Even this ruby red state doesn't like what Trump's doing

I’m writing to you from Houston, Texas, where I’m flogging Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America to every Texan who might be interested. So far, I think I’ve sold two copies.

Just kidding. Last night, in fact, I met hundreds of Texans who seemed interested.

Texas wasn’t always the bastion of right-wing extremism it seems today. Remember Ann Richards? She was the progressive firebrand governor of Texas from 1991 to 1995. I recall her keynote speech at the 1988 Democratic National Convention in Atlanta when she said of then-President George H.W. Bush, “Poor George, he can’t help it — he was born with a silver foot in his mouth.”

Today, the progressive torch is being carried in Texas by people like Beto O’Rourke, Rep. Greg Casar (from Texas’s 35th congressional district), and State Rep. Nicole Collier.

Earlier this week, Collier remained in the Texas House chamber overnight to protest a Republican-imposed requirement that Democrats agree to a mandatory police escort to leave the Capitol after a redistricting walkout. She viewed the requirement as restriction on her constitutional rights.

Collier was right, of course. Texas Republicans are treating Texas Democrats as if they’re sworn enemies. Trump has stoked this by telling Texas Governor Greg Abbott to find five additional Republican congressional seats by gerrymandering the state even more wildly than it was already gerrymandered.

On Wednesday, the newly redrawn map finally passed.

Trump is putting pressure on other red states to do the same. It’s all part of Trump’s plot to keep Republicans in control of Congress in the 2026 midterms.

The stakes are huge. Republicans could easily lose their current seven-vote majority in the House, or possibly their six-vote majority in the Senate.

Hopefully, blue state governors and legislatures — starting with Gavin Newsom’s California — will stop this assault on voting rights by credibly threatening to gerrymander an equal number of additional Democratic congressional seats.

With blue states mobilized, it wouldn’t be a race to the bottom. It would be a race to save democracy by removing any incentive for red states to try to gerrymander their way to more Republican seats.

Two other parts to Trump’s plot to keep Republicans in control of Congress are also coming into view.

He’s attacking mail-in ballots. As he wrote on Monday in a social media post, he intends to “lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS.”

He also intends to target what he says are “Highly ‘Inaccurate,’ Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES, which cost Ten Times more than accurate and sophisticated Watermark Paper, which is faster, and leaves NO DOUBT, at the end of the evening, as to who WON, and who LOST, the Election.”

Can anyone doubt what Trump is trying to do?

Asked about his effort to end mail-in voting and rid the election process of voting machines, he told reporters, “We’re going to start with an executive order that’s being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail-in ballots because they’re corrupt.”

The third part of Trump’s plot is to occupy major cities, mostly led by Democratic mayors, which are centers of Democratic voting. He probably figures that militarizing these cities will intimidate voters to stay away from the polls.

He’s doing a trial run now in his occupation of Washington, D.C. — deploying ICE agents, National Guard troops, and the Army. To justify it, he charged that: "Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs and homeless people.”

Rubbish. According to the Justice Department’s own data (which, of course, Trump rejects), violent crime in the city hit a 30-year low last year. City data shows homicides are down by more than 10%, robbery down by almost 30%, and carjackings down nearly 40%.

Let’s be clear about what’s going on here.

The man who instituted a coup against the United States when he failed to win the 2020 presidential elections — demanding that Republican governors “give” him the votes he needed, instructing his vice president not certify the election, and encouraging a mob to attack the Capitol — does not want free and fair elections in 2026 or beyond.

That’s why the rest of us — Democrats, independents, and Republicans who still believe in democracy — must organize a counter-offensive, now.

Part of that counter-offensive begins with Newsom’s California; other blue states must join in. Trump’s attacks on mail-in ballots and voting machines, and his occupation of our cities, should be challenged in the federal courts. A wide coalition of state and city officials should participate.

The rest of us must make good trouble by ensuring that Trump’s plot is widely known, and that we will resist it.

Most of the Texans I’ve talked with over the last few days (including at a coffee bar where we’ll be doing Saturday’s Coffee Klatch) tell me they don’t support what Greg Abbott is doing.

Texans relish their freedoms. They don’t want to be controlled by Washington. They don’t want to live in a dictatorship. The spirit of Ann Richards lives on.

• Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com