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When blocking beats building
I suppose you’ve heard the one about the little man who was offered anything his heart desired on the condition that his worst enemy would get it double. The man chose one blind eye. Today, such people are called “Republicans.”
Creating a system of government is difficult. Bad people are always seeking to game the system, to use its rules against it. That’s what gerrymandering is about — using the ballot box to destroy the ballot box. Gerrymanderers are traitors, not in the strictly legal sense, but in the everyday sense that they give aid and comfort to our enemies, because in many ways, they are our enemies. (OK, maybe they are not traitors; maybe they are usurpers. Same difference.)
A viable political system gets things done. But action only happens when power is exercised, and power, we all know, tends to corrupt. Consequently, the power that causes things to get done in a stable polity must arise in a way that is not fatally corruptible. (There will always be some waste, abuse, and fraud; the perfect is the enemy of the good.) One (maybe the only) source of such power is the consent of an educated electorate. If good, well-informed people decide who will wield power in their name, good people will seek to wield that power, because bad ones won’t be able to get a toe-hold, and good things will get done.