Gerrymandering - what is it, and why does it run counter to democracy?

https://fair.org/home/gerrymandering-making-elections-safe-from-democracy/

Vanishing democracy

Few outlets took the voter-centered approach of this USA Today report (2/21/22).

In fact, one-party rule, whether divided district by district equally between two parties or not, is exactly as undemocratic as that term sounds; and it is journalistic malpractice not to point that out. Especially while you are reporting that the percentage of competitive districts in Congress is set to shrink from an already appalling 17% after the 2010 redistricting to a truly deplorable 9% after the 2020 redistricting (New York Times, 2/6/22).

Given this political reality, it is not at all surprising that there is no relationship between popular political opinion and congressional action. Or, in the words of the reform group Represent US, “The number of Americans for or against any idea has no impact on the likelihood that Congress will make it law.” Now this is what I would call a “severe consequence” of gerrymandering (and other anti-democratic dimensions of US electoral systems, mainly campaign finance and voter suppression). But I could find only one, brief, reference to this, a quote from Represent US’s Joshua Graham Lynn in the USA Today piece (2/21/22): that uncompetitive districts are “driving the lack of action on issues that a lot of Americans really care about.”

There’s a word for this reality, but it isn’t democracy: It’s oligarchy. Just don’t look for that word in media outlets that are owned and run by US oligarchs.