Indiana Reveals The Crisis In Our Democracy

Democracy is not self-executing, it's critical we recognize the precarious situation we're in, and how to effectively fight back

If you want to understand how democracies erode, don’t start with the spectacular moments. Start with the quiet ones — when institutions meant to serve the public are slowly repurposed to serve a single man, a single party, or a single ideology. That is the crisis unfolding in America today, and the battle playing out in Indiana is only the latest flashpoint. And unsurprisingly, corporate and billionaire owned media are largely ignoring this national crisis. But we cannot stay silent. Let’s Address This.

Across the country, public institutions—the DOJ, DHS, USAID, OMB, even AmeriCorps—are being bent away from the public interest and toward the political goals of this Trump administration. Experienced prosecutors are being fired and replaced with loyalists. Federal workers are being purged for refusing to pledge personal loyalty to the president. Nonprofits and charities, often the last line of defense for vulnerable communities, are being threatened, defunded, or sued simply for holding the government accountable. Universities are capitulating with MOUs to eliminate anything remotely DEI—defined as anything that acknowledges human diversity exists. The National Guard is being deployed as a political prop to suppress dissent rather than protect public safety.

Members of the National Guard patrol on the National Mall near the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

This is not normal governance. This is the infrastructure of authoritarianism.

Organizations like Democracy Defenders Action was founded precisely for moments like this. A bipartisan coalition of constitutional scholars, civil rights lawyers, national security experts, and former public servants—their mission is simple: defend the rule of law against the authoritarian playbook we are now watching unfold in real time.

And nowhere is that playbook clearer than in Indiana.

Indiana’s Redistricting Crisis Is a Warning to the Nation

Ordinarily, redistricting takes place once a decade—a process designed to reflect population changes, not the political whims of a president desperate to avoid another electoral defeat. Yet this month, Indiana lawmakers have redrawn maps years ahead of schedule. Not by Hoosiers. Not by civic groups. But by Donald Trump and Gov. Braun, who are threatening primary challenges against any Republican state senator who resists. The Indiana House has already voted 57-41 to pass fully gerrymandered Congressional maps, and is sending it to the Indiana Senate.

This is not organic democracy. It is federal coercion deployed to engineer electoral outcomes. Some Indiana lawmakers have already said the quiet part out loud. State Sen. Mike Young warned, “I don’t want to cry on Wednesday morning following that election, knowing we could have done something and we didn’t”

But another Republican, State Sen. Spencer Deery, cautioned that this push for mid-decade gerrymandering “could harm the conservative movement, and harm the functioning of our constitutional republic.” Yet another Indiana Senate Republican Mike Bohacek says he’ll vote no on Trump’s redistricting because his daughter has Down Syndrome and he’s offended Trump used the R word.

One common tactic of authoritarians is to use dehumanizing language to otherise and demonize anyone who opposes them.

The pressure to redraw maps early isn’t coming from constituents—it’s coming from Washington, where Trump remains fixated on preventing a repeat of the 2018 midterms. But instead of earning voters’ trust with ideas, the strategy is to rewrite the electorate itself. This is the defining distinction between democracy and autocracy: in democracies, voters choose their leaders; in autocracies, leaders choose their voters.

The Bigger Picture: A Concerted Strategy to Rig 2026

In other words, for as much as Trump accused Biden of the “Big Lie” in 2020, what Trump is doing now is what an actual effort to steal an election looks like. As Tianna Mays, Legal Director at Democracy Defenders Action, recently wrote, “The GOP isn’t being subtle about rigging the 2026 midterms.” And it goes far beyond gerrymandering. Mays points to the Supreme Court’s decade-long erosion of the Voting Rights Act:

• Shelby County v. Holder (2013) gutted preclearance

• Brnovich v. DNC weakened Section 2

• Louisiana v. Callais now threatens to eliminate remaining protections entirely

If the Court eliminates Section 2, millions of Americans—especially communities of color—will lose one of the last legal tools available to challenge discriminatory maps. Pair this with partisan purges of federal workers, attempts to restrict mail-in voting, installing election deniers in key federal posts, and the creation of new entities like “DOGE” designed explicitly to serve presidential political goals, and the pattern becomes unmistakable.

As Tianna notes, the strategy is simple: Block people from voting. Override the people who do vote. Punish those who refuse to fall in line. Indeed, Indiana is not an outlier. It is the latest in a series of test cases.

But Here’s the Good News: The Public Is Fighting Back

Across the country, Americans are organizing, suing, voting, and winning. Courts have struck down illegal maps in multiple states. Voters have passed independent redistricting commissions. Civil servants have refused to be intimidated. And pro-democracy coalitions and organizations—including Democracy Defenders Action—are mobilizing to safeguard the constitutional guardrails under assault.

The lesson from Indiana is clear: democracy only survives when we defend it. The attacks are accelerating, but so is the resistance.

Now is the time to choose which side of history we stand on.