For way too long, the Republican Party has been hiding in plain sight.
President Donald Trump is a Republican in name, as are the lawmakers who run the House and the Senate.
But to many Republicans around the country and, indeed, in Washington, they bear little resemblance to the party they signed up for.
The lack of common decency, the casual cruelty, and the persistent government intrusion into our everyday lives are anathema to most traditional party members.
But the people who are supposed to counterbalance Trump on Capitol Hill are too worried about losing their jobs or falling from the president’s favor to stand up to him. The groveling fealty the GOP lawmakers pay to Trump and his henchmen has become a national embarrassment and one they will have to answer for one day.
Case in point, Speaker Mike Johnson. He is so terrified of saying anything that might offend the president that he might as well say nothing at all.
MAGA, with its conspiracy theories, its narcissism, and its mob mentality, appeared to have swallowed the GOP whole.
Until this week.
Twenty-one Republicans in Indiana showed the rest of the country that politics can still be a force for principle.
Against the most extreme pressure from Trump, turning at times nice and nasty and then downright threatening, and two visits from JD Vance to double down on the message, these men and women stood up for what they believed was right, regardless of the consequences to their own careers.
They blankly refused to redraw the state’s voting maps to give the party two more House seats. The reds in a deep red state had had enough of being pushed around, and they did what Republicans always used to do.
They voted with their consciences.
The 31-19 vote on Thursday sent a clear message to the White House that the party of Ronald Reagan, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt was still alive and kicking back.
Of the 31 votes opposing redistricting, 21 were Republicans. Do the math. It would have been so easy to please the president.
But these Hoosier Republicans weren’t worried about how Trump would see them. They were more concerned about how history would judge.
“The power to draw election maps is a sacred responsibility directly tied to the integrity of our elections and the people’s faith in our constitutional system,” said State Senator Spencer Deery, one of the 21.
Put simply, they were not going to cheat a system that dates back to the founding fathers, despite some facing bomb threats and swatting of their homes.
Indiana’s insurgency is consequential as the bellwether state, while red, has swung with the changing tide in the past. It may suggest the region that Trump won handily in 2024 has not been persuaded by his rollercoaster first year.
It certainly draws a line in the sand for the party in the rest of the country.
The state has a history of reflecting broader shifts in the nation’s psyche and has a proud GOP heritage.
Lincoln spent his formative years, from 7 to 21, in Indiana, and it has long espoused the fundamental tenets of small government and low taxes.
The day after the vote brought a flood of threats and recrimination.
“You had one gentleman, the head of the Senate, I guess Bray, whatever his name is… He’ll probably lose his next primary, whenever that is,” Trump said, referring to Republican Senate Pro Tempore Rodric Bray, who led the revolt.
“I’ll certainly support anybody that wants to go against him,” added Trump.
The D.C.-based Heritage Foundation think tank suggested that funds would be stripped from the state. “Roads will not be paved. Guard bases will close. Major projects will stop,” it warned.
“I will be working with the President to challenge these people who do not represent the best interests of Hoosiers,” said the state’s Republican Governor Mike Braun after the vote.
Like many old American heroes, Bray prefers to let his actions speak for him. He said he had “lots of conversations with folks in Washington,” but “Indiana will continue to function.”
No nastiness. No boasts. Just plain-spoken truths.
John Wayne, a staunch old-school Republican, would have approved.
