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What, precisely, is the role of the U.S. Congress? In the second presidency of Donald Trump, it can be hard to determine. The power to declare war, long considered a crucial congressional authority, has become a murky right of the executive branch in the years since September 11; Trump, in recent months, has claimed additional of that control for himself, authorizing military actions on vessels in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse appears to be largely been taken away from the legislative branch as well; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, Russell Vought, a great deal of the ability to allocate federal funds has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the administration claiming the ability to cancel legislatively approved spending and seeking to redirect the funds to other uses. It’s not like they’re enacting any legislation, anyway; virtually all legislation must now be crammed into spending packages, huge recurring essential omnibus legislation that can bypass the senate obstruction. But when those don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government just ceases operations. That is, big parts of the administration shut down – and it’s uncertain how many people notice. At present, the government has been shut down for the entire month; there are little indication of it resuming operations in the near future. But the executive branch keeps on operating smoothly.

And so the question of control of the House and Senate can appear somewhat moot. Why should U.S. citizens care who holds a controlling share in a body that has mostly abolished itself?

How ‘oppose the president’ messaging may assist California’s Proposition 50 prevail

And yet Proposition 50, California’s redistricting referendum that could deliver five additional House seats to the Democrats if it is approved by the electorate in a upcoming vote next month, has seized the attention of progressives nationwide. In part, it is a delayed reaction to developments occurring elsewhere: GOP-led states have long adopted extreme partisan gerrymandering while large Democratic-controlled such as California, the Empire State and the Evergreen State create their district lines via nonpartisan redistricting panels, an asymmetry that has resulted in narrowly split control of the House and a long-term sense, by the left, that their party is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The California measure is explicitly designed as a response to a mid-decade redrawing of maps that was recently approved in the Lone Star State, which implemented maps that will give Republicans an additional five seats in the state’s House representation next year; similar redistricting moves are in progress in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (Democrats in Virginia are also emulating the state’s lead in seeking to redistrict.)

The state initiative seems likely to be approved, as Democratic and liberal voters respond with fear and anger to Trump’s autocratic consolidation of power and seek ways to check his worst impulses. But the proposition is not free from debate. Some critics caution that the action could have unintended consequences, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to redistrict setting off a retaliatory pattern in which Republican-controlled states do even more to draw their maps so as to eliminate any possibility of Democratic competitiveness. Different critics have questioned the proposal on more purely principled democratic grounds: a electoral area that is created in such a manner that the result of the vote is never really in question, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it implies, inevitably, that the power of opposing voices is suppressed, and that the procedure of deliberation, discussion and convincing that is meant to define a healthy democratic process will be limited only to primary elections, if it occurs at all.

It is worth considering each of these objections on their own terms. The first argument, that Prop 50 will spur conservatives to redraw their respective maps in response, fails as a logical point: it is illogical to claim that Republicans will be made to act in antidemocratic ways by the left’s actions when they are already doing so without those steps. The GOP, I would observe, has required no any incentive of revenge to change maps that secure long-term seats for their party: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the total absence of Democratic reciprocation, for a long time.

The second objection, in my view, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical difference about how to confront the GOP’s undemocratic shift, but a kind of melancholic wish for a distinct nation than the one that the US has become. It is true that in a better world – in the world that most the left, I think, desire and hope for – the proposition would be distasteful to our principles, and not mandated by our situation. It is not good to manipulate disfavored demographics; it is harmful for elected officials to choose their voters, instead of the other way around; it is not good that elections are made noncompetitive. That these actions have grown essential in order to slow the autocratic creep of Trump’s control and reduce the level of suffering he is able to cause is sad; it is a indication of how far we have declined from a state more like a democracy. But they are necessary. It is only once the fight against Trumpism has been successfully concluded that we can mourn what opposing it has made us.

If Congress fails to in reality have lawmaking, military or budgetary authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s five new Democratic house members will be dispatched to the capital to do? One thing that Congress still holds is the authority to compel testimony, and the ability to investigate. Even in our era of sclerotic politics and legislative decline, it has made use of that power to significant impact. In 2027, if Prop 50 passes and the state’s additional Democrats are take office, they will become a member of a institution with the power to probe the president, to televise their hearings into his actions and to force associates of his inner circle to give evidence. It’s not nothing, and crucially, it’s not something that any conservative would do.

• The columnist is a Guardian US writer