Oh Redistricting

So, Bellevue, with its contiguous urban blending into Omaha, has less in common in Omaha than Gretna, from where one can reach 10th and O or 13th and Dodge in the same amount of time. Right.

Shady gerrymandering from any party is of course not remotely new. But combine this nonsense with the Jim Suttle recall attempt, followed by the whining after its failure that the outcome was determined by treating homeless people like citizens and allowing them to vote, the petulant harrumphing of many right-wingers in the suburbs around Omaha about having to pay a wheel tax to support the upkeep of its streets just because they drive on them every day and contribute to there wear... (These are true self-reliant Americans you see, and if forced to support those deadbeats in the city they can just take their talents and their business somewhere else you know. As for the fact that they aren't quite self-reliant enough to live on any of the millions of acres in Nebraska that aren't within thirty miles of a major city, never mind ya fucking commie.)

It's almost as if right-wingers, in Nebraska and elsewhere consider themselves better than everyone else. (may one dare say elitist?) And since they are better then everyone else than they should get what they want by fiat without facing the humiliating prospect of being outvoted by dirty brown people and smartass hipsters. As social change has inexorably worn away white suburban privilege, so too has all of the old patriotic pieties used to justify that privilege been gradually stripped away to the naked childish 'I WANT IT!!' it has always and only ever been.

These people really do consider themselves aristocrats. They believe with utter seriousness that this country and all of us in it outside of their social group exist to serve them. So be it. We will, end, win anyway. The Omaha district will, in the short-term, remain competitive, in both congressional and presidential races. In the long-term it will become solidly Democratic, while the perfectly safe Republican third district will fade from existence. While all of this is happening, Republican primaries for state office will be clouded with a glut of term-limited amateurs from the new-style populist unicam. Conservative dominance of the state will, through hubris and entropy if nothing else, gradually erode. The more power they grab through naked entitlement the more shall slip through their fingers.