President Donald Trump needs to learn some new tactics.
His threats to support primary opponents of any state lawmaker who voted against Indiana midterm redistricting were as effective as driving on bald tires in a snowstorm.
After failing to convince a majority of Indiana’s Republican state senators that they would be on thin ice if they dared to prevent his power grab, Trump and his allies decided that a Defund Indiana campaign would be in order.
Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith suggested that the Trump administration threatened to withhold federal dollars from the Hoosier state if the gerrymandered map wasn’t approved.
Trump’s pals at Heritage Action doubled-down on the assertion that “all federal funding will be striped from the state,” in a Dec. 11 post on the social media platform X.
“Roads will not be paved. Guard bases will close. Major projects will stop. These are the stakes and every NO vote will be to blame,” Heritage Action, an offshoot of The Heritage Foundation, stated in the widely criticized post.
Either times have changed, or the cold temperatures have caused some brains to freeze.
Conservative groups such as The Heritage Foundation have long espoused their backing of states’ rights. A simple search of their website will lead to multiple articles and opinion pieces decrying so-called federal overreach.
Trump supported the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, suggesting that states should decide their own abortion laws.
Yet when it comes to deciding who will represent Indiana in Washington, D.C., Hoosier lawmakers are supposed to listen to federal officials and the president instead of their own constituents. That’s about as consistent as the weather in the Ohio Valley.
Threatening to withhold federal funding because Indiana didn’t pass redistricting is juvenile, and it’s also dangerous.
To propose closing bases when some of Indiana’s finest were recently called up through the National Guard to serve in Washington, D.C. is a slap in the face to the men and women who wear the uniform.
Allowing roads and bridges to decay could lead to costly if not deadly crashes all because Indiana’s Legislature wouldn’t hop on the redistricting trainwreck.
Hoosiers also pay federal taxes. Those funds don’t belong to Trump or any politician.
If forcing Indiana GOP lawmakers to always side with Trump is the goal, the president and his team are failing badly.
Twenty-one of Indiana’s Republican senators didn’t vote against redistricting because they are weak or suddenly became Democrats. They helped strike it down because it’s a bad idea with long-term consequences – ones that Hoosiers will have to answer for long after Trump is gone.
But if Trump wants another loss in Indiana, withholding funding would be a good way to go about it. Instead of wondering whether the lawmakers who voted “No” to redistricting can withstand a primary challenge, perhaps the minority of GOP senators who supported a new map should worry about their future. If nothing else, they should stand up and fight for their state’s due funding.
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