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Texas Republicans — at Donald Trump’s explicit request — are preparing to rewrite congressional maps to squeeze out up to five new GOP-leaning seats ahead of the 2026 midterms. Not because there was a census. Not because there’s been a population boom in white rural areas (there hasn’t). But because Trump told them to.
The official excuse is a recent DOJ letter [ [link removed] ] warning that four districts might be unconstitutional, but don’t fall for the Jedi hand wave. This isn’t about constitutional clarity — it’s about partisan security. They’re not correcting a problem. They’re correcting an outcome.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott is so eager to please his political puppeteer that he called a special legislative session during a flooding crisis. Literally. Texans are bailing out their homes and this man is bailing out Trump’s congressional math. It would almost be funny if it weren’t so brazen. Abbott isn’t leading a state government; he’s co-directing a national gerrymandering workshop with a man who tried to overthrow the government five minutes ago.
Trump, meanwhile, is making it plain. As reported by Politico [ [link removed] ], he wants Republicans to “pick up five seats” by reconfiguring Texas maps mid-decade. The move would target Houston and Fort Worth districts with large Black and Latino populations. What Republicans are doing isn’t just packing and cracking — it’s retrofitting representation to make the country appear whiter, redder, and more obedient than it actually is.
And let’s be clear: Yhis isn’t some grassroots movement from the bottom up. This is a classic top-down authoritarian impulse — centralized, coordinated, and cloaked in pseudo-legal justification. They’re counting on psychological fatigue. They’re banking on voters to tune out. The strategy here is learned helplessness: Make it feel like democracy is already lost, so people stop fighting to protect it.
Of course, this isn’t new. As Salon [ [link removed] ] noted this week, Texas U.S. Representative Jasmine Crockett called it what it is: an attempt to silence communities of color. What makes it even more insidious is how Republican messaging weaponizes victimhood to justify aggression. In psychological terms, it’s projection: claim you’re the one being silenced while actively muting millions of Black and brown voters through map manipulation.
Trump’s acolytes love to chant about “election integrity,” but the moment they see voters they don’t like, they work overtime to make sure those voters count less. The same people who told America to “get over” January 6 have no intention of getting over the fact that Houston exists. And they’re playing a long game: fortify districts, rig structural control, then feign shock when the electorate no longer reflects the electorate.
Roland Martin on his show, Roland Martin Unfiltered [ [link removed] ], has been shouting this from the rooftops almost daily. He’s been covering the slow-motion electoral erasure of Black voters with a level of urgency that corporate media refuses to match. And he’s right. This isn’t just political opportunism — it’s identity warfare masquerading as cartography.
What Republicans are doing is a psychological operation. They use the language of fairness (“race-neutral,” “constitutional review,” “district balance”) to cloak the fact that this is an asymmetrical power grab. It’s gaslighting with a legislative twist. And it’s working—because while they redraw the lines, we’re still drawing conclusions about what they might do. They’re not subtle. They’re strategic.
And yet, somehow, Democrats continue to respond like we’re in a Lincoln-Douglas debate. Thankfully, California Governor Gavin Newsom finally said the quiet part loud. In response to this stunt, he floated the idea of abandoning California’s independent redistricting commission [ [link removed] ] and retaliating with maps of our own. “Two can play this game,” he said. Good. Let’s play.
But let’s do more than play. Let’s pre-empt. Because here’s the thing: Republicans aren’t waiting. North Carolina’s already being sued [ [link removed] ] for eroding Black voting power through gerrymandering. In Tarrant County, Texas, Tim O’Hare — who essentially admitted the goal was to create three Republican commissioner seats — redrew local maps [ [link removed] ] to fracture Black and Latino communities. He called it “100% political.” Which is just subtle code for “openly racist.” And now we’re supposed to wait for courts to intervene? Courts that Republicans have spent a decade packing?
No. If Republicans are going to rig the map, blue states need to beat them to it. According to current data, Democrats control the redistricting process in several states: Illinois, New Mexico, Oregon, New York (after court intervention), and Maryland. Independent commissions exist in others like California and Michigan, but those laws can be amended. As the San Francisco Chronicle [ [link removed] ] noted, Newsom can’t just snap his fingers — but the political will exists to put redistricting reform on the ballot. And it should be. Everywhere.
Let’s not forget: Trump pardoned January 6 rioters. House Republicans just voted against releasing Epstein files [ [link removed] ], which would’ve exposed abusers and potentially implicated major GOP donors. These are not normal times. Why are Democrats pretending they are?
This is about creating a new doctrine: preemptive democratic defense. Gerrymandering has long been a tool of political control — but when it’s used to strip away racial representation and secure permanent minority rule, it becomes something else. It becomes soft authoritarianism. And if Democrats wait to respond until the damage is done, they’ve already lost. Politics is no longer about persuasion — it’s about power retention, and the right understands that. The left better start acting like it.
If that means every blue state needs to redistrict now, then do it. Draw the maps, dare the courts, and let voters decide whether representation should be a reward for showing up — or a right baked into democracy. Because the alternative is clear: Let the GOP redraw the rules of the game and hope they’re feeling merciful when it’s our turn to bat. Spoiler alert — they won’t be.
Let’s stop reacting and start rigging back. Because the real threat isn’t just gerrymandering — it’s the illusion that democracy still exists when the lines have already been drawn.

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