QotD, And House Democrats Deserve This, Too edition.

Cook Political Report, establishing what we knew already:

In many respects, observing House Democrats trying to take back their majority is like watching a soccer team play a comparably skilled opponent with the field slanted 15 degrees against them.

Short version: Section V of the Voting Rights Act.  We’ve gotten into the habit of creating majority-minority districts; the Democrats are utterly reliant on the black vote to win elections; members of the Congressional Black Caucus are always willing to work with the Republican party to keep their seats safe (and to get new majority-minority districts); white Democrats are a bit reluctant to vote for minority Democrats; and it’s really hard to get the courts to throw out a map that the GOP/CBC has collaborated on.  Mix it all together, and hey presto! Structural GOP majority.

This drives the Online Left nuts, by the way: being largely white Democrats themselves and not entirely stupid, most of the smarter ones figure out eventually that they’re being given the shaft by minority Democrats.  The problem is that while the Online Left largely despises minorities they’re also exceptionally well conditioned by now to never, ever let that show.  So they just blame us, instead.  Oh, and vent their ire on minority conservatives: those are apparently safe targets.

Moe Lane

PS: Answer?  There’s no answer.  The problem for the Democrats is that this isn’t exactly gerrymandering, as they mean the term.  There’s no conspiracy.  What this is is an inability for Democrats to get past skin color when it comes time to picking out a representative.  If minority Democrats would vote for white ones – or vice very much versa – the GOP would be quickly in a pickle.  But this isn’t happening, and this is what does happen when you federally mandate hothouse Congressional Districts.

PPS: This is, by the way, why there are so few minority (Democratic) Senators and governors.  How the heck are they supposed to learn how to win a statewide race in this kind of environment?

PPPS: This is also why Nancy Pelosi is still in power.  A sensible – which is to say, not dominated by Leftist – political party would have purged her the way that sensible parties do when their leadership has as dramatic a setback as the Democrats did in 2010… and, on the House level, that they did in 2012.  Seriously, the Democrats should have gotten a high double-digit seat gain out of that.