This column was originally published by TheStatehouseFile.com.
By John Krull
TheStatehouseFile.com
May 25, 2026
What.
A.
Shock.
Embattled Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales, committed scammer and scalawag that he is, has decided not to exit the political stage quietly or nicely.
At a Bartholomew County Republican Party breakfast, Morales, a Republican, accused Indiana State Treasurer Daniel Elliot, also a Republican, of being a bigot. That’s because Elliot has endorsed yet another Republican, Max Engling, in the battle to be the GOP’s secretary of state candidate in the fall general election.
Elliot wasn’t at the breakfast gathering, but his wife was.
So, in a gesture in keeping with his highly developed sense of polite decorum, Morales apparently stared right at her while he told those assembled that her husband was prejudiced.
Classy.
Say what one will about Morales’ manners—or the lack of them—he is staying on brand. He has never pretended to be anything other than what he is, an unrepentant attack dog ready and eager to bite anyone who crosses his path.
The difference now is that he’s biting the hands of those who have fed him.
Mainstream Republicans have used folks such as Morales for decades. They thought—mistakenly, foolishly—that they could keep them on leashes, use them to inflict damage on their Democratic opponents and then, when they were done with these political pit bulls, release them without harm.
They were wrong.
Among the very least of the things they were wrong about was the notion that elevating a person with Morales’ ethical sensibilities—or, again, the lack of them—could come without a cost. They assumed that sending someone with his sort of political savagery, a savagery untethered by decency or integrity, wouldn’t do permanent damage to the body politic.
But it has.
One big reason that we now have a citizenry that snarls more often than it speaks is that we have allowed characters and careers such as those of Morales not just to be tolerated, but normalized. It’s almost as if we have replaced the American eagle as our national symbol with the rabid dog.
It’s tempting but far too easy—and far too false—to blame President Donald Trump for this slow-rolling political and cultural train wreck. To be sure, Trump—with his reckless, feckless disregard for any standards of truth or civility—has contributed mightily to our national meltdown.
But, to rely on a cliché, the president is the symptom of our national malaise, not the disease itself.
That malady has been a long time in the making.
There were few people in American public life I respected and admired more than the late U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Indiana. Even though I disagreed with him on some important issues, I considered—and consider—him a leader of unquestionable integrity and probity.
And yet….
More than 30 years ago, I covered a joint press conference with Lugar and then U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Georgia.
At one point, with Lugar standing next to him, Gingrich accused “professional Black Democrats” of playing the race card when they disagreed with someone. I watched Lugar when Gingrich uttered the words “professional Black Democrats.”
The senator winced with visible discomfort.
Later, I asked Gingrich how he plausibly could accuse others of introducing race into the discussion when he used such a phrase. I also asked Gingrich how he would react if a Black elected official referred to him as a “professional white Republican.”
Gingrich exploded.
Lugar stared at the ground and didn’t say a world while Gingrich barked and growled.
In such silences, careers such as those of Diego Morales and, yes, Donald Trump took root, grew and flourished.
“The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing,” the British philosopher John Stuart Mill wrote in 1867.
True then.
True now.
Traditional Republicans now are appalled that Diego Morales committed an act of social gaucherie at one of their get-togethers. They’re upset that their pet attack dog now is treating them the way he has treated everyone else.
They didn’t say a word when he bit those with whom they disagreed, even when they privately found his barbarity to be deplorable.
They’re paying for their silence now.
Most likely, they will continue to pay for it for quite some time.
That’s what happens when good men choose to do nothing.
John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students. The views expressed are those of the author only and should not be attributed to Franklin College. Also, the views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.
