Years ago, I ran the Rattlesnake Roundup 10K in Sweetwater, Texas.  All along the road, rattlesnakes were positioned on one side or the other.  Fortunately, each was tended by a “snake-charmer” who had a long tool to control the rattlesnake.  At the beginning of the race, the announcer gave us some advice I never forgot:  “If you must step on a rattlesnake, step on its head, not its tail.”  The reasoning was that the rattlesnake would turn around and bite your leg if you stepped on its tail.

While Democrats invented the sin of gerrymandering, Republicans perfected it.  Unfortunately, they stepped on the tail and are getting poisoned by it.

The reliably Republican Wall Street Journal opined today, in an editorial titled “The Freedom-From-Reality Caucus” that “by insisting on the impossible over the achievable, these self-styled guardians of conservative purity could become the worst friends of conservative ideas and free markets have had in decades.”

Extremist Republicans are no worse than extremist Democrats, but they are in power now.  Extremist Republicans are hurting the Republican Party more than extremist Democrats are hurting the Democratic Party.  For their own good, Republicans should renounce gerrymandering.