ABSTRACT
American democracy endured through voter suppression via Jim Crow laws, court-packing attempts by Franklin D. Roosevelt, hundreds of years of gerrymander, and the sedition and insurrection of January 6, 2021. The practice of drawing the boundaries of electoral districts in a way that gives one political party an unfair advantage over its rivals or that dilutes the voting power of members of ethnic or linguistic minority groups. The constant movement towards and away from democracy embodies the full meaning of Havel’s speech. Systems that ensure that every power in government has an equal and opposite power in a separate branch to restrain that force. The policies and character of the Trump presidency divided the nation along economic and racial as well as ethnic lines, thus activating and energizing large segments of an American population that is so increasingly diverse that the nation will become a majority-minority electorate within our lifetime.
