The Republican-controlled Texas legislature, at the urging of the Trump administration, has passed legislation to redraw congressional districts in a way that will likely give Republicans 5 more seats in the House of Representatives. In response, the Democratic-controlled California legislature, with the support of Governor Newsom, has passed retaliatory legislation that will ask voters to approve a temporary redistricting that will likely give 5 more seats to Democrats until the 2030 election, conditional on Texas implementing its redistricting plan.
Since they stand to lose House seats, Democrats have pointed out the blatant way that the Texas Republicans are undermining what little democracy we currently have. The Democrats’ response is essentially to threaten to undermine democracy even further, in order to “save” the democracy—or at least their party’s congressional seats. The logic is similar to the nuclear deterrence strategy of “mutually assured destruction,” in which, the theory goes, nobody will want to be the first to use nuclear weapons because the other side can also retaliate with nuclear weapons—although in this case it is the pretense of democracy that is under threat of destruction, rather than nation-states with nuclear weapons. But in this case, the deterrent doesn’t seem to be working, and both sides seem to be preparing to go to an all-out redistricting war nationwide.
The real problem with this fighting over House seats is that it doesn’t have any relation to any issues being faced by millions of working class and poor people. It is a struggle for which of the two capitalist parties has power, not for any actual policies that will directly affect the population. One of the parties might be less rabid than the other, but neither will advance policies that support the working class.
The fight over redistricting is another sign that neither of these parties work for us. It’s a fight over political power, and no matter who wins, we lose.
