Only looks like a problem on a micro scale. If elections are indeed 50:50 on a macro scale, then yes, you would want all purple districts, because the "loser" voters are indeed close to 50%.
If the voters are 70:30 on a macro scale, it wouldn't matter if you create a bunch of purple districts, because they all can't be purple when you have exhausted the 30% of that ratio.
Conversely, if you were to create fixed color districts, you could hide a larger majority as "loser" voters on a macro scale by stuffing them to a few of that color on a micro scale.
But to be clear, I don't think artificially creating purple districts for that express reason is a good idea, I just think it would be less of a problem than the current gerrymandering, when optimizing for democracy.
The problem is that you've fallen into the trap of modern political thinking: that all politics is national, and all that matters is the big decisions that get voted on that affect everyone equally.
And similarly, the false notion that all members of Party A are fungible, and it doesn't matter if I, personally, am represented by someone I hate, so long as there's a member of my party somewhere in congress.
But that's not really the point of a representative republic. Our specific, local needs and desires are supposed to actually be represented by by our members of Congress.
So in terms of actual representation, it would actually be better to have a district that voted nearly unanimously for candidate A, and another district that voted nearly unanimously for candidate B, because then the vast majority of people would be getting the representative that they voted for, and represents them.
In the scenario where every district is purple, fully half the people have no representation of their interests in congress.
Macro scale doesn't have to mean national. There are many precincts per district, and many districts per county, etc.
> So in terms of actual representation, it would actually be better to have a district that voted nearly unanimously for candidate A, and another district that voted nearly unanimously for candidate B, because then the vast majority of people would be getting the representative that they voted for, and represents them.
No, only the throwaway districts in gerrymandered maps are represented, all other districts swallow up many more unrepresented voters.
> In the scenario where every district is purple, fully half the people have no representation of their interests in congress.
But you missed the point, not every district can be purple. In absolute terms, more people would be represented than the status quo. It's better than gerrymandering.
If the voters are 70:30 on a macro scale, it wouldn't matter if you create a bunch of purple districts, because they all can't be purple when you have exhausted the 30% of that ratio.
Conversely, if you were to create fixed color districts, you could hide a larger majority as "loser" voters on a macro scale by stuffing them to a few of that color on a micro scale.
But to be clear, I don't think artificially creating purple districts for that express reason is a good idea, I just think it would be less of a problem than the current gerrymandering, when optimizing for democracy.