Donald J. Trump spent a great deal of emotional capital — as well as other people’s valuable time — ranting and railing against what he alleged was a “rigged” election for president of the United States.
He even provoked an armed assault on our government the day Congress was to ratify the 2020 Electoral College result that elected Joe Biden president in 2020. Trump never provided a shred of proof of any rigging or corruption, but he damn sure had the MAGA crowd believing the mule dookey he was peddling.
Here are now, in 2025, and we have an actual tangible, provable case of election manipulation — or rigging if you will — of a 2026 congressional election. It is being orchestrated by Trump. He bullied the Texas Legislature into redrawing five congressional districts that were tilting toward the Democrats to places that now reportedly lean Republican. Trump wants to strengthen the GOP’s slim congressional majority and he talked Texas Republicans to sign on as election-fixing co-conspirators.
Where I come from, I believe they call that “rigging an election.” Texas GOP lawmakers bought the crap Trump offered and engineered the redrawing of the lines over the stiff opposition of Texas Democratic legislators who bolted the state for two weeks to avoid a quorum required for the Legislature to do any business.
The reaction in California was swift. Gov. Gavin Newsom persuaded that state’s legislative assembly to put a measure on the November ballot that would legalize an effort to flip several GOP-leaning congressional districts to Democratic-leaning ones. As much as I endorse the principle behind the effort, and the reason for it, I fear that we might be losing “free and fair elections” to the whims of politicians who are, in Newsom’s words, “fighting fire with fire.”
They do it differently in California than we do it here. In Texas, we entrust our Legislature to redraw the lines. In California, they appoint an independent commission to do it. Still, the Golden State remedy has the scent of revenge … and I don’t like the way it smells.
Back to my original point. Donald Trump’s allegation of a “rigged election” in 2020 rings hollower than ever when we witness the real thing taking place in Texas and elsewhere.
