Trump Gets His Revenge in Indiana

Donald Trump’s popularity and approval among all Americans may be dwindling, but Tuesday night’s primaries in Indiana showed that he maintains an iron grip on the GOP, and that Republican lawmakers refusing to do his bidding do so at their own peril.

After state senators in the Hoosier State defied his request to redraw Indiana’s congressional map last year, the president vowed retribution, which primary voters largely delivered on his behalf. Of the seven lawmakers Trump had specifically targeted, five lost to his endorsed challengers, one prevailed, and one race remains undecided. With 99 percent of votes reported, incumbent Spencer Deery is leading his race in the 23rd district by a mere three votes.

The president celebrated the outcome on his social media site and also posted a quote from Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN), who hailed him as the most powerful political force in the state.

“Everyone in Indiana politics should have learned an important lesson today: President Trump is the single most popular Republican among Hoosier voters,” Banks said. “Indiana is a conservative state, and we deserve conservatives in our State Senate who have a pulse on Republican voters.”

Tuesday’s results make it likely that the state legislature will try to gerrymander Indiana’s congressional districts next year. More immediately, it will also give those GOP lawmakers something to think about who are resisting any efforts to redraw their maps ahead of the midterms following the Supreme Court’s decision last week to gut the Voting Rights Act.

More than anything, however, it shows that even a weakened and unpopular Trump still controls his party’s base, and any Republican who stands in his way has to fear consequences.

And we are not just talking about the ballot box. After Trump made the Indiana lawmakers a target of his wrath, almost a dozen of them reported receiving threats.

While the president enjoys having this kind of power, it makes it difficult for Republican lawmakers to oppose him even if doing so would be the right thing to do and/or be politically beneficial.

And it continues the transformation of the traditional GOP into a party that simply does whatever he wants by eliminating any dissenters.

For example, it is likely that none of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump will still have their jobs when the next Congress is sworn in. Half of them saw the writing on the wall and retired or are retiring; four lost primaries; and one, Rep. David Valadao (R-CA) had his district redrawn and is an underdog in the upcoming midterms.

It should be noted that the GOP lost two of the seats in which incumbents were replaced, which is the price the party seems to be willing to pay to do Trump’s bidding.

There are two more races to watch later this month to gauge the extent of the president’s power.

In Louisiana, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R) is fighting for his political life. He is one of three GOP senators left who supported Trump’s impeachment.

And in Kentucky, Rep. Thomas Massie (R) is perhaps the president’s biggest target of them all. The lawmaker was the driving force behind the release of the Epstein files. In other words, what might doom him is achieving the thing that MAGA voters have always claimed they wanted to happen.

Of all of the scalps Trump would like to claim, Massie’s is the most precious. If he were to lose, it would be a true testament to how much the GOP has abandoned all of its previous principles.

It is also noteworthy to point out how much Trump allies are spending on these intra-party battles. Millions of dollars poured into the Indiana races that could have bolstered the many Republicans who will find themselves in tight races in the fall.

But that appears to mean less to the president than revenge, and, in the end, the GOP may end up paying a heavy price for it.