The 2016 Election Is Rigged -- Fortunately

Gary North - October 12, 2016

The liberal Democrat site Salon.com has done yeoman service by publishing three excellent articles on how and why the House of Representatives will not go Democratic in November.

The GOP rigged the House: Even a massive Donald Trump defeat wouldn't give Democrats control

This is how the GOP rigged Congress: The secret plan that handcuffed Obama's presidency, but backfired in Donald Trump

Democrats are kidding themselves: The House is out of reach, period

The reason is Elbridge Gerry, one of two "Founding Fathers" who really did understand practical politics. (The other was Aaron Burr.) He devised the system known as Gerrymandering. He was a Jeffersonian who figured out how to stymie the Federalists by re-drawing the districts of the Massachusetts state senate. He showed the state legislature, then under control by the Jeffersonians, how to design long, meandering districts that would embrace large numbers of Federalists, leaving the rest of the state filled with tightly knit House districts with just enough Jeffersonians living within them to win. This also turned out to work great for the House of Representatives. Here is the Wikipedia entry:

The word gerrymander (originally written Gerry-mander) was used for the first time in the Boston Gazette on 26 March 1812. The word was created in reaction to a redrawing of Massachusetts state senate election districts under Governor Elbridge Gerry (1744--1814). In 1812, Governor Gerry signed a bill that redistricted Massachusetts to benefit his Democratic-Republican Party. When mapped, one of the contorted districts in the Boston area was said to resemble the shape of a salamander.

The original gerrymander, and original 1812 gerrymander cartoon, depict the Essex South state senatorial district for the legislature of The Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Gerrymander is a portmanteau of the governor's last name and the word salamander. The redistricting was a notable success. Although in the 1812 election both the Massachusetts House and governorship were won by Federalists by a comfortable margin and cost Gerry his job, the redistricted state senate remained firmly in Democratic-Republican hands.

Gerrymandering is with us still. Both parties are good at it. The key is to have a runaway victory nationally in an election year that ends in a zero. These are years in which the federal census is taken. State legislatures that form in years ending in a one get to draw the electoral districts for the next decade.

I recall from my adolescence what is arguably the consummate example of a Gerrymandered district in American history: California's 26th Congressional District. It was so Gerrymandered that the liberal Republican governor who signed the redistricting law in 1951, Earl Warren, asked for an explanation. The district began in west Los Angeles, where Jews lived and voted. It meandered narrowly across town and ended up in the geographical balloon known as Watts, where Blacks lived and voted. You can read about it here, page 83.

The year 2010 was a banner year for the Republican Party. It was a year of political reaction against Obama and ObamaCare. The House was returned to the Republican Party.

So were state legislatures. Then came the harvest: re-drawn Congressional districts. To say that they are locked up until 2021 is putting it mildly. This is what the three Salon articles discuss at length.

What this means is simple: President Clinton will not be able to get any piece of legislation through Congress that the Republicans in the House oppose. For example, there will be no "new, improved" ObamaCare, with a single payer, namely, the U.S. government. ObamaCare was cobbled together in secret in 2009 by faceless Democrat lawyers and policy wonks. This was the bill that Nancy Pelosi did not allow Congress to read in 2010 until it became law. This law will continue to raise health insurance premium costs on voters. Republicans in the House need only block any new law to fix ObamaCare, i.e., turn it into HillaryCare. Then they will be able to remind the voters every two years regarding which political party did this to them.

The Salon authors are of course livid. "It's just not fair," they cry out. But all's fair in love and politics. Gerry saw his opportunities, and he took them. That was his legacy to the modern world.

THE LOOMING RECESSION

It is virtually guaranteed that there will be a recession between now and the election of 2020. It will be devastating. The world's central banks have shot their collective wads. Interest rates are close to zero for government debt. In Germany and Switzerland, they are below zero. The banks will not lure businessmen into greater debt in the next recession. Government deficits will go ballistic. The economies will not recover.

Who will get blamed for this? The incumbent President. Who will that be in the United States? I think it will be Hillary Clinton. So do all of the British betting sites. The odds against Trump were down to less than 2 to 1 on September 22, which meant the odds were rising. The lewd comments tapes ended that. He was down to 3 to 1 on October 10, the Monday after late Friday's release of the tapes, and the day after the second debate. He was down by 4 to 1 on Tuesday, October 11. On John Stossel's political betting site, he was down to 25% after the first debate. He was down to 15% on October 11. His odds are in free fall. Hillary is going to win.

This is why there will be a massive victory for the Republican Party in 2020, one comparable to the Democrats' victory in 1932. Meanwhile, all year long in 2020, the Census Bureau will conduct the census. The political party of the incumbent President will experience Armageddon in 2020.

And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs (Revelation 14:10).

Then the Republicans will have the task of making the recession go away. If it goes away while the new President is in the White House, it will be fat city electorally for the Republican Party for another four years in 2024. If not, the Democrats will get another shot at it.

CONCLUSIONS

The House of Representatives will play the spoiler for President Clinton. The next census is four years away: at the end of her first -- and last -- term as President.

We are going to have four years of gridlock. Gridlock is good. Washington can't do anything new to us.

The bad news is that Hillary Clinton is going to be elected President in November. The good news is that she will oversee Janet Akerlof's (aka Yellen) recession. The voters will blame Mrs. Clinton, not Mrs. Akerlof.