Slay the Dragon

This film provides a view into how democracy is being undermined in the United States, and follows different efforts to protect it. The movie does a good job describing the problem to a general audience, while still being interesting to watch. I felt inspired to get involved afterward.

A tough fight here in the US for democracy. Amazing how the Republicans fight - in Fussball they would see the red card

Consider this, California, the largest state in the Union, has a 45:7 ratio of Democrat dominance in its US Congressional Representatives. That's 6.4:1 or about 84% elected members of Congress being Democrats. Within the state assembly, Republican voters are also under represented,with assembly members being 60:18. That is a serious under representation of Republican voters when compared to all polling and statewide office election results. ALL California electoral college votes go to Democrat presidential candidates the six Presidential elections. Yet this gigantic and artificially imposed Democrat advantage in election results, over representation of Democrats compared to popular vote received in the state, is not "gerrymandering" by the criteria used by the frankly and obviously partisan and makers of this 'documentary".

Oh and in fact several of this "documentary" producers (read funders) are Democrat party contributors. Hmm. This is not a documentary, but a partisan polemic, one that deploys a half dozen major logical fallacies. As far as ranked choice voting, or better yet runoffs, why not mention that the data clearly show that would have resulted in a certainty of a 2016 Trump win as well (given the studies showing that libertarians draw 85% from GOP and Greens draw 83% from Dems, and there were a lot more libertarian votes than greens), and would likely have resulting in Bill Clinton losing.

This movie presents compelling evidence for the importance of redistricting reform and unrigging the system. I started the movie not knowing much about the topic, and am convinced now that this is an area of vital importance for our country (and the future of our democracy).

For what it's worth, I voted for Romney in 2012 and lean moderate. I didn't think this documentary hits you over the head with partisanship. It was a fair look at a serious issue.

My state polls at about 53% Democrat 42% GOP in the last ten years on average. But 75% of the Representatives, and 100% of the Senators we sent to the US Congress and Senate are Democrats. The anti-gerrymandering proposed in this documentary would result in even more Democrat seats, which is to say even disenfranchisement of GOP voters. Like the other reviewer I have wonder why the documentary makers did not note that ranked choice voting would have given Donald Trump a larger margin of victory, and less GOP seats lost in the 2018 midterms? Actually ranked choice would have mean no president Kennedy and no President Clinton. Why is Georgia's representation unfair but the fact that both senators from Virginia are Democrats when that state cleanly averages 50% to 48%?