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What, precisely, is the role of Congress? In the second Trump administration, it is difficult to determine. The power to initiate armed conflict, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has become a unclear right of the presidential office in the time since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in the past few months, has claimed additional of that power for his administration, conducting military actions on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The authority over spending appears to be mostly been stripped from Congress too; now, under the office of management and budget director, Russell Vought, a great deal of the ability to appropriate government money has also shifted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the authority to cancel congressionally authorized expenditures and seeking to redirect the money elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, anyway; virtually all legislation must now be packed into spending packages, massive recurring essential comprehensive bills that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when these fail to be approved – and more and more, they do not – the government simply ceases operations. That is, big parts of the administration do – and it’s not clear how many citizens are aware. Currently, the federal government has been closed for the entire month; there are no signs of it reopening in the near future. But the executive branch continues humming along.

And so the issue of dominance of Congress can appear rather moot. Why should Americans be concerned who holds a controlling share in a body that has mostly rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric may help California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is approved by the electorate in a upcoming vote next month, has seized the attention of liberals nationwide. Partly, it is a belated response to trends happening elsewhere: GOP-led states have long adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while big blue states such as California, New York and the Evergreen State create their maps via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an imbalance that has resulted in narrowly split House control and a longstanding feeling, by Democrats, that their party is at a disadvantage. The state proposal is clearly designed as a response to a mid-term redistricting that recently passed in Texas, which installed boundaries that will provide Republicans an five more seats in the state’s House representation in the upcoming term; similar redistricting moves are in progress in states such as Missouri and Indiana. (Democrats in the Old Dominion are also emulating California’s example in attempting to alter districts.)

The California initiative seems likely to pass, as progressive voters react with fear and frustration to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of authority and seek ways to restrain his worst tendencies. But the proposition is not without debate. Some opponents warn that the action could backfire, with blue states’ efforts to redistrict triggering a retaliatory cycle in which red states do additional to draw their districts so as to foreclose any possibility of opposition party success. Different critics have questioned the measure on more purely principled pro-democracy grounds: a district that is created in such a manner that the result of the vote is never really in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely democratic: it means, necessarily, that the influence of dissenting voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is meant to characterize a healthy political system will be confined only to party primaries, if it occurs at all.

It is valuable taking each of these objections on their own terms. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to alter their own districts in retaliation, does not hold up as a logical argument: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be compelled to act in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already doing so in the absence of those actions. The GOP, I would observe, has required no any motivation of retaliation to change boundaries that guarantee long-term seats for their party: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second critique, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the Republicans’ anti-democracy shift, but a kind of sad wish for a distinct nation than the one that the US has become. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the reality that the majority of the left, it is believed, desire and aspire to – the proposition would be unappealing to our principles, and not mandated by our situation. It is not good to pack and crack disfavored demographics; it is not good for elected officials to choose their constituents, rather than the reverse; it is not good that votes are rendered noncompetitive. That these actions have become essential in order to impede the authoritarian creep of the president’s power and reduce the level of harm he is capable to inflict is unfortunate; it is a indication of how far we have fallen from something more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only after the fight against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what opposing it has transformed us into.

If Congress does not in practice have lawmaking, war making or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five blue representatives will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that Congress continues to holds is subpoena power, and the power to examine. Even in our time of stagnant politics and legislative decline, it has utilized of that authority to significant impact. In the coming years, if the measure is approved and California’s additional representatives are sworn in, they will find themselves a part of a institution with the authority to probe the president, to broadcast their investigations into his conduct and to compel members of his inner circle to testify. It’s significant, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US writer