Washington, D.C. — As CNN reported, redistricting is making headlines across the country as Donald Trump has launched a multi-faceted assault on our democracy by pressuring Republican states to gerrymander and directing the U.S. Department of Commerce to manipulate the census count.

These efforts aren’t just happening at the same time by coincidence, they’re deeply connected parts of his anti-democratic strategy, as NDRC President John Bisognano told NPR’s Morning Edition, “What he’s trying to do is entirely reshape the American electorate. He wants to make people that voted for him and look like him, more representative, with more power, and a bigger vote share than they currently have. And that’s the same thing you see in gerrymandering that he’s trying to pursue in Texas and a few other states right now.”

What’s happening now mirrors Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election—when he asked the Georgia Secretary of State to find him 11,780 more votes— but instead of challenging votes after the fact, he’s working to pre-determine the outcome of elections before a ballot is cast. But this time it’s different, with too many Republicans rolling over. And that’s inspiring an awakening among the American people.

In states across the country, a bipartisan opposition movement is building. In Texas, thousands of Texans turned out to hearings to express their opposition directly to legislators. In Indiana, Vice President Vance met with Governor Braun behind a curtain, as a crowd of booing protesters gathered outside and Indiana Republican legislators were terrified to talk to reporters afterwards. More protesters showed up to the Governor’s mansion after the meeting to make their opposition heard.

This is not just partisan politics as usual, like Republicans want us to believe; this is far more dangerous. It’s about rigging the rules to lock in minority rule — and avoiding accountability. “Donald Trump is seeking to ensure that through the entirety of his term he has no accountability,” NDRC Executive Director Marina Jenkins told BBC News. “He believes he can simply take the political power that belongs to the people.”

Donald Trump has also reignited his campaign to manipulate the US census, which is used to determine how congressional seats are apportioned. As Bisognano told The New York Times: “He wants to create an alternative reality where the people he wants to count, count, and the people he doesn’t, do not.”

Here’s the bottom line: Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers have brought our country to the precipice of a nationwide gerrymander. They can and should stop this right now. A key part of their strategy assumes the American people will not wake up to the scorn of gerrymandering, but we are seeing that assumption fall apart. We will keep bringing this anti-democratic, unAmerican scheme to light.

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