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What, precisely, is the role of the U.S. Congress? In the second Trump administration, it can be hard to determine. The authority to initiate armed conflict, long considered a vital legislative power, 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 even more of that power for himself, authorizing military actions on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been taken away from Congress as well; now, under the leadership of budget chief, the OMB director, much of the power to allocate federal funds has also defaulted to the executive, with the White House claiming the ability to abort congressionally authorized expenditures and attempting to redirect the funds elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any laws, anyway; virtually all bills must now be packed into spending packages, huge recurring must-spend omnibus legislation that can circumvent the filibuster. But when those fail to be approved – and more and more, they do not – the government simply ceases operations. That is, big parts of the administration shut down – and it’s uncertain how many citizens are aware. Currently, the government has been closed for the entire month; there are no signs of it resuming operations anytime soon. But the presidency continues operating smoothly.

And so the issue of dominance of the House and Senate can seem rather irrelevant. Why should Americans care who has a majority in a body that has largely rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ messaging may assist the state of California’s Prop 50 prevail

And yet Prop 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five more congressional positions to the Democratic Party if it is approved by voters in a special election in the coming weeks, has seized the political imagination of liberals across the country. In part, it is a belated response to developments occurring in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time embraced dramatic partisan gerrymandering while big Democratic-controlled such as California, New York and Washington create their district lines via impartial redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has resulted in narrowly split control of the House and a long-term sense, by the left, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is explicitly intended as a countermove to a mid-term redistricting that recently passed in Texas, which implemented maps that will give Republicans an additional five seats in the state’s congressional delegation in the upcoming term; similar boundary changes are in progress in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in Virginia are also emulating the state’s example in seeking to redistrict.)

The state measure seems likely to be approved, as progressive voters react with fear and frustration to Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of power and seek methods to check his most extreme impulses. But Prop 50 is not free from controversy. Some opponents caution that the action could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts triggering a revenge cycle in which Republican-controlled states do even more to draw their maps so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have critiqued the measure on strictly ideological pro-democracy bases: a district that is drawn in such a way that the result of the vote is not in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it implies, necessarily, that the influence of dissenting views is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is supposed to define a healthy political system will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is valuable taking each of these criticisms on their own terms. The initial argument, that the measure will spur the right to redraw their respective maps in response, does not hold up as a logical argument: it is illogical to say that the GOP will be compelled to behave in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already engaging in such behavior without those actions. The GOP, I would observe, has not needed any motivation of revenge to redraw maps that secure long-term seats for their party: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of similar actions by the left, for a long time.

The other objection, I think, is more significant, reflecting not just a strategic disagreement about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic shift, but a sort of melancholic wish for a distinct country than the one that the US has become. It is true that in a more ideal world – in the world that the majority of Democrats, I think, desire and aspire to – Prop 50 would be distasteful to our principles, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is undesirable to pack and crack targeted demographics; it is harmful for elected officials to choose their constituents, instead of the other way around; it is negative that elections are rendered noncompetitive. That these actions have grown essential in order to impede the authoritarian creep of the president’s power and reduce the amount of suffering he is able to inflict is sad; it is a indication of how far we have declined from a state more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only once the battle against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what opposing it has transformed us into.

If Congress fails to in reality have legislative, military or budgetary authority, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s five new Democratic representatives will be sent to Washington to do? One aspect that Congress continues to retains is the authority to compel testimony, and the power to examine. Even in our era of stagnant government and legislative decline, it has utilized of that power to great effect. In 2027, if Prop 50 is approved and the state’s additional representatives are sworn in, they will become a member of a body with the power to probe the president, to televise their hearings into his actions and to compel associates of his close advisors to give evidence. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US writer