Brett Meiselas

And then I think that this is horrific for democracy because this sort of brinksmanship that we are seeing, it dilutes the power of the people.

It makes it so that your vote counts less, whether you're a Democrat or whether you are a Republican, because it turns all of these seats that should be competitive into

into safe seats for the incumbent congresspeople, for the party who has selected those maps.

And as somebody who is pro-democracy, as a network that is pro-democracy, I am extremely against that.

But like I said, Jeffries, he's got to do it.

These Democratic governors, they have to do it right now.

Hopefully, as I said in the last episode, the brinksmanship becomes so intense that at a certain point, we see actual legislation, actual sort of reform here that creates independent commissions that draw these lines fairly across the country, some sort of national standard.

I'm incredibly doubtful that that will happen, but we need to get there.

I mean, that is kind of one of the big ways that we could save democracy.

And it will not only save democracy,

it will tone down the extremism because everything kind of flows down from the extremism that results from these gerrymandered districts.

Imagine if these politicians, instead of having to play to the most extreme of their base, had to actually compete in competitive districts against each other, you would see a much different perspective.

They would actually be terrified.

that gas is over $5 in a lot of the country.

They would actually be terrified that things are super expensive and that people can't afford things and that Donald Trump is a maniac who is destroying the entire world.

But as of now, the incentive structures are not there.

And if the incentive structures are not there, then they're not going to do it, plain and simple.

Well said, Bea.

And look, we just really have to get back to a point of our society where our public servants, our quote-unquote leaders, actually want to work for the people, want to better the lives of the citizens in this country.

I agree that the Democrats, they have to do this.