On Iran, as on everything else, Gov. Mike Braun is letting Trump think for him.
Trump touts military success as he describes Iran strikes
Trump touts US military strikes in Iran stating forces suffered massive losses and “everything knocked out” in recent operations.
Gov. Mike Braun might end up being the last person in MAGAland to realize it, but he and his copartisans are adrift. Braun will be a one-term governor unless he can think for himself and start serving Indiana without regard for what’s best for President Donald Trump.
Braun doesn’t get it yet. His robotic support for Trump’s war with Iran — “decisive leadership on the world stage,” he told reporters March 2 — shows his brain is cryogenically frozen in 2018 even as the world turns toward an unsettling future with a worsening economy and artificial intelligence-guided military operations.
You can almost sympathize with Braun’s unwillingness to put down the MAGA playbook. Braun is among countless political figures who’ve risen to power over the past decade by genuflecting to Trump and embracing his shamelessness.
Amoral populism launched careers, but it won’t sustain weak leaders through tumultuous times.
Iran is dividing MAGA
Voters are looking for substance — and, in Indiana, they’re seeing vacuous men who’ve let go of principles so they can cling to Trump like a talisman for their political careers. That goes for Braun, chief among them, but also for a host of other Republicans, including Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith, Sen. Jim Banks, Attorney General Todd Rokita and Secretary of State Diego Morales, whose temporary claims to power will be forgotten by the next generation.
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This MAGA cast of characters achieved success by outsourcing their thinking to a political nerve center. For years, they’ve only had to agree with whatever Trump happened to say today, even if it contradicted what Trump said the day before. Trump’s popularity among conservative voters rewarded groupthink and punished independence.
But Trump’s Iran war adds a critical layer to Americans’ anxieties — including overaggressive immigration enforcement, affordability and a softening job market — which are scrambling U.S. politics and severing the connection between Trump’s stream of consciousness and voter approval.
Some of the savviest MAGA influencers are hedging their bets. Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson and other voices whose personal wealth depends on harnessing the hearts and minds of the right are breaking with Trump on Iran — or, perhaps, using Iran as an opportune moment to create distance from a president whose popularity is falling.
MAGA is a declining brand
It’s too soon to say with certainty what’s signal and what’s noise. But we have increasing evidence that the American public (though not necessarily Republican primary voters) are breaking with Trump-aligned Republicans.
Democrats have been out-performing Kamala Harris’ 2024 results by double digits and they have a 7-point lead over Republicans in congressional midterm polling. Most Americans disapprove of Trump’s military strikes on Iran, per Politico.
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The winds of change are blowing in Indiana. Republicans who carried water for Trump’s early redistricting push suffered an embarrassing loss in December. Braun, the Indiana face of early redistricting, has a 25% approval rating, according to a Public Policy Polling survey.
Braun’s path out of office runs in multiple directions: He could simply decline to run again, as he did in the Senate; a primary challenger could exploit his 43% approval rating among Republicans; or a Democrat could capitalize on the kind of hometown unpopularity that produces a 16% approval rating in Jasper.
Morales faces the same reckoning. His reelection bid for secretary of state is in deep trouble.
Some Indiana Republicans are more adaptable than others. Banks, for example, is an adept shape-shifter who could likely adopt a sober, statesmanlike persona if he perceived an evolving market demand.
Braun’s internal software does not seem to update so easily. He has time to change, having served just over one year as governor. The next three years will test Braun’s capacity to be something more than he’s been since winning election to the U.S. Senate in 2018.
Braun and his fellow Indiana Republican travelers have sailed as far as Trump’s tailwinds can take them. We’re about to see how they perform when they have to find their own ways.
Contact James Briggs at 317-444-4732 or james.briggs@indystar.com. Follow him on X at @JamesEBriggs.
