A New Battlefront Emerges in Texas
With the Texas gerrymander likely to succeed, the Trump II administration makes its opening moves to degrade American elections forever.
The Texas gerrymander is coming at the direct request of the president. It’s so unabashed that it leads me to believe it will ultimately be successful. It may take some time; there will be a fight, but it feels like a reality we’re about to enter. Amongst the execution of all the other Trump administration policies, electoral politics seemed to take a back seat until now. I realize Trump attempted a coup barely 5 years ago, but the order for Gov. Greg Abbott to redistrict Texas feels like the Trump II admin’s first big electoral power grab since January 6th.
There have been overhauls to judiciaries and a continued expansion of Executive Branch power so far, but this gerrymandering is a very open and public battle with a scope that goes beyond Texas and will only continue to grow. At the time of writing, Texas Democrats are taking refuge in Chicago under the watchful eye of Big Pritz. While there, they engage in the best tactic available to them to delay the Texas special session and also avoid Gov. Abbott’s civil arrest warrants: just don’t show up. Without getting too deep in the minutia of their seats possibly being vacated by Ken Paxton, or whatever the other logistics are of this fight, it feels like a miracle that Democrats are actually doing anything at all.
Now for the most part, state legislators across the country haven’t been the primary crux of Democratic malfeasance over the last few election cycles. They’re far from perfect, but they look like revolutionaries in comparison to national Dems. In breaking quorum, Texas Democrats are bringing attention to a state battle that has national repercussions. At the absolute least, they are putting up a fight.
Republicans know, though they’d never admit it, that the outlook for keeping the House in 2026 is bleak. That’s all this is about. It’s an electoral power grab, and when they successfully take those 5 extra seats in Texas, it’s not going to stop there. There will be court battles, California and maybe New York will redistrict their own states in response, and an entirely new battlefront will be opened up as the second Trump term continues on.
As brutal and awful as the Trump admin’s immigration policy is, and as unwieldy and irresponsible as the admin’s economic policy is, their long-term viability is ultimately subject to the whims of voters come election time. This gerrymander poses a particularly sinister threat in that we’re looking at the beginning of this administration’s attempt to negate any kind of accountability from voters on the policies they impose. This is the start of the fight that’s going to ultimately determine just how free and fair our elections are going to be from here on out.
Since Trump’s win in November, there has been plenty of concern over whether American elections will maintain any sort of integrity. There has also been skepticism about the Trump admin’s ability to actually rig elections. That skepticism always felt odd, especially because anytime I saw the sentiment, it was coming from people who already barely had faith in electoral politics to begin with. A “nothing ever happens” line of thinking despite the fact that things are happening right out in the open. The President ordering a Governor to redistrict their state in an effort to win congressional seats and maintain a majority feels like something happening to me.
Die-hard MAGA freaks are, obviously, not going to care about this. Highlighting the gerrymander and its crookedness is not for them. This is the kind of thing that doesn’t get to the low-information voter. It’s the kind of partisan politics that turns independents away from the voting booth and turns people off in conversational settings. But the nakedness by which this is being done creates an opportunity to present corruption at face value because there really isn’t much else needed to explain it. Trump told Abbott to illegally gerrymander Texas so they could get 5 more seats in the House in order to maintain a majority. What other way is there to spin that?
The voting group that actually won Trump the election were low-information voters who are typically apathetic to politics and voted for Trump because of “egg” and “woke.” So here, in plain daylight, we have that very party doing Autocracy. This is not to make people feel bad or stupid for their vote. It’s an opening for further conversation as to what exactly is happening and the perilous consequences it has. The Texas gerrymander is just the beginning. Where some stories come into the spotlight and then disappear without further examination or elaboration, this is something that is not going to go away. It may take different forms and reshape over the next 3 years, but the battle for American democracy is happening right now. Time to pay attention.
The Austin DSA chapter officially launched their podcast, Austin DSA Batcast, back in May and Episode 2 is finally out! I work as the lead writer for the podcast and am super proud of what we have created. Please feel free to subscribe and support in anyway. I’ll link our 2nd episode, on the struggle for trans rights in Texas, below! With a video version available here!