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What, precisely, is the purpose of the U.S. Congress? In the second Trump administration, it is difficult to tell. The authority to declare war, long considered a vital legislative power, has become a murky right of the presidential office in the years since the 9/11 attacks; Trump, in the past few months, has asserted even more of that control for himself, conducting military actions on boats in the Caribbean.

The authority over spending appears to be mostly been stripped from Congress too; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, the OMB director, much of the ability to allocate federal funds has also shifted to the executive, with the administration claiming the ability to cancel legislatively approved expenditures and seeking to redirect the funds to other uses. It’s as if they’re enacting any laws, either; virtually all bills must currently be packed into budget reconciliation bills, huge recurring essential omnibus legislation that can bypass the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and increasingly, they do not – the federal government simply ceases operations. At least, large sections of the government shut down – and it’s not clear how many people notice. At present, the federal government has been closed all month; there are no signs of it resuming operations in the near future. But the presidency keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the question of dominance of the House and Senate can seem somewhat irrelevant. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who holds a controlling share in a institution that has largely rendered itself powerless?

In what way ‘screw Trump’ messaging may assist California’s Proposition 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could provide five additional congressional positions to the Democrats if it is embraced by voters in a upcoming vote in the coming weeks, has captured the attention of progressives nationwide. In part, it is a delayed reaction to trends happening in other states: Republican-controlled states have long adopted extreme biased redistricting while large Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, New York and Washington create their district lines via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has resulted in closely divided control of the House and a longstanding sense, by the left, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California measure is clearly designed as a response to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which installed boundaries that will give the GOP an additional five positions 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 Virginia are likewise emulating California’s lead in attempting to redistrict.)

The California measure seems likely to pass, as progressive electorate respond with concern and anger to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of authority and seek methods to check his most extreme tendencies. But Prop 50 is not free from controversy. Some opponents warn that the move could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ efforts to redistrict setting off a retaliatory cycle in which Republican-controlled states do even more to draw their districts so as to eliminate any chance of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have questioned the proposal on strictly principled democratic bases: a electoral area that is drawn in such a way that the result of the election is not in question, they argue, is one that cannot be said to be genuinely representative: it means, inevitably, that the power of dissenting views is suppressed, and that the process of deliberation, argument and convincing that is meant to characterize a healthy political system will be confined only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these criticisms on their merits. The initial argument, that the measure will spur conservatives to alter their respective districts in response, fails as a causal argument: it is illogical to say that the GOP will be compelled to act in antidemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already engaging in such behavior in the absence of those steps. The Republican party, I would observe, has not needed any incentive of retaliation to change boundaries that secure permanent positions for their party: they have been willing to do this for its own sake, in the total lack of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second critique, in my view, is more significant, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to confront the GOP’s anti-democracy turn, but a sort of melancholic wish for a different nation than the one that the United States has become. It is accurate that in a better situation – in the reality that the majority of the left, I think, yearn for and aspire to – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not mandated by our situation. It is undesirable to manipulate disfavored population groups; it is not good for elected officials to select their voters, instead of the other way around; it is not good that elections are made uncontested. That these actions have become essential in order to impede the authoritarian creep of Trump’s control and lessen the level of harm he is capable to inflict is sad; it is a sign of how far we have fallen from a state more like a representative government. But they are necessary. Only once the battle against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what fighting it has made us.

If Congress fails to in reality have legislative, war making or appropriations authority, what is it, precisely, that the proposition’s five new Democratic representatives will be sent to Washington to do? One thing that Congress continues to retains is subpoena power, and the ability to investigate. Even in our era of sclerotic politics and congressional atrophy, it has utilized of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if the measure is approved and the state’s new representatives are sworn in, they will become a part of a body with the authority to probe Trump, to broadcast their hearings into his actions and to force members of his close advisors to testify. It’s not nothing, and more importantly, it’s not anything that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US writer