The Missing Ingredient for Victory: The Will to Crush the Enemy

How much of the load can we expect one man to carry when his opponents will bend Heaven and Earth to stop him, and our de facto allies clutch pearls? A case study in cowardice from the Hoosier State.

A disappointing realization of the Trump era of American politics continues to be observed regularly with far too many members of the Republican Party demonstrating an unwillingness to get in the trenches and fight. In football, scouts call the tendency to dish out punishment to opponents a “mean streak.” In other sports, you hear the term “killer instinct” floated around to describe a player willing to use his talents and capabilities to overwhelm his opponent to the point of demoralization and utter collapse. It is important to remember that in 2012, Donald Trump endorsed Mitt Romney, and in doing so, left no doubt that he considered Romney the best bet to get rid of Barack Obama after just one term in the White House.

Trump, though he had tinkered with politics previously, had no grand plan to swoop into the White House with his own administration until it was clear the GOP couldn’t break free of its outdated platform, addiction to special interests, and “kinder and gentler” approach to resisting a party hellbent on warping everything unique about America as long as it meant political gain for themselves. With these reasons obvious, I contend it was not so much the left that brought Trump into the 2016 race as it was the ineffectiveness and weakness of the American right in those days. With a few notable exceptions for courageous compatriots, weakness continues.

The political space is an ugly one, and realpolitik doesn’t always make sense, but whether you agree with a particular position Trump takes or not, it couldn’t be clearer that the man likes to win and wants his enemies to feel the pain. Usually, but not always, those enemies are those we all concur are enemies to the greater vision of freedom and liberty. Our hope was that Trump would inspire the rest of the Republican Party’s nationwide elected officials, from the federal governments down to the statehouses, to relish fighting the enemy as much as he does. While some positive examples exist, we continue to be let down by Republican-appointed judges, reluctant strategists, and most unfortunately, GOP legislators with a chance to make serious changes if only they had the will to win that their Democrat opponents possess.

Yes, you read that correctly. The party that is going backward practically everywhere you look in party registration, which is on the wrong side of almost every polled issue, has a monstrous will to win that vastly outpaces that of our own side. Giving credit where credit is due, I must acknowledge an otherwise milquetoast Texas House of Representatives for passing a Republican-friendly U.S. House map that should give Republicans at least four more seats, if not the five the most bullish are expecting.

The Democrats, predictably, have followed up by countering not only in California, but in Virginia as well. Unless stopped by courts, Gavin Newsom is looking to flip at least four Republican seats in California, and vile CIA spook and Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger is looking to use her powerhouse legislature to shove a new map upon the citizens of Virginia that will probably net at least three Democrat seats as things stand today.

Drip by drip, Republicans are losing the battle for 2026 before we even know who will prevail in primaries and replace retiring incumbents. They lost a seat in Utah last month, going one step backward in a race with precious little ground to sacrifice. This has been countered by a pickup in North Carolina, but even if Republicans get all five seats in Texas, a net loss of four in California and three in Virginia puts us underwater from the Texas play itself, given that California and Virginia’s measures are retaliatory.

This brings us all to the million dollar question:

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH INDIANA’S GOP LEGISLATURE?

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Trump won Indiana by 18.9%, winning 88 of 92 counties. Harris won California by 20.1%, in a state that counted ballots until Christmas until two Democrats flipped a couple of Republican-held House seats. California’s new legislative maps have twists and turns so unpredictable and farcical they force state brass to admit they were crafted solely to counter Texas’s redrawn maps and that they’ve done everything in their power to sidestep their own state’s constitution requiring an independent commission to redraw districts every decade.

Indiana, despite its inherent Trumpiness, is hemming and hawing its way to irrelevance in dropping the ball on redistricting to counter Democrat efforts in blue states to tip 2026 in their direction. Here are the two Democrat held seats in the Hoosier State: