Recently, our democracy has been running extremely inefficiently, with “Congressional approval ratings staggering below 20%” according to Billy DeLancey and his article, “Is an old political trick the root cause of our government’s dysfunction?” Now, there is a legitimate reason for this – gerrymandering – a practice in which a particular class or party is manipulating the boundaries of an electoral constituency to favor a specific party or class. For the majority, statistics suggest it is mainly the Republican party who is abusing their power through gerrymandering. Party stagnation, entrenched incumbents, and the lack of any compromise in Congress are some of the most pressing side effects of gerrymandering. Currently, the House of Representatives is Republican-ruled and with gerrymandering, there isn’t going to be a change. Gerrymandering defeats the purpose of a representative democracy and presents a depressing reality for most Americans.

Even given the common ideal of redrawing the district to make either the Republican or Democrat party win, gerrymandering has unintended consequences. In the process of gerrymandering, congressional districts are made more extreme. The districts will either be far left or far right on the political spectrum and therefore, allows for the election of more extreme politicians. In extreme districts, it leaves little-to-no room for moderate politicians, which presents a central struggle for our government. Lately, politicians are either really conservative or really liberal, then when they need to compromise or collaborate on a task, they are simply unable to. A lack of moderate politicians triggers a downward spiral in the American public: they feel they can no longer rely on their government for fairness, and when they begin to feel mistrust, our democracy is at risk.

Today, gerrymandering is even easier with the resources technology permits. Politicians who want to be more effective in redrawing their districts can easily see party registration, income data, and race.
Although gerrymandering isn’t the only reason for our crooked government, it still remains a prominent tool that engenders negative side effects and consequences to our representative democracy, and it should be obliterated.