I spoke with a Republican member of Indiana’s legislature who opposes President Donald Trump’s push for the state to redraw its congressional map to gain two GOP seats and help the party hold its House majority in next year’s midterm elections. Trump, with support from Indiana’s Republican governor, Mike Braun, has vowed to back primary challengers against members of the GOP who are, for now, blocking the redistricting plan. The lawmaker I spoke with asked that I not publish his name. He isn’t worried about Trump’s political wrath; he doesn’t plan to run for reelection. His fear of speaking out is much more personal: “I’d rather my house not get firebombed,” he told me by phone.
Such a worry is not as far-fetched as it might sound—not in an America that has seen an eruption of political violence over the past few years, and not in Indiana over the past few weeks. Republicans in the state have faced a wave of “swatting” incidents, in which a false call to emergency services draws a police response, for not endorsing the redistricting plan. (Braun said he and his family have also received threats.)
Indiana lawmakers have reported other apparent attempts at intimidation, including at least one bomb threat, as well as subtler forms of harassment. Not all of them have been made public. Earlier this month, the Republican I interviewed was returning home from an evening walk and saw a Domino’s Pizza car parked out front. The delivery was under his name, with his home address, but he had not ordered it. The phone number that was given to the delivery driver was not his. The confirmation that no one in his family ordered it came when he asked the driver what was on the pizza: sausage and pepperoni. “We don’t eat meat,” he told me with a laugh, “so none of us ordered that pizza.” When the lawmaker later called the number affiliated with the order, it went to the state police in Indianapolis. Hoax pizza deliveries have been a favored tactic of MAGA supporters who have tried to enforce loyalty to Trump and his agenda. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia reported a similar incident before she abruptly announced her resignation from Congress. “The whole idea is, We know who you are. We know where you live,” the Indiana lawmaker said. “They’re trying to intimidate us.”
That's the thuggish Right at work, a movement that has barely graduated from bombing churches and burning crosses on people's front lawns. And it does work, witness the fact that Trump wasn't convicted at his second impeachment because the GOP senators were too cowardly to so vote.
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