Astead Herndon

Newsflash, you can't think about this year's midterm elections or the coming presidential election without thinking about the maps.

I know things like gerrymandering can be boring and political gamesmanship can be confusing, but understanding the maps and who gets political power in our country is vitally important to understanding the health of our democratic system.

So who actually has power in our democracy and who has power in name only?

Let's dig in.

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So here's one thing I never understood about the 2024 election.

Why did Democrats spend so much time saying they were going to protect democracy?

Now, I get it.

Donald Trump has tested every single limit of our political system.

And of course, the health of our democracy is an important goal.

But to say you're going to protect democracy implies that democracy was working in the first place, or at least that it was working until Donald Trump came along.

And that isn't true.

American democracy is broken, and most of us are written out of the political process on purpose.