A Surefire Plan for Democrats to Retake Congress and the White House
It's so simple, so obvious, I can't believe I'm the first to think of it.
Democrats, don't get too used to the wilderness, I'm bringing you home!
Here's the plan. It's foolproof, it's ingenious in its simplicity, and it cannot possibly fail. It came to me early this morning while I was showering. I'd already shampooed my hair and was soaping my arms, when it hit me. It's funny, because I was thinking of something totally unrelated at the time. I was trying to remember if it was time to change the water filter in my Keurig, which made me think of the water problems in Flint, which made me think of the Rust Belt, which naturally led to thoughts of the election and democratic losses. But strangely, that's not when the idea happened. The election made me think of my cousin, who I'm pretty sure voted for Trump, even though he's a Ph.D. and trans, which then made me think of restrooms and whether those cakes in the urinals really do any good. At that moment, I slipped and banged my head on the shower wall and that's when it came to me. (It was also in the shower, by the way, that I came up with my wool socks-static electricity-power grid idea.)
Okay, you're saying, stop patting yourself on the back and tell us the idea already. Fine, here it is.
But first, a little background. Why do republicans control so many state houses and why do they have a virtual lock on the House of Representatives? The answer to both questions is the same. Gerrymandering. Named, by the way, not after Murray Mander, as I used to think, but for Governor Elbridge Gerry. As for the presidency, the problem, of course, is the electoral college.
The beauty of my idea is that it addresses both the gerrymandering and electoral college problems in one unbelievably clever stroke. So let's get to it, shall we? Okay. Ready? Here it is. You're going to kick yourself when I tell you.
Here's what democrats have to do...
Move!
That's it! It's that simple!
Turns out democrats live in the wrong places. We're too concentrated in the big cities and certain states. But if enough of us to move to the right places, the House and the presidency are ours again. I told you it was brilliant!
Computer modeling will work out all the details. But by way of illustration, let's take Georgia. The modeling might tell us, for example, that we need 1,247 democrats to volunteer to leave their homes in the suburbs of Atlanta and relocate to that area they drove through in "Deliverance." And just like that, boom!, the district goes from red to blue! We repeat this process in enough districts in enough states, and the House will be ours!
Of course our democratic volunteers will have to make some real sacrifices. Take those folks who move from Atlanta deep into the back woods. They are bound to have a longer commute to work. They are almost certainly going to have fewer Starbucks and Einstein bagel shops in the area. And their neighbors may have very different ideas about keeping discarded appliances in the front yard. On the other hand, if the chips fall just right, they might one day have a Planned Parenthood next to the bait shop!
To solve the electoral college problem, the sacrifice will be even greater. We're going to need democrats to leave overwhelmingly democratic states like California and New York and move to places like North Dakota and Wyoming. The good news is, the population is pretty sparse in these places, so we won't need all that many volunteers.
So who's going to make these sacrifices? I think we can take a page from the airlines here. What do they do when they overbook? They ask for volunteers, then sweeten the deal by offering perks like cash or free air vouchers. We do the same. Move from Los Angeles to Minot, North Dakota and we'll give you a $100 gift certificate to Williams Sonoma. Move from New York City to Cody, Wyoming and get a CD collection of Andrea Bocelli's greatest hits. We just keep upping the ante until enough people have volunteered. Maybe breakfast with a famous democrat. Call it "Blintzes with Bernie!" That sort of thing.
That's my plan. Numerous awards and prizes will surely be coming my way, so let me say right now to the heads of the various committees--unlike a certain Mr. Dylan, I will attend the ceremonies.