then restricting the franchise becomes essential to maintaining the hegemony of the propertied elite. Remember how Conservatives here on the Zone were always reminding us that "every society restricts the franchise". Of course, that's how minorities maintain power.

Where you are mistaken is that this is precisely the ideal on which our country was founded. Indians didn't vote, slaves didn't vote, women didn't vote, indentured servants and sharecroppers didn't vote. Only "gentlemen of property" voted, landowners, the educated, professionals and merchants. And even that vote was skewed by techniques like indirect election by electoral college and the general idea of Federalism, where each state had equal rights regardless of its population. The founding model for our government was not the democracy of the Greek polis, but the Roman Senate. Like the ancient Roman Republic, the ruling families didn't want a king, they wanted one of their own elected to temporary leadership subject to veto from their peers. Americans rejected the hereditary aristocracy of Great Britain (that's why they came here in the first place!), but they were very jealous of their property rights, it was how the New World defined aristocracy. It still is.

In the British Revolution, the power of the monarch finally yielded to that of parliament, the final step of a process that had begun with Magna Carta. The British and the American Revolutions, unlike the French, were bourgeois revolutions.

In the eighteenth century, the American experiment was an extremely progressive and liberal one, but by modern standards, it was far from "democratic". But America has always had a tradition of liberalizing its political organization, in fact we have always been world leaders in that respect. Still, the forces of reaction have fought that progress tooth and nail, in fact, that's why we call them "Conservative". The word is a synonym for "restricting the franchise".

Gerrymandering and other voter suppression schemes have always been one of the methods by which this general trend of liberalization has been opposed, and to be fair, ALL American political parties have indulged in it, for the same reason, to gain and to keep political power. Its only that lately, technical innovations in data processing and communications have made Republicans so successful at it.

Sometimes, it is disguised as other movements; in many states right now there is an effort to expand the franchise asymmetrically by returning voting rights to felons who have served their sentences. Although I personally support this, (it is, after all, the right thing to do) I am also realistic enough to see that it is being done to create more Democratic voters. The same can be said for support of foreign immigrants (and their citizen families). This will also create more Democrats. Again, I feel this is the right thing to do, but I can also see that there is a political motivation for this as well. Republicans favor policies which (indirectly) encourage illegal immigration because it provides a cheaper, more docile and intimidated work force. The Democrats favor legal immigration because they want more voters.

In general, Democrats benefit by expanding the franchise as much as possible, and Republicans are determined to restrict it as much as they can. If Republicans were in the majority, you can bet the situation would be reversed.

Gerrymandering and voter suppression are as American as cherry pie. No matter how fair and equitable your political system is, guys in suits will immediately go to work to try and subvert it.