When Texas legislators lit out for New York and Illinois in order to deny Republicans the quorum that they need to enact a mid-decade redistricting map, I wasn’t thrilled. The cause is righteous, but when has quorum-busting actually worked?

Democrats fled Austin in 1979, 2003 and 2021 in efforts to prevent Republicans from railroading bad legislation through our Republican-dominated legislature. But quorum-busting is unsustainable; in all three cases, the legislation was only delayed, not stopped.

Texas Democrats will probably hold out until Aug. 19, when the current legislative session ends. But Gov. Greg Abbott will undoubtedly call another one immediately. It’s very likely that eventually Republicans will get their way.

So, critics might dismiss the Texas Democrats’ efforts as an exercise in performative futility.

On the other hand, maybe some attention-grabbing performance is called for. Performance might be the only effective way to remind America of the gravity of what’s happening in Austin.

Sure, both parties have engaged in partisan redistricting—that is, gerrymandering—but the current effort is so political and so shamelessly flagrant, it’s hard to see how Texas Democrats could have, in good conscience, merely voted quietly against it as it inevitably passes.

This isn’t simply a state-level tussle about the shape of the electoral districts. It’s an irregular, mid-decade effort initiated by President Donald Trump to skew political power further toward Republicans and maintain their tenuous majority in the House of Representatives.

Trump doesn’t seem in the least embarrassed by the heavy-handed politics of this effort. As he told CNBC: “I got the highest vote in the history of Texas, as you probably know. And we are entitled to five more seats.”

Entitled? Now, there’s a word that bears a lot of authoritarian baggage. But Trump has been clear and emphatic about his understanding of his relationship to power, particularly since the assassination attempt in Butler, Pa.

At the Republican National Convention in July 2024, Trump recounted the attempt on his life, then promised: “… You’ll never hear it from me a second time…” But he has mentioned it many times since in ways that ought to make citizens committed to a democratic republic such as ours a bit queasy.

In his victory speech after the election, he said, “God spared my life for a reason… to save our country and to restore America to greatness.”

This wasn’t a casual, one-off statement, and whether Trump really believes it or not, many of his supporters do. In any case, the statement is an extremely telling expression of its adherents’ understanding of the limitations on the right to secure and hold power, which is to say, there are none.

That’s what’s at stake in Austin, and it’s hard to see how Democrats could quietly acquiesce to such a blatant power grab. Certainly, Texas is a red state, but in a democratic republic, the voice of the minority must be protected and preserved.

I don’t know how this ends. Two people whose wisdom and judgment I respect disagree on what Democrats should do next.

On one hand, if Republicans play loose with the rules and norms that make democracy possible, Democrats should do the same, which means radical redistricting in blue states to counteract Republican gains in places such as Texas. On the other hand, how do we preserve the rules unless we play by them?

I’m reminded of the unnamed army major who, after a particularly brutal assault on a Vietnamese hamlet, reportedly said, “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.”

So, this is the sorry pass to which too much of a sense of entitlement to power brings us. Texans who lean blue are likely to be denied the voice and vote they deserve, and any restraint on the power that Trump craves so avidly will be essentially nonexistent in the last half of his term.

Many Americans are fine with that. But is entrenched, consolidated power in the hands of one man what we really want for our country?

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