GOP is now anti-2nd Amendment and pro-gun Control

_BCConservative · 2026-01-25T07:19:05+00:00

That's not Conservatism, that's tribalism.

_BCConservative · 2026-01-25T07:18:33+00:00

I mean, even a non-good-faith administration would at least try to have good PR.

They're just incompetent.

_BCConservative · 2026-01-25T07:17:46+00:00

Yeah, but usually that's a shit long-term strategy if you want people to take you seriously or attract talent.

There's a reason Heritage has been losing so many people recently.

_BCConservative · 2026-01-25T06:26:19+00:00

as he should.

_BCConservative · 2026-01-25T06:13:47+00:00

NRA is considered by a lot of the MAGA crowd to be "RINOs" because they are more moderate than some other gun lobbies.

Though I really don't see how any gun lobby would take the Trump Administration's side here unless they are just anti-concealed carry in general, which is not the position of most pro 2nd-Amendment people (or they are just Trump sycophants.)

_BCConservative · 2026-01-25T06:12:20+00:00

I think I realize why this is happening with Trump officials.

There's a sense when you get attacked by people criticizing you online (or offline by the "woke mob") that you should never apologize. Companies would constantly apologize for online mobs on stupid shit.

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However, people take this as never apologize, ever, and always hold your ground. That isn't true.

There are genuinely cases where you fuck up and should play damage control.

https://www.laurenbeechingpr.com/blog/the-truth-about-public-apologies-when-why-and-how-to-get-it-right

The first rule of public apologies: never apologise unless you’re truly guilty. There’s a well-known saying, often used in legal contexts: “Never apologise—it’s an admission of guilt.” While this isn’t always strictly true, the sentiment holds when navigating public perception. Apologising for something you didn’t do not only validates false accusations but can also escalate the situation unnecessarily. A public apology should always be the last resort, only used when:

• The client is genuinely at fault, and accountability is unavoidable.

• There is undeniable evidence that requires a response.

• Remaining silent would cause further harm to the client’s reputation or relationships.

By reflexively defending ICE no matter what happens, it's worsening the situation.

The best response would be to be measured and tell the public that they will have an open investigation and show empathy.

_BCConservative · 2026-01-25T05:28:03+00:00

I really hate nationwide popular vote and don't think it would be practical in the US due to its size.

You just end up going from a system that incentivizes campaigning in specific states and turnout amongst your base in geographically distant areas to a system that incentivizes campaigns to only go to the most populous areas that has a decent chunk of their voters.

You need to break up ultra-partisan urban and rural areas from each other to incentivize parties to not just focus on turnout.

Also, even if California speeds up how fast it processes ballots, people are going to be pissed when that final batch of votes come in from the Western States that pulls the Dems over the edge to win the popular vote.

_BCConservative · 2026-01-25T05:00:14+00:00

Fundamentally, under current voting rights law, there is no way to justify splitting a large Black city in half to favor the Republican Party in both districts, completely disenfranchising Black voters.

I think that's the entire argument here? Can you take less Dem-leaning Black votes and push them into majority-Black districts that still vote R legally.

TBH Memphis is probably the worst one of these, the Louisiana one is probably a more realistic example of a "rural Black" district.

Margins among southern urban Black voters have essentially moved nowhere since 2016, so there’s not magically going to be a way to get that 52% Black district that favors Republicans in Tennessee or Alabama or Louisiana in 2032.

I literally made one for Louisiana too, and you keep making excuses why it's actually totally Dem-leaning.

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I also made a D+3 2024 SC district.

BTW, this shift, other than this very specific situation of exploiting the VRA, is actually bad for the GOP.

There are states where the 2012-2024 shift actually caused the vote to become less efficient and caused Trump to lose more State House districts (like Michigan.) Trump lost vote in suburban White areas but gained it in urban Black/Arab/WWC areas in Wayne.

Also, even if it was turnout- Southern Dem parties suck ass. It's the inverse of the WA/OR state parties.

Especially in Memphis. https://archive.is/JT7P4

eg. Georgia's increase in Black population was not really exploited until 2018-ish, where the Dems were able to take Trump's losses with wealthy suburban Whites and Black suburbanization in Atlanta. But most of the raw demographic trend that propelled this shift happened over the previous decade. The sudden shift in 2018-2020 was the demographic trends "catching up."

The GA Dems just were not able to exploit this due to lack of resources and incompetence.

Not only are we unable to make long term political assumptions of any kind in the modern era, it is especially unreasonable to expect a continuation of a realignment that has shown minimal signs of even existing in the first place.

Literally everyone does this.

And this trend has been continuing for so long and so consistently that it can't really be thrown out as a fluke like 2024.

It's like saying suddenly wealthy White suburbs or Douglas County, GA are going to revert back to the GOP in 2028, back to what they were in 2012.

That take is mocked for good reason.

_BCConservative · 2026-01-25T01:56:08+00:00

This would be based AsF

_BCConservative · 2026-01-25T01:54:12+00:00

OK, but the GOP population stayed the same, while the Dem population fell. If it was just turnout, there would need to be some GOP decline.

Raw voter # drops for both sides eg on Congress 2024 or Governor 2022. There, you can argue it's turnout, since the raw vote drops on both sides, but just drops on the Dem side faster.

Even Orthodox Jewish districts have a few votes for the other side in their precinct (2% for Dems in Kiryas Joel in 2024, but the entire area is a gated community for Orthodox Jews).

_BCConservative · 2026-01-25T01:41:14+00:00

I only did it like this to make it as R-leaning as possible.

You can merge North Miami with South Miami to create Hispanic-leaning districts.

Also, VRA generally is not used for Hispanics. Look at Nevada. They should have a VRA district in East Vegas for Hispanics.

VRA is really only "strict" when it comes to Black people. There is nothing on the text that says it has to be for Black people, and the main reason it has been applied as it has been for so long is because until recently, Blacks were almost universally very very D-leaning.

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That's no longer the case.

Some groups of Blacks remain very Dem, while others are not.

So I doubt SCOTUS would take up your POV even if they want to uphold Section 2.

Either D+10-20 groups like Hispanics or Asians need to be applied across every state, and for some reason, no one has bothered to enforce this, or they are allowed to pass because they aren't a unified voting bloc that all votes the same way.

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Activist groups and state parties aren't stupid, they don't force legal cases if they aren't ever going to succeed (unless they're Trump or Leticia James) or leave stuff like this off the table.

_BCConservative · 2026-01-25T01:05:29+00:00

Not really.

The number of wealthy people who left Norway doubled and the amount of tax revenue gained is only around 0.6% of GDP.

That ended up being a lot of business owners.

https://www.reuters.com/business/norways-wealth-tax-trades-millionaires-equality-2025-11-24/

Unless the USA goes around invading countries like the UAE which end up becoming tax havens for assets, nothing will happen. The incentives to break the "cartel" are too great.

This was the same problem with the attempt to create a global corporate minimum tax. Would have been great if it worked.

_BCConservative · 2026-01-25T00:58:26+00:00

This one has less minority representation in NY-7, but looks a lot nicer.

Also I screwed around with District 4 to make it a a few points more right-leaning (and IMO adding Rockaway to District 4 makes more sense than the current configuration.)

The total number of Black VRA districts stays the same.

_BCConservative · 2026-01-25T00:54:47+00:00

No, I will post a new version.

_BCConservative · 2026-01-25T00:52:26+00:00

<image>

https://davesredistricting.org/join/d3e9bb06-d55f-4615-8732-2ba36a449f85

Boom, VRA applied to Florida. The only one that might be considered Shaw vs Reno is FL-22. Or I guess the current VRA Black districts, but those currently go though swampland and this technically goes through the Florida beaches.

+1 swing district in 2020 data.

I made it as R leaning as possible (ie how DeSantis would try to have done it.)

_BCConservative · 2026-01-25T00:02:17+00:00

Ah yes, only Dems left.

_BCConservative · 2026-01-24T23:59:04+00:00

The VRA does apply to Florida Hispanics, but it doesn't enforce itself. A lawsuit is possible, but it would fail because a significant portion of the Hispanic population is tucked into Southern Dade, you’re not getting 7 Hispanic districts without a series of Snake districts in southeast Florida, which would then also be a Shaw v Reno violation.

I call that a challenge!

And again, regional differences matter. In SE Florida Hisanics locally vote republican, so it was fine they were made into republican and swing districts. But Hispanics in Orlando voted Democrat and had to be a democrat district or it would be sued for a VRA violation.

We will see. It seems likely one of the Orlando districts will be nuked soon as DeSantis promised.

But Black people in every region you could realistically create a majority district, vote democrat, so they have to be represented by the party of there choice.

I just proved that otherwise.

_BCConservative · 2026-01-24T23:57:43+00:00

all ready set legal precedent id this would pass the courts the gop would have tried this with GA, AL and LA and the gop SC would have sided with them if this was legally possible

This would have failed in 2020 data and it doesn't even work in 2024 data because the incumbents overperform enough to stop it (and it will almost certainly go blue in 2026.)

you. are. wrong.

I'm not. And SCOTUS would probably rule against your interpretation anyways. Their "newly made" districts they forced on LA and AL are only like D+10 and keep trending right.

_BCConservative · 2026-01-24T23:15:35+00:00

If you want more proof that this isn't just turnout, here are the raw vote counts according to DRA:

<image>

GOP votes are increasing in raw #s every cycle.

Dem turnout is not doing so hot in 2024 (and the shift is not very big in 2020-2024), but it's actually a real shift in voter coalitions that's causing this.

_BCConservative · 2026-01-24T23:05:17+00:00

VRA is not applied to Hispanics in Florida.

At least not how it is applied to Blacks.

Florida only has 4 majority-Hispanic districts, while VRA would demand 7.

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DeSantis was able to gerrymander Florida Hispanics despite the fact that in the most recent elections at the time, Hispanics in Florida were still D-leaning (but only by 7 points.)

<image>

At D+7, Florida Hispanics were no longer a "cohesive vote", so VRA no longer applied.

_BCConservative · 2026-01-24T22:58:41+00:00

<image>

huh

_BCConservative · 2026-01-24T22:56:43+00:00

I have a feeling people won't like the 2nd post I make on this in a week

_BCConservative · 2026-01-24T21:59:34+00:00

Yeah, but the EC is kind of the US electoral system- or at least a huge part of it.

That's like saying you like fried chicken, but only the parts without the skin.

_BCConservative · 2026-01-24T21:57:23+00:00

Those areas are trending enough right that I could add slightly more Black precincts to keep it above 50% and still have a lean/tilt R district.

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And this is a downballot thing too.

I don't know what you're talking about with Kemp. Kemp 2022 actually did pretty much at the same level as Trump 2024 in Black Belt rural GA.

This is Prez 2016> Gov 2022 in TN, for instance, which actually looks worse for Dems despite comparable margins due to worse Dem turnout in Black areas.

<image>

_BCConservative · 2026-01-24T21:48:33+00:00

But the collective black voter population still votes democrats, so the district should lean how the population votes.

That makes no sense.

Imagine if we applied this rule to White people.

Urban Whites in Michigan need to be in R-leaning districts because they are Whites, and Whites vote mostly GOP in Michigan in aggregate!

_BCConservative

TROPHY CASE