Hoist with Their Own Petard

In his latest column, "The King of Crash and Burn," the New York Times' Charles M. Blow makes a great point about gerrymandering:

The [healthcare bill] loss is likely also the downside of Republican gerrymandering.

In the redrawing of districts following the 2010 census, Republicans created incredibly safe, ideologically pure districts with fewer dissenters. This protected more seats, but it also meant that the people who hold those seats have little to no incentive to ever compromise.

Republicans created hard-line districts that produced hard-line congressmen: obstructionist absolutists are gerrymandering's political offspring.

Whoooooooooops!

This is related to what I wrote earlier today about how the Republican Party's singular objective has been to win. And Blow also draws the connection between winning as exclusive focus and the bankruptcy of ideas:

These people weren't elected to govern, but to impede governance. Their mandate isn't to generate ideas and solve problems by the effective exercise of government. Their singular crusade is that government is ineffective and the solution is to forever see government itself as the problem. Ideas for them are anathema.

Yup.