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What, precisely, is the purpose of Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it is difficult to tell. The authority to declare war, traditionally viewed as a vital congressional authority, has become a murky right of the executive branch in the time since the 9/11 attacks; the president, in recent months, has asserted even more of that control for himself, authorizing strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be mostly been stripped from Congress as well; now, under the leadership of management and budget director, Russell Vought, a great deal of the ability to allocate government money has likewise defaulted to the presidency, with the White House asserting the authority to cancel congressionally authorized expenditures and attempting to move the funds elsewhere. It’s not like they’re passing any legislation, either; virtually all bills must now be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge recurring must-spend omnibus legislation that can circumvent the senate obstruction. But when those don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government just ceases operations. At least, big parts of the administration do – and it’s uncertain how many citizens are aware. Currently, the federal government has been shut down for the entire month; there are little indication of it reopening in the near future. But the executive branch keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the question of control of Congress can appear somewhat irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens care who has a majority in a institution that has largely abolished itself?

In what way ‘oppose the president’ rhetoric may assist California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, the Golden State’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional House seats to the Democrats if it is embraced by voters in a special election next month, has seized the political imagination of progressives across the country. Partly, it is a delayed reaction to trends happening in other states: GOP-led states have for a long time adopted dramatic partisan gerrymandering while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, the Empire State and Washington draw their maps via nonpartisan independent commissions, an imbalance that has led to narrowly split House control and a longstanding feeling, by Democrats, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California proposal is explicitly intended as a response to a mid-term redistricting that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which installed maps that will give Republicans an five more seats in the state House representation in the upcoming term; comparable redistricting moves are in progress in states such as the Show-Me State and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are likewise following the state’s example in attempting to redistrict.)

The state initiative seems likely to be approved, as Democratic and liberal electorate react with concern and frustration to Trump’s autocratic centralization of power and look for methods to check his worst impulses. But Prop 50 is not without controversy. Some opponents warn that the move could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to change districts triggering a revenge pattern in which Republican-controlled states do even more to design their maps so as to foreclose any possibility of opposition party success. Others have questioned the proposal on strictly principled democratic grounds: a electoral area that is drawn in such a way that the outcome of the vote is never really in doubt, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be truly representative: it means, inevitably, that the power of dissenting voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of debate, argument and convincing that is supposed to characterize a healthy democratic process will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these objections on their own terms. The initial argument, that Prop 50 will spur the right to alter their respective maps in retaliation, does not hold up as a causal point: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be compelled to behave in antidemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those actions. The Republican party, it can be noted, has not needed any motivation of retaliation to change boundaries that guarantee long-term seats for their party: they have been ready to do this for their own benefit, in the total lack of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second objection, I think, is more significant, expressing not just a tactical difference about how to address the GOP’s undemocratic turn, but a kind of melancholic wish for a distinct country than the one that the United States has become. It is accurate that in a better situation – in the reality that most the left, I think, yearn for and hope for – the proposition would be distasteful to our values, and not mandated by our circumstances. It is not good to pack and crack targeted population groups; it is harmful for elected officials to choose their voters, instead of the other way around; it is negative that votes are made uncontested. That these measures have become necessary in order to slow the authoritarian creep of the president’s control and lessen the amount of suffering he is capable to cause is unfortunate; it is a sign of how much we have declined from a state more like a representative government. But they are required. Only after the fight against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what opposing it has transformed us into.

If the legislative branch fails to in practice have lawmaking, military or appropriations power, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s additional five Democratic representatives will be dispatched to Washington to do? One thing that Congress still retains is subpoena power, and the power to investigate. Even in our time of sclerotic politics and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if Prop 50 is approved and the state’s new Democrats are take office, they will become a member of a body with the authority to probe Trump, to broadcast their investigations into his actions and to compel associates of his inner circle to testify. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist