Republican predicts more threats of violence as GOP approval dives

George Bush speechwriter and podcaster Tim Miller says anti-gerrymandering Republicans in Indiana are catching increasing threats of violence as the party’s unpopular policies continue to sink it.

Indiana Republicans are making another push at mid-decade gerrymandering, unveiling a new congressional map that eliminates all of the state's Democratic seats, flipping the state's congressional map from a Republican advantage of 7-to-2 to 9-to-0. Meanwhile, the pressure on Indiana Republicans who oppose the power grab has escalated to include threats of violence, with nearly a dozen state lawmakers reporting that they have been the victims of SWAT or doxing attempts.

State Senator Jean Leising (R-Decatur), who opposes Trump's redistricting effort, says she was the target of a pipe bomb threat, but said the threat “will not stop me from serving my community to the best of my ability.”

Miller said threats of violence will likely get more common as the Republican Party gets more desperate to counter massive nationwide rejection of the party’s policies and President Donald Trump.

“I think that if this [Indiana gerrymandering plan] doesn't work, you will see an escalation of this, in part because they're getting desperate,” Miller told MS NOW anchor Nicole Wallace. “I mean, the fact that this much pressure is being put on Indiana over two seats shows how desperate they are.”

“I think that Republicans expected that this gerrymandering gambit in the mid-decade was going to end up netting them 10 or 15 seats when you look at Texas, Missouri, Indiana, Florida, etc. But it's backfired in a lot of places, thanks in part to … some Republicans that have decided that they don't want to go down with the ship with Donald Trump, and thanks in part to Abigail Spanberger winning in Virginia and being able to redistribute Virginia, and Gavin Newsom in California. A few things have happened to now make it so that maybe they'll net a couple seats, which likely won't be enough if the political environment stays as it is now.”

The escalation of threats is unfortunate, said Miller, because state lawmakers don’t have the benefit of protective resources like members of Congress.

“They have legitimate reasons to be afraid,” said Miller. “Obviously, we saw the death of the state legislator in Minnesota, the guy that came to her house. You don't have Secret Service. I think that this threat is real and I think using it as a political bludgeon is real. … It's a category difference from another huge problem we have in our country, which is a crazy person gets radicalized and has easy access to firearms and goes after a politician. We've seen a lot of that. And that's bad.”

See the Bulwark podcast at this link.