Battle lines are being drawn in the legislative bodies of key states that could determine the future of American politics for potentially years to come. These aren’t just any lines; they are the lines drawn by the redistricting of voting districts in Texas and California. Texas specifically has begun the process only a few years after the last map was drawn in 2021, an unprecedentedly short amount of time.

This move will convert five Democratic seats in the U.S. House of Representatives into Republican seats– a bid to ensure that Republicans can maintain control of the House while President Donald Trump is in office, making accomplishing this goal a monumental feat. This is a clear example of gerrymandering, a practice where the redrawing of voting districts is done to guarantee a win for the party drawing the map. 

This is generally done when it is clear that a party would be unable to secure a win otherwise, which seems to be a likely cause for this case, given the approval numbers of our Republican president, whose “Big Beautiful Bill” is certain to wreak havoc on working-class and disadvantaged Americans across party lines. Gerrymandering in this instance will give Republicans much greater odds at holding on through the 2026 midterm elections. 

While the practice of gerrymandering is, in all honesty, incredibly common in American politics, this time around, some unusual things have taken place in response. Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, has responded to the situation in Texas by openly proposing to gerrymander California to shift five Republican seats into Democratic seats, balancing out the five lost seats in Texas. This is likely the first time gerrymandering has been done as openly as this, with outright acknowledgement from those who are partaking in it. 

Personally, I have mixed feelings about this move for many reasons. On one hand, with the pitiful resistance Democrats have mustered against Republicans, their fight in the gerrymandering war has been a welcome change of pace. Texas Democrats in particular have shown that they do, in fact, have a spine, and are willing to risk jail time to prevent Republican gerrymandering from occurring, even fleeing the state to prevent the vote from reaching quorum.

I also like the “fight fire with fire” approach Newsom has been employing here. It is high time that Democrats quit using the “when they go low, we go high” approach, especially since those who are going low are fascists. Fascists do not deserve the luxury of fair competition in politics, especially when their success is measured in a body count. My concerns over the moves Democrats have been making stem mostly from their refusal to fix the many internal issues within the party, which have held it back from success, and it’s possible this gerrymandering war is only a distraction from their lack of improvement on these issues. 

The Democratic Party is no longer the party of working-class Americans. They have long since abandoned any semblance of working-class politics in favor of continuously trying to resurrect neoliberal economics, the popularity of which is already rotting through the coffin it was buried in when Trump ousted Democrats from power in 2016. I fear that despite a clear willingness to fight back shown by Democrats, they will ultimately revert to the same losing policy they have foolishly clung to for the past decade– the idea that simply running against Trump will be enough. The willingness to fight and fight hard on the political stage is one thing, but in order for it to mean anything, there has to be a program behind it that working, poor and disenfranchised Americans are willing to vote for.