Falsehoods Of US Democracy | Nick Seabrook | TMR

Emma hosts Nick Seabrook, Professor of Political Science and Public Administration at the University of North Florida, to discuss his recent book One Person One Vote: A Surprising History of Gerrymandering In America. Nick Seabrook then joins as he dives right into gerrymandering as a uniquely American problem, highlighting the fundamental conflict of interest in having representatives control the borders of the regions that elect them, a problem that the founding fathers actively wrought on the country. After exploring the nature of the founding fathers’ gerrymandering, Seabrook steps back to explore how gerrymandering emerged from the British political tradition of “rotten boroughs,” which served to allow MPs to maintain corrupt influence under the veneer of democracy, a tactic that they extended in the cutting up of foreign lands under settler-colonialism, only for it to be curbed as a tactic in Europe and highlighted as a tactic in the US. Next, Nick walks Emma through the 1800s and the coining of the term “gerrymandering” in the US, up to the Supreme Court stepping in in the 1960s to mandate the “one person-one vote” electoral system that we employ today, before they wrap up the interview by tackling the racial vote dilution that followed, the impact of the Voting Rights Act, and where the undermining of the Act has left our electoral system.

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Matt Binder DOOMED https://www.youtube.com/MattBinder
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Emma Vigeland ESVN https://www.youtube.com/ESVNShow
Matt Lech LEFT RECKONING https://www.youtube.com/LeftReckoning