Category Archives: Public Policy and Governance

Speaking Of Project 2025…

If–as I fondly hope–the Democrats are victorious in November, future analysts of this year’s election are likely to focus on two major reasons for that success: Donald Trump and Heritage’s incredibly witless decision to leak the existence of Project 2025.

I need not belabor Trump’s rapidly disintegrating campaign. He can still pull this election out–if there are more MAGA cult members than I want to believe and too few rational people who vote–but at this juncture, he is rapidly descending into incoherence and obvious senility, and struggling to find an insult for Harris that will resonate. His choice of JD Vance as Vice-Presidential candidate once again displayed his lack of judgment. His constant insistence that America is a hellhole teetering on the edge of depression and teeming with criminals is evidence of his looney-tunes detachment from reality.

Trump’s inability to reach beyond his base– the voters who applaud his incivility and share his bigotries– is one thing; the revelations of Project 2025– the GOP’s transition plan–is another. To call the Plan’s measures “unpopular” is an understatement. As one pundit observed, “it polls like Ebola.”

In a recent Letter from an American, Heather Cox Richardson reported on several of the elements of that document, calling it an “extremist vision of a country ruled by a strongman who took the civil service, the Department of Justice, and the military under his own control in order to slash the popular, secular parts of the government and replace them with Christian nationalism.”

Right-wing evangelicals liked what was outlined in the project, but when the majority of Americans began to understand what was in it, they were quite clear they wanted no part of it. Trump then tried to distance himself from it, although he had publicly praised it, his political action committee had called it his plan, and more than 100 of its architects were people who had served in his administration.

And then it turned out that Trump’s vice presidential pick, J. D. Vance, had written the introduction for a book by Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts, the chief author of Project 2025. The original publication date for the book, which calls for “a peaceful ‘Second American Revolution,’” was in September, shortly before the election, but today the publisher announced it would put off publication until November, after the election.

The publication may have been delayed, but several copies of the book were already in the hands of reviewers. Despite Republican efforts to soften or otherwise obscure the party’s efforts to ban women’s reproductive freedoms, the book makes very clear that the folks currently in control of the GOP intend to come not just for abortion, but for birth control and in vitro fertilization. According to these Christian Nationalists, having children should not be considered an ‘optional individual choice,’ but a ‘social expectation.’” The book characterizes reproductive choice as a “snake strangling the American family.”

(The book also says dog parks are “anti-family.” I am not making this up–google it. In the book, Roberts complains that parks catering to dogs, rather than children, are evidence of “the antifamily culture shaping legislation, regulation, and enforcement throughout our sprawling government.” Take that, Rover!!)

Richardson also tells us that–in addition to his enthusiastic introduction to Project 2025–Vance wrote a glowing blurb for another Right-wing screed.

The book, titled “Unhumans: The Secret History of Communist Revolutions (and How to Crush Them),” calls for purging their enemies from society. “In the past, communists marched in the streets waving red flags,” Vance wrote. “Today, they march through HR, college campuses, and courtrooms to wage lawfare against good, honest people… In ‘Unhumans,’ Jack Posobiec and Joshua Lisec reveal their plans and show us what to do to fight back.”

Vance, Heritage and the MAGA movement don’t just oppose reproductive liberty. They oppose Separation of Church and State, “HR, college campuses and courtrooms”–in other words, diversity (“those people”), education (Project 2025 proposes to replace public schools with voucher programs, and endorses current Republican assaults on academic freedom) and the rule of law. The GOP doesn’t just want women returned to the kitchen and bedroom; it wants gay folks back in the closet. And it denies the existence–let alone the medical needs– of trans people.

CNN recently reported on the secret taping of a conversation with one of the Project’s authors, a self-described Christian Nationalist who disclosed–among many other things– the current preparation of Executive Orders and other legal documents in order to facilitate the rapid implementation of Project policies by an incoming Trump Administration.

A vote for any Republican is a vote for this entirely anti-American Project.

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Appalling..And Telling

Wow. Just…wow.

I have repeatedly attributed America’s polarization to my perception that MAGA folks occupy an alternate reality–an environment where Democrats drink kids’ blood in a pizza parlor’s (non-existent) basement and a mysterious figure known as “Q” will emerge to save the world from a nefarious (non-existent) “deep state.” But recently, the Guardian reported on an even more troubling refusal to confront a reality that is rapidly becoming too obvious for sane folks to ignore.

According to that report, nearly one in four members of Congress dismiss the reality of climate change. The paper identified a total of 123 elected federal representatives – 100 in the House of Representatives and 23 US senators – who continue to deny the existence of human-caused climate change.

You will not be surprised to learn that they are all Republicans. Every single one.

According to a Center for American Progress report, those climate-change-denying lawmakers have been rewarded with a combined $52m in lifetime campaign donations from the fossil fuel industry, so it is difficult to tell whether they are profoundly anti-science (and, arguably, intellectually unfit to hold elective office) or simply corrupt.(Ethically unfit.)

Meanwhile, rational folks–especially those with children and grandchildren who will have to navagate an increasingly hostile environment–want government to take measures to ameliorate the threat.

And that threat–despite GOP insanity–is very real. In the same issue of the Guardian that contained the report on Republican climate denial, there was a brief story about photos taken by British tourists at the same spot in the Swiss Alps. The photos were taken almost exactly 15 years apart and highlighted the speed with which global heating is melting glaciers.

i talk a lot about culture war on this blog. Because I’m a recovering lawyer and a past Executive Director of Indiana’s ACLU, those discussions have disproportionately focused on the threat culture warriors like Micah Beckwith and Jim Banks pose to civil liberties, especially (but certainly not exclusively) the threat that these American theocrats pose to genuine religious liberty. That threat is very real, but–as the Guardian report makes abundantly clear–adherence to a worldview that excludes empirical evidence isn’t just an affront to the Constitution. It’s suicidal.

Over the past few years, we’ve read headlines like this one from the Telegraph: “Congressman says God will save us from climate change.” (At least he admitted that climate change exists, so I suppose that’s a point in his favor…)

A Republican congressman who believes that global warming is not a threat because God has promised not to destroy the Earth has put himself forward as chairman of a powerful committee that deals with energy policy and its effect on the environment.

John Shimkus, an evangelical Christian representing Illinois, quoted the Bible in a congressional hearing last year on a proposed “cap and trade” legislation designed to limit carbon emissions…

Shimkus isn’t the only Republican culture warrior who relies on God to fix those pesky climate problems. That reliancee is nothing new, either–in 2017, Time Magazine reported

A Republican congressman told his constituents that he believes God will “take care of” climate change if it proves to be a “real problem.”

Michigan Rep. Tim Walberg said during a town hall in Coldwater, Mich., on Friday that while he believes climate change is real, it is not something for humans to solve.

Subsequent evidence of intensifying bad weather hasn’t challenged Walberg’s belief that God will take care of the problem, so mankind need not bother. Not long after then-President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, Walberg told his constituents that if it turned into a “real” problem, God would “take care of” climate change.

So here we are, with an entire political party that rejects science and empirical evidence  (including the evidence of their own “lying eyes”) in favor of fundamentalist religious dogma. (It should go without saying that such dogma is hotly contested by more rational religious figures–the Pope, for one, has issued an Encyclical urging action on climate change.) 

This rejection of evidence–this wholesale dismissal of science and logic and expertise– is an underappreciated threat posed by MAGA culture warriors. Fully one-fourth of currently-serving American legislators have opted to live in–and defend–an alternate reality. These people shouldn’t be in government. To a significant extent, they owe their elections to Republican gerrymandering, but voter apathy has also been a contributor.

A Blue wave would sweep at least some of these people out of office, and would facilitate government action on the environment. By humans.

Another reason to vote Blue…..

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The Difference Between Red And Blue

Sensible people who follow politics have abandoned what was–in more civil times–reasonable advice. We used to be urged to vote for individual candidates rather than voting a straight ticket based on party. When there was considerable overlap between Republicans and Democrats, and voters could anticipate bipartisan support for policies, voting for the person made some sense.

It no longer does. 

Republican candidates today come in two flavors, and only two flavors: rabid MAGA White Supremacists and spineless suck-ups. Even if  GOP candidate A seems less than enthusiastic about Christian Nationalism, there is zero likelihood that Candidate A will depart from the party line. Any vote for any Republican is a vote for MAGA, full stop.

Permit me to share two relevant examples.

At the very top of the GOP ticket we have Trump and his Vice-Presidential candidate, JD Vance. That Vice-Presidential choice is consequential, because Trump is old, and–in addition to his more and more obvious senility–clearly unhealthy. If he is elected, Vance, who has only a few months of experience in government, would likely become President.

And what do we know about him, other than his opposition to abortion for any reason and his disdain for childless cat ladies? Well, Talking Points Memo recently shared his cozy connection to Neo-Nazis.

Vance has had a six-figure stake in Rumble, an online video platform. The company has played host to Russian propaganda and to far-right personalities like Stew Peters and Tim Pool. It has also featured even more extreme content, including explicitly neo-Nazi images and themes like this song touting the “Reich” and calling for Jews to be placed in ovens from a “dissident rapper” with a dedicated page on the site. The site features a plethora of channels and videos dedicated to the concept of “white genocide,” which is a core belief for white supremacists. It also hosts channels for explicitly white supremacist organizations including VDare and Patriot Front, which has led masked demonstrations around the country. 

Nice guy. Not. (And that lack of niceness–that weirdness— becomes especially obvious when contrasted with uber-nice coach Tim Walz.)

Here in Indiana, we have Micah Beckwith, self-identified Christian Nationalist, on a ticket with MAGA Mike Braun, fellow theocrat Jim Banks and far-right sleaze Todd Rokita.  The entire ticket is terrifying, but–credit where “credit” is due–Beckwith is willing to put his bigotries front and center. On his website, he has posted a diatribe attacking both the LGBTQ+ community and those faux Christians who counsel acceptance of their gay neighbors.

The entire essay, titled HOMOSEXUALITY, MARRIAGE, AND SEXUAL IDENTITY, is breathtaking in its arrogance. 

A reaffirmation of biblical teachings has become all the more urgent because writers sympathetic to the LGBT (Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender) communities have advanced revisionist interpretations of relevant biblical texts that are based upon biased exegesis and mistranslation. In effect, they seek to set aside almost two thousand years of Christian biblical interpretation and ethical teachings. We believe these efforts are reflective of the conditions described in 2 Timothy 4:3, “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.” 

In other words, if mainstream theologians disagree with those who wrote this, well, they’re clearly wrong! Only fundamentalists like Beckwith understand what God demands…The essay asserts that “there is abundant evidence that homosexual behavior, along with illicit heterosexual behavior, is immoral and comes under the judgment of God,” and it continues with several lengthy sections explaining why all gay people are disgusting sinners.

Beckwith has made clear his firm conviction that not only are his religious beliefs the only correct ones, they are beliefs that government must impose on the rest of us. During his brief “service” on a Hamilton County library board, he demanded that books portraying gay people be excluded from the collection, and that other materials in conflict with his rather peculiar notions of godliness be censored. Beckwith rejects the First Amendment’s Separation of Church and State.

Vance and Beckwith are entirely representative of today’s GOP. 

The disclosure of Project 2025–produced by multiple Trump allies and lauded by Vance–opened a window into the GOP’s  obsessions and hatreds. Forget e pluribus unum. Forget the Bill of Rights. These are people who firmly believe that American law should privilege their retrograde beliefs–and that anyone who isn’t a straight White “Christian” male should be excluded from the equal protection of the laws. 

In November, voters will choose between the America envisioned by the Founders (Blue) and the theocratic fantasies of MAGA as exemplified by JD Vance and Micah Beckwith (Red).  

Vote Blue.

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Shaking Up Indiana

Among the many negative consequences of Republican gerrymandering in Indiana is one that is rarely considered: it has  isolated and largely disenfranchised Southern Indiana’s rural voters. I will readily admit that I hadn’t considered that effect; instead, I’ve been focused on the way urban districts have been carved up and wedded to surrounding suburban and rural areas in order to disenfranchise urban voters.

I’ve now been educated.

A regular reader of this blog sent me a press release about an effort called the Indiana Rural Summit, described as a “Nine-Candidate Supergroup Shaking up Southern Indiana Politics for the Better.”

These nine Democratic candidates for the Indiana House have banded together and are taking their demands for legislation  benefiting rural voters on the road.  The candidates are kicking off a six-stop “event tour” at Jasper’s Strassenfest.

As the release explains:

The Indiana Rural Summit, nine Democratic State House candidates from districts that
represent 24% of Indiana across 22 counties, are rallying around a unified message of hope for
Hoosiers: Rural communities and small towns can have better healthcare, schools, and jobs.
Turning disempowering gerrymandered districts into a secret superpower, they are uniting to
spread this hopeful message to thousands of rural voters, too often left without a choice on the
ballot for state representative due to unopposed races.

“We care about local issues, and our concerns are deeply rooted in our love of family,
community, and the beauty of our region,” says Ryan Still, Monroe County Rural Engagement
Deputy Director and organizer for the Indiana Rural Summit. “The continued policies of
extraction and exploitation from our legislature has left us behind and silenced. Our current state
representatives prioritize corporate lobbyists and outside influencers over Hoosiers. We want
legislators who understand our concerns and refuse to sell us out. We want a state that works
for all of us, not just the wealthy few. We all want to live in communities that thrive.”

The Strassenfest is an annual  parade in the town of Jasper, and the Rural Summit candidates will be joined by Gubernatorial candidate Jennifer McCormick and Attorney General candidate Destiny Wells. (The release also promises a performance by “German band Hungry5.”)

“Most of our districts are rural or artificially rural due to gerrymandering, keeping rural voters
isolated, unheard, and desperately misunderstood. Rarely are these voters asked about their
vision for Indiana by those elected to represent them,” explains Michelle Higgs, Indiana Rural
Summit member running for HD 60. (Monroe/Morgan/Johnson Counties). “Rural voters need a
seat at the table.”

The Indiana Rural Summit is using the very cause that isolates communities to unite and give
rural voters both a voice and an option. Unifying gerrymandered districts that share county
overlap, these nine candidates are turning gerrymandering into a regional coalition fighting for
regional solutions to improve rural Hoosiers’ quality of life. These solutions include better access
to comprehensive healthcare, to jobs with livable wages and benefits, to safe and
affordable housing, and to quality public education.

The effort being mounted by the candidates in the Rural Summit is significant for several reasons. It is certainly a welcome sign of life for rural Democrats, but its importance extends far beyond partisan concerns. Participants in the Rural Summit are making a profoundly important point: gerrymandering deprives all citizens–not just urban residents– of adequate representation.

I have previously noted that gerrymandering is by far the most effective form of voter suppression. In districts drawn to be “safe” for one party or another, voters who prefer the “loser” party disproportionately fail to cast their ballots, assuming their votes won’t matter. (Ironically, if all those discouraged folks actually did cast ballots, some of those districts wouldn’t be safe.)

The Rural Summit candidates are focusing on another consequence of those gerrymandered “safe” districts– the people elected from them have no incentive to actually represent their constituents. They assume they will be elected (or re-elected) in any event. Instead, their incentives are to do the bidding of the party bosses–the political figures who hand out plum committee assignments and direct the distribution of campaign dollars received from the special interests that wield enormous influence at Indiana’s statehouse.

As the press release reminds us, Indiana has the lowest voter turnout in the nation. It also has a large slate of unopposed races– currently, 26 House seats are uncontested.

These two facts are connected: The Indiana General Assembly creates voter suppression and
apathy through gerrymandering and blocking ballot initiatives, so they can pass embarrassingly
bad legislation.

The Indiana Rural Summit wants to empower disheartened voters across 22 counties and get them to the polls. Their success would benefit all Hoosiers currently disenfranchised by our legislative overlords.

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The Real Polarization

Maybe–just maybe–the Americans electorate isn’t as polarized as we’ve been led to believe. Maybe the real polarization is between We the People and our elected overlords.

A recent article from Persuasion recited some interesting data

  • 91% of Americans agree that we all have the right to equal protection under the law.

  • 90% of Americans agree that we all have the right to freedom of speech.

  • 84% of Americans agree with freedom of religion for all.

My first (dismissive) thought when reading those numbers was “how many Americans define these terms in the same way? How many of us actually know what the jurisprudence says these principles mean?” The article began by suggesting a different dismissal–an understandable disinclination of respondents to admit that they actually don’t support these foundational principles.

But then…

But the numbers concerning politics are even more troubling: 60% of Americans agree that both Biden and Trump are too goddamned old to be president. 80% of Americans agree that elected officials don’t give a shit what people like them think. 70% of Americans agree that we pathetic ordinary people—i.e., not rich or famous—have too little influence over the decisions scumbag members of Congress make. The same depressing poll reveals that 63% of Americans agree that most or all politicians are whores—that they ran for office just to make money—and a whopping 85% of Americans agree that whatever made them run for office, it sure as shit wasn’t to serve the public.

The article proceeded to document a very real division between what average Americans believe and the beliefs motivating the policy choices of our elected officials.

In a Pew Research poll from May 13, 2024, two-thirds of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. That would be bad enough, but even more agree that life doesn’t begin at conception, and that moreover embryos should not be considered people with rights…  

Meanwhile, in a recent Gallup poll, 71% of Americans say they don’t give a shit who you marry, i.e., they support same-sex marriage. If we as a nation agree on gay marriage, what’s next? Guns? 

Yes.

A recent public opinion survey from Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions “found broad agreement among Americans for gun violence prevention policies—regardless of their political affiliation or whether or not they own guns.”..In a recent Fox News poll of all places, 87% of Americans agree on the need for background checks, 81% of Americans agree on the need to enforce existing gun laws, and 80% of Americans agree on the need to require mental health checks for people purchasing guns. 

There’s more, but we get the point. The people we elect–especially in states like Indiana–are very definitely not representing the desires or perspectives of their constituents.

So–why, you might ask, are reasonable people, people who aren’t racist, homophobic, misogynistic “Christian” nationalists– electing wacko culture warriors like Jim Banks and Todd Rokita? Why is the Indiana GOP running a ticket headed by MAGA Mike Braun and theocrat Micah Beckwith? These are all candidates wedded to a Christian Nationalist agenda–an agenda that wants to prevent women from exercising autonomy over their own bodies, that insists libraries should be banned from carrying books that portray LGBTQ+ people, that wants laws forbidding medical assistance for trans children…the list goes on.

Those poll numbers that reflect what we might call a lack of appropriate respect (cough, cough) for elected officials (okay, a definitely negative image) are the result of a deeply-disturbing structural issue: gerrymandering.

As I have explained multiple times, partisan redistricting–aka gerrymandering–prevents us from engaging in elections that truly reflect the wishes of the voters. Here in Indiana, where there is no referendum or initiative, we are at the mercy of a legislature that is the only body legally empowered to introduce a nonpartisan method of redistricting.  In other words, we depend upon the people who benefit from the current system to change it. (Yeah, good luck with that…)

If democracy means anything, it should mean that We the People are able to select/elect representatives who actually represent us. Clearly, that is not the world we currently inhabit.

In Indiana–and other states that have similarly distorted systems –the only elections that reflect the will of We the People are those that cannot be gerrymandered. The votes for statewide races for Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Senator and Attorney General (and of course, votes for the national ticket) will be the only votes that truly reflect Hoosier sentiment. 

Those of us in states like Indiana need to send a message to our legislative overlords by voting overwhelming BLUE for those positions in November. (Perhaps they’ll notice, although I’m not holding my breath.)

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