Valadao - who stands to lose his district if Newsom's redistricting plan is approved by voter referendum this November (Prop. 50) - come out on cue to bemoan both the Trumpian Texas power grab and the brilliant Newsom Judo comeback.
My thoughtful response, in Spanish: ¡Ja ja ja!
What next: Valadao piously bemoaning the deep cuts to Medicaid he just voted for that will impact his working class constituents more than any other California district, and his meek call for a "new" bill?
Or, as the agricultural growers in his district lose their labor forces due to the absolutely terroristic mass deportation/detention campaign that he voted for (obediently voting to fund it to the tune of $170+ billions), and untold millions of temporarily legalized Dreamers, TPSers, and admitted asylum-seekers are stripped of their status and become illegalized thanks to Valadao's Dear Leader's inhumane, draconian executive orders, will he now call for a "pause" and "pledge to work for a "bipartisan deal" next term?
His opportunism is showing. Not to mention Valadao's utter silence on the genocide in Gaza, his studious avoidance of addressing the issue of reckless, inflationary tariffs, or the unnecessarily tense relations with our two neighboring countries, the failure to stop the war in Ukraine, the devastating fires in California and hurricanes and floods elsewhere due to oil-&-gas-induced climate change, or any of the other burning issues the nation and the world confront today and cries for solutions. Ever heard our representative address any of them? Ever even dare hold a townhall meeting to let us address them to him?
A zero and vacuous record on advocacy, of leadership, or even plain relevancy - that's the Valley Republicans' mold that Valadao & Fong embody due to their safe districts - one, Fong's district, virtually gifted to the GOP by the CCRC since the beginning during McCarthy's era; the other, Valadao's, supposedly gifted to the Dems (as the most Latino & Democratic district in the Southern San Joaquin Valley) but appallingly, perennially squandered and lost to David Valadao by running Blue Dog wimpy candidates with no fight in them - especially on the central issue of immigration to mobilize the Latino vote.
Let's see now if the California Dems have the will and determination to see through to victory Newsom's bold counterattack to Trump's Texas power grab. (Pols like our own assemblywoman Jasmeet Bains clearly and embarrasingly do not). But even if they do, that stop-gap response is necessarily temporary. The deep restructuring of the American electoral system, and of the duopoly system of American democracy in general, lies ahead. The Republicans HAVE a proposal for their replacement - the Maga Fascist Project. The Democrats, mired in the duopoly deeply corrupt and undemocratic structures, DO NOT.
The duopoly itself is unsustainable, Its festering contradictions will continue to generate chaos and spiraling social conflict until it is replaced with a better, more democratic, equitable, and functional system. Especially one structured at a very healthy distance from the immense power of plutocratic money, on the one hand, and, as we see already here and around the world, the reactionary power of organized religion, on the other.
No shortcuts, people! We start with trench battles like the redistricting battle now engaged by both parties; but we, the people, must see beyond them, come up with a plan to transcend the duopoly and restructure our political system as a whole if we hope to prevent falling into the authoritarian model of open plutocratic rule we now call the Maga Fascist Project.
Let's knock those brutally cynical power-grabbers in Texas and the White House out of their socks, and move on to uniting around a vision for a deep and lasting structural change in our political, social, and economic systems.
Another world is possible, another North America needed, another vision required.
La lucha continúa.
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