Texas state representative Jolanda Jones (D-147) dismissed the optics of fleeing from the Lone Star State like a bat out of hell: “We ain’t fleeing. We’re fighting.”
Sure you are. Such bravery and courage! It’s reminiscent of a “Deep Thought” from American philosopher Jack Handey:
It makes me mad when people say I turned and ran like a scared rabbit. Maybe it was like an angry rabbit, who was running to go fight in another fight, away from the first fight.
Pinsker Law of PR #11: If you give audiences a choice between a fighter and a coward, they’re gonna choose the fighter.
I absolutely guarantee it. (As far as binary decisions go, that one’s a slam-dunk.)
Hardcore Democrats and hardcore Republicans share at least one thing in common — a very specific cognitive bias: “My party is led by stupid, cowardly people, which is why we sometimes lose. But the other party is led by dastardly, Machiavellian evildoers, which gives ‘em an unfair advantage.”
(If you’re a hardcore partisan on the left or the right, you’ve probably grumbled the above sentiment a zillion times.)
Sales psychology is an overlooked and underutilized discipline in American politics, and I’m not just saying that ‘cause it just so happens to be my own background. But if you don’t understand how your audience processes information, it kills your ability to craft a persuasive sales pitch. PR wars are won and lost on public participation; it’s your job to keep ‘em engaged.
We won’t win the Great Gerrymandering War of 2025 without ‘em.
Because of sales psychology plus cognitive biases, the Democrats are gonna lean all the way into this. Their base is 100% convinced that the Democratic Party is led by cowardly, corrupt, incompetent nitwits who keep shooting themselves in the foot — which has given Donald Trump a free hand to destroy our democracy. It’s become an article of faith; it’s their version of QAnon.
As such, they’re unmoved by pleas for sanity, civility, or decorum. They truly believe it’s an existential, life-and-death crisis. Even if they can’t win, they’d rather go down swinging.
After all, the future of our republic (gasp!) is at stake.
You see it in their rhetoric. From yesterday in the leftwing screed, Common Dreams: “It’s Bigger Than Texas: Beware the Republican War on Fair Elections.” And they weren’t alone:
Mother Jones: Trump’s Texas Gerrymander Is Supercharging a New War on Democracy
Politico: California moves to dismantle GOP map — and Trump’s grip
WWNY: ‘This is a war’ Texas Democrats seek refuge in New York amid gerrymandering fight
People for the American Way: The War on Democracy
Daily Kos: The Redistricting Wars Start Anew: GOP Pushing to Keep Tenuous House Majority
The Hill: ‘We are at war’: Redistricting fights explode across US
KOMO: ‘We are at war’: Hochul backs Texas lawmakers fighting GOP map overhaul
The Independent: ‘We are at war’: Democrats reach breaking point over Republican threats in political map arms race
USA Today: ‘We are at war’: Texas redistricting plan sparks wider fight over Congress, Trump legacy
MSNBC: Texas Democrats leave the state, hope to derail Republicans’ radical redistricting scheme
Did you notice how many headlines evoked “war” in the title? It wasn’t coincidental: The Democrats are searching for a fighter. That’s the psychology behind the story.
Republicans see those same headlines and wanna tear their hair out: Democratic legislators are fleeing from their jobs, refusing to vote… and it’s REPUBLICANS who’ve declared war on fair elections?! That literally makes no sense!
No matter. Don’t try to change liberals’ minds with logic or reason. It goes back to understanding sales psychology: You can’t use logic to dissuade someone who didn’t use logic to reach their conclusion. It doesn’t work that way.
Instead, you defeat an emotional argument with an emotional argument of your own.
Right now, Democrats are absolutely hysterical. Everything they see, hear, and do is through the prism of “Orange Man is Hitler” — which is why Texas’s redistricting MUST be an underhanded plot to subvert democracy.
I mean, duh! What else could it be?
The truth, of course, is that gerrymandered districts have long been an unpleasant aspect of American politics. Democratic strongholds use it, too. I assure you, ultra-liberal Chicago wasn’t divided this way for any reason other than crass, partisan politics:
This map shared by @ILGOP is not the actual congressional map. It was one of the proposals from 2021.
— Ben Szalinski (@BenSzalinski) July 29, 2025
Here is the current map (which might actually be more gerrymandered than the one the GOP shared) https://t.co/p2V1MLOzLY pic.twitter.com/k4v4nxG7x9
Massachusetts, by the way, has NO Republicans in Congress. That’s despite Trump receiving over 1.2 million Massachusetts votes. (And you’ll never guess which party runs the state legislature.)
Unfortunately for the Democrats, they now control a minority of statehouses — only 23 in total. ‘Tis the consequences of forsaking “Flyover Country” and focusing on the coasts, I’m afraid. As liberal messiah Barack Obama (correctly) noted, “Elections have consequences.”
And under our rule of law, gerrymandered districts is one of ‘em.
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The optics of fleeing from work will be difficult for the Democrats to overcome. Visually, it looks cowardly and self-serving. (After all, if we fled from our jobs, we’d be given our pink slips.) They were elected to work for the people, and now they’re vacationing in swanky hotels far from home, refusing to do their jobs.
Less than a month ago, they were attacking Ted Cruz for the exact same thing!
The other problem is the lack of sex appeal: Arguing about redrawing congressional districts is frickin’ boring. By the time you explain it to Joe Six-Pack, his eyes have glazed over (and not just from his six-pack). Yawn.
As far as “outrages” go, this one’s pretty weak.
Which means, the GOP should proceed with their gerrymandering. The only ones who are angry about it are the hardcore Trump-haters, and they’re irrelevant.
We can’t lose what we never had.
One Democrat in particular has a vested interest in escalating the fight: Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Cal.) would LOVE to redraw his state’s districts and get a handful of new Democrats elected to Congress — and then, if the Democrats win the House, make it the centerpiece argument of his 2028 presidential bid. At this point, it’s probably inevitable.
His ambition demands it.
For their own reasons, enough Democrats are gonna double down on this fight to keep it going. This will be a story with very long legs.
And for our own reasons, we should give ‘em all the rope they need.
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