OPINION:
We live in uncertain times, and three key features of the current landscape increase the likelihood of political violence.
First, for more than a decade, blue states have been losing population to red states. Over the past 10 years, New York has lost approximately 2 million residents; New Jersey and Illinois have each lost around 500,000. About 2 million refugees have fled the Golden State in the past 15 years. On the other side of the coin are Texas and Florida, each of which has gained nearly 2 million residents in recent years.
Political people, being the narrow, small-minded people that we are, instantly gravitate to explanations that the flight from blue states to red states is all or mostly about state governmental policy, especially taxes. In other words, the citizenry is sorting itself out based on political preferences.
Second, and in a very much related development, Republicans in a handful of states — Texas being the most prominent — have decided that they want to maximize the number of congressional districts they control by redrawing the lines that demarcate those districts. Not surprisingly, Democrats have joined this electoral arms race, most energetically in California.
When elected officials get to pick their voters, the value and purpose of elections are minimized and the value of incumbency is maximized. Gerrymandering inevitably results in a system where adherence to partisan norms, rather than representing voters’ interests, becomes the most critical focus and goal of the elected official.
Gerrymandering leads to anti-democratic results. The California House delegation consists of 43 Democrats and nine Republicans. Gov. Gavin Newsom has indicated that he can reduce the number of Republicans in the delegation to just four, making the new split 48-4. In the most recent elections in California, about 60% of voters voted for Democratic candidates in House races and about 40% voted for Republican candidates. If you just split the delegation along those lines, it would have about 38 Democrats and 21 Republicans.
In Illinois, the House delegation consists of 14 Democrats and three Republicans despite the fact that in 2024, about 47% of Illinois voters voted for Republican House candidates. That delegation should have nine Democrats and eight Republicans.
It is not just the Democrats. Missouri’s House delegation is 75% Republican. In 2024, 58% of Missouri voters voted for Republicans. If the proposed map in Texas is adopted, Republicans would hold about 80% of the House seats from Texas, despite winning only 58% of the vote. In Florida, about 70% of the House delegation is Republican; again, only 58% of the voters voted for Republican House candidates in 2024.
In short, and most relevant to this moment, gerrymandering exacerbates our political divisions by essentially disenfranchising political minorities. If voters aren’t represented through the political process, they will eventually find other outlets for their concerns.
Finally, in my neighborhood in suburban Richmond, Virginia, there are more than a few yard signs that encourage people to vote for Jay Jones for attorney general. Mr. Jones’ principal claim to fame is that he spoke openly and enthusiastically about killing the speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, as well as the man’s children. Despite that, among the well-off and exceedingly polite people of Chesterfield County, there are obviously more than a handful who are OK with assassinations and who advertise their support for a would-be assassin for political office.
All three of these features of our current political landscape — people choosing where to live based on politics, gerrymandering so thorough that it essentially precludes participation in the political process by those who are part of the minority party in a particular state, and (especially egregious and worrisome) a willingness of some voters to support murderous violence against their enemies — conspire to make national political dissolution appear to be a very real possibility.
The first two make it much more likely that states will become redder or bluer, thereby maximizing the potential for irreconcilable conflicts. The third one makes political violence much more likely.
In 1859, as he headed toward the gallows after his failed effort to seize the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, and ignite a slave rebellion, John Brown, the prophet of the apocalypse that was coming, gave the hangman a note. It read, in part: “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away, but with blood.”
He was, of course, correct.
• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor at The Washington Times.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.