An Intriguing New Non-Party

I’ve frequently posted about the multiple negative effects of Indiana’s extreme gerrymandering. One of the most pernicious of those effects has been voter suppression–the tendency of Democrats and Independents who live in “safe” Republican districts to stay home on election day. If you think the result is foreordained, why bother?

In Indiana, the Democrats’ decision not to bother running candidates in many of those “safe” districts has only increased that disengagement. When there is no competition, we shouldn’t be surprised when there is minimal turnout. And Indiana has long had depressingly low voter turnout–last time I looked, we were near the bottom of all states.

This situation has produced a depressingly widespread opinion that progressive candidates (even moderately progressive, as in not committed crazies or Christian Nationalists) have no chance in Indiana. Donors who support Democrats send their dollars elsewhere; discouraged Democrats don’t bother casting ballots.  (Worse still, in many rural districts, many faithful longtime Republican voters who are unhappy with incumbent officials nevertheless cannot bring themselves to vote for a Democrat.)

A new organization has decided that the basic problem in the Hoosier State is that lack of competition. 

The folks who have organized Independent Indiana looked at the data, and discovered that during the last couple of election cycles, over 200 candidates had run for offices in Indiana as Independents. Of that number, 52% won their races, an astonishing percentage. (In contrast, Democrats won 36% of theirs…)

The goal of Independent Indiana is to encourage and support Independent candidates–and to give voters in those gerrymandered districts a choice. 

The organization recently held an informational meeting, and I attended. After introductory remarks from Nathan Gotsch, the Executive Director, and the introduction of board members and a recent operations hire, Nathan introduced a panel consisting of three mayors who had won their elections as Independents. Their comments were enlightening. 

Tom Saunders had formerly been a Republican state representative; he is now an independent on the Lewisville Town Council. As he explained,
“I felt like my party was leaving me, and I wasn’t happy…Toward the end, my conscience wasn’t agreeing with me. I wasn’t sleeping at night, and it was time to come home.” (Many former Republicans can underscore his discomfort…) As he said, “I think I could have run as an independent and gotten elected to the legislature, but my advisors and the people who gave me money said no.” 

Saunders ran for his city council and won. He also had some harsh words for Republicans who are proposing a mid-cycle gerrymander.

“The worst thing that’s happened to the state is the supermajority where we don’t hear the other side’s concerns.”

“If redistricting happens, I think it does open it up [for independents]. If I was 20 years younger, I would [run for a larger office as an independent. My wife might divorce me, but I would.”

“Republicans need to go back 30 years and look what happened the last time they tried this. Democrats walked out, the plan backfired, and Republicans lost seats. I think it’s a mistake.”

Richard Strick, another panelist, is an Independent who has been mayor of the Republican stronghold of Huntington since 2020. As he told the gathering, “We don’t just need independent candidates. We need independent thinking in both parties — left and right officials who know when to put party aside to do what’s needed. At the end of the day, especially at the local level, it’s about delivering and getting results. People will give you a chance if they think you’re sincere and have their best interest at heart.” He enumerated the benefits of independence, noting “you don’t have to be married to an ideology. I’m 100% responsible for what I say and do.”

The third panelist was Shawna Girgis, who served as the Independent mayor of Bedford from 2008 to 2019. She pointed out that the first time she’d run, Republicans quietly told her they were glad she was in the race. “By my second and third campaigns, people were open about supporting me because they saw the results.” She also noted that running against extremists and ideologues can be a bonus: “Sometimes having people work against you is the best thing that can happen. They’re the wrong people with the wrong message, doing the wrong things consistently. That only helps you.”

You can see a video of the entire event here.

As the new Operations director noted, Independent candidates do best in states where there’s no competition–where there’s one party rule. Even people in the dominant party feel unrepresented. 

That sure describes Indiana, where polls reflect that even most Republican voters are unhappy with the Christian Nationalists and culture warriors who currently dominate our government.

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Cutting Through The Shutdown Blather

A government shutdown puts the commentariat–the pundits and pontificators who see themselves as arbiters of political discourse–into overdrive. Unfortunately, most of them are consumed with the more superficial “win/lose” questions: who will voters blame? How will public opinion shake out? Which personalities and parties will benefit, and which will be damaged? Who will blink first, and how long will this shutdown last?

I do a lot of reading, and I’ve seen very few efforts to take a step back and look at the “big picture,” but a couple of days ago, I encountered one. The Daily Prospect pointed out the stark reality of our current situation in a headline that read “The Government Has Been Shut Down for Months.”

The negotiations and debates are operating under the premise that appropriations to federal agencies are flowing today and will stop flowing tomorrow, and that this is something political leaders want to avoid. It’s hard to uncover any evidence that this is truly the case. The Supreme Court’s latest ruling definitively allows the Trump administration to cancel whatever funding they disfavor within 45 days of the end of the appropriation, without any approval from Congress. About 12 percent of the federal workforce has been terminated.

The larger point is that the government is already shut down, and has been for several months, as the Trump administration initiated an assault on this system of government. Activities deemed “essential” by the president—stalking immigrants, lobbing missiles at Iran, etc.—have gone on, but activities purported to conflict with the president’s policies, regardless of whether they have been authorized by the lawmaking body of the United States, have been stopped, interrupted only by occasional federal courts telling the president that doing so is illegal, which the Supreme Court subsequently brushes aside.

The article proceeded to provide evidence for its contention that we haven’t had a truly operational government since Trump assumed office; whatever is being “shut down” bears no resemblance to the government created by our Constitution and faithful to the rule of law.

Our inexplicably corrupt Supreme Court recently allowed Trump to rescind $4 billion dollars in foreign aid, but as the article pointed out, the Court hasn’t addressed the $410 billion that the administration has simply withheld from programs across the country–an amount representing close to half of all  fiscal year 2025 non-defense spending authorized by Congress. Those dollars have simply vanished,  with no explanation of how money is being spent or where that withheld spending is going.

Some 12 percent of the federal workforce has previously been terminated, and the OMB director, Russ Vought, claims a shutdown will allow the Office  to fire many more, despite the fact that a shutdown provides no actual legal authority to fire federal employees. (Legal authority is, of course, beside the point to members of this lawless administration– there was no legal authority to rescind or withhold appropriated spending without congressional approval, or put workers on extended administrative leave, or issue irrational Executive Orders, either.)

No one knows better than the current federal workers that we have no functioning government to shut down.

The Federal Unionists Network (FUN) has sent a letter  to the Democratic leadership, urging them to “reject any bad deal in the name of protecting federal employees.” The letter asserted that fighting Trump’s consolidation of power is more important. “A government shutdown is never Plan A. Federal workers and the communities we serve will face severe hardship. But federal workers will willingly forego paychecks in the hopes of preserving the programs we have devoted our lives to administering,”

The letter, which agreed that the government is functionally shut down, outlined the “unprecedented harms” Americans are already experiencing from Trump’s deadly funding cuts, including to Social Security and the Department of Veterans Affairs, and from Trump’s attacks on independent science and data, agency closures without congressional input, and the decimation of labor.

Others have pointed out that passage of a budget–or a continuing resolution–is actually meaningless, since the administration will continue to ignore its provisions. Agreeing to a mechanism that purports to keep the government open would simply serve to normalize a dramatically abnormal situation–a situation in which a profoundly ignorant and increasingly mentally-ill President being manipulated by the White Christian Nationalists who authored Project 2025 routinely ignores Congress and his constitutional duties.

What is being shut down is the fantasy that we have a functioning government.

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Civil And Human Rights In Indiana

I recently participated in a Zoom Consortium convened by the Hammond Human Relations Commission. I was a member of a panel that discussed the current state of of civil liberties and human rights in our state.

Panel members were asked to collectively address two questions; a third “ask” was specific to our particular backgrounds.

The first question was “What legislative measures by this administration have caused greatest harm or generated positive outcomes pertaining to civil & human rights.” I responded that, in my opinion, virtually everything done by this administration has been harmful. (I added that the damage couldn’t have been done without the cowardly acquiescence of GOP legislators.) The Trump administration has declared war on civil rights, civil liberties and the Constitution.

The public is just beginning to recognize the multiple harms done by the awful “Big Beautiful Bill,” and Trump’s multiple ridiculous and unconstitutional Executive Orders, but the worst–again, in my humble opinion–has been the unrelenting assaults on “wokeness” and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. That federal assault has emboldened state-level culture warriors like Todd Rokita to pretend that good-faith efforts to level the civic playing field are really “reverse discrimination” against straight White men– a patently false excuse for the state’s vendetta against equal rights for women and minorities.

We were next asked if we had observed biases in the way information is disseminated in Indiana. My answer was really a repetition of observations I’ve shared here many times–about the fragmentation of today’s information environment, in which citizens aren’t all getting the same news or occupying the same realities, an environment which encourages people to choose “news” that confirms their biases—if they bother to consume any news at all.

I was then asked to expand on a paper I’d written about the effects of low civic literacy on democratic accountability, and to suggest solutions. (Ah, if only I had solutions…)

 As I explained, scholars attribute the erosion of American democracy to three interrelated causes: ignorance of politics and governance; the growth of inequality— including civic inequality and informational asymmetries—and a resurgent tribalism (racism and White Nationalism, sexism, homophobia, religious bigotry, the urban/rural divide…). Civic ignorance complicates the interactions between citizens and their government, and it exacerbates inequality. Citizens who understand how the political system works are advantaged in a number of ways over those who don’t, including their ability to recognize when elected officials are violating their oath to uphold the constitution.

Americans’ widespread ignorance of the basics of our Constitution and legal system has greatly facilitated the growth of disinformation and propaganda. It has allowed the current administration to obscure the fact that the majority of Trump’s numerous Executive Orders are at odds with the Constitution.

The most obvious was his attack on birthright citizenship, which is explicitly set out in the 14th Amendment. Eliminating birthright citizenship would require a Constitutional amendment—it cannot be done in a petulant Executive Order.

Citizens who’ve encountered the 14th Amendment would know that.

There are many other examples. If citizens knew that the Constitution vests control of spending in Congress—not the executive branch—they would recognize that Trump’s Orders withholding funding formerly authorized by Congress violates the Constitutional Separation of Powers. They would recognize that his “Muslim ban” was a flagrant violation of the First Amendment’s religion clauses. They would understand that his various efforts to root out Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs not only violate the Free Speech provisions of the First Amendment but are also unconstitutionally vague–and why that vagueness matters.

Long term, the solution is to require a much more robust civic education curriculum in the nation’s schools—a curriculum that doesn’t simply educate students about the Constitution and Bill of Rights but also teaches accurate and inclusive history. (I went all through high school and college and never heard about the Trail of Tears, or the Tulsa massacre, for example.) But efforts to strengthen civics education come up against the far Right’s determination to destroy public education—to use vouchers to send public money to overwhelmingly religious private schools, very few of which offer civics or accurate, in-depth history instruction. Worse, attending such schools operates to reinforce tribal identities rather than inculcating allegiance to an overarching American constitutional philosophy. The effort to replace America’s public schools with religious “academies” was set out in Project 2025—and this administration is clearly following the prescriptions of that document.

Reinvigorating our public schools and requiring appropriate civic education is really the most effective solution to what ails us. If there are other solutions, I haven’t come across them.

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Jimmy Kimmel And The Light At The End Of The Tunnel

In a recent newsletter, Paul Krugman addressed what had been my own somewhat optimistic “take” on Disney’s retreat during the Jimmy Kimmel episode.

Krugman began by acknowledging Trump’s efforts at autocracy–and noted that, as his poll numbers have fallen, he has amped up his efforts to intimidate, secure in the knowledge that “craven congressional Republicans and a complicit Supreme Court” will continue to abet his destruction of democratic safeguards. The administration’s demand that Kimmel be removed from the airwaves was part and parcel of that autocratic ambition.

But as Krugman also points out, thanks to American public opinion, Trump’s efforts to mimic Putin and Orban are failing.

When Putin and Orban were consolidating their autocratics, they were genuinely popular. They were perceived by the public as effective and competent leaders. Just nine months into his presidency, Trump, by contrast, is deeply unpopular. He is increasingly seen as chaotic and inept. As David Frum says, this means that he is in a race against time. Can he consolidate power before he loses his aura of inevitability? Will those who run major institutions – particularly corporate CEOs – understand that we are at a crucial juncture, and that by accommodating Trump they have more to lose than by standing up to him?

To put it bluntly, is the Jimmy Kimmel affair the harbinger of a failed Trumpian putsch?

When Putin and Orban began their respective takeovers, they enjoyed several years of popularity–mostly by improving the economic postures of their countries. Thanks to Trump’s incredible ignorance (and his insane belief in tariffs), he took the robust economy he inherited and is in the process of tanking it. Krugman shared the widely available poll results that document Trump’s unpopularity–he is in deeply negative territory, and the people who strongly dislike him vastly outnumber those who strongly approve of him.

If we had a working Congress, unpopularity at this scale would already have turned Trump into a lame duck, but as Krugman notes, he has instead been able to operate as a quasi-autocrat, thanks to a “party that accommodates his every whim, backed by a corrupt Supreme Court prepared to validate whatever he does.”

As a result, Trump has been able to use the vast power of the federal government to deliver punishments and rewards in a completely unprecedented way. But the fact is that Trump has not yet locked in his autocracy. Timid institutions are failing to understand not only how unpopular Trump is, but also how severe a backlash they are likely to face for surrendering without a fight.

And so we come to Trump’s thin-skinned assault on comedians–most recently, Jimmy Kimmel.

Krugman says the signs were there, but Disney ignored them. There were several such signs: Target’s effort to appease Trump by ending its commitment to DEI–an effort that led to a large decline in sales and a falling stock price; capitulating law firms that lost clients and partners to law firms that didn’t. And of course, Tesla…

And yet,

Disney was evidently completely unprepared for the backlash caused by its decision to take Jimmy Kimmel off the air, a backlash so costly that the company reversed course after just five days — too late to avoid probably irreparable damage to its brand…

It’s important to understand that Trump’s push to destroy democracy depends largely on creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Behind closed doors, business leaders bemoan the destruction that Trump is wreaking on the economy. But they capitulate to his demands because they expect him to consolidate autocratic power — which, given his unpopularity, he can only do if businesses and other institutions continue to capitulate.

If this smoke-and-mirrors juggernaut starts to falter, the perception of inevitability will collapse and Trump’s autocracy putsch may very well fall apart.

So how can we make a Trump implosion more likely? The public can help by doing what Target’s customers and Disney’s audience did — make it clear that they will stop paying money to institutions that lend aid and comfort to the authoritarian project.

Big corporations and fancy law firms may fold. Republican legislators may lack integrity and spines. Supreme Court justices may be unfathomably corrupt. But the effort to silence Kimmel has once again confirmed that We the People have the power to remind all of them that we are Americans who value our liberties more than our access to consumer products or entertainment.

The public response to the Jimmy Kimmel episode may well be the light at the end of our current dark tunnel…..

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Memorize This Paragraph!

A recent paragraph in a Lincoln Square newsletter really–really–struck me. Here’s that paragraph:

The Republican Party in 2025 is locked in a state of sycophantic paralysis. MAGA is not just Trump’s mood swings; it’s a tribal identity. Step out of line, and you get exiled. That’s why even senators with Ivy League résumés suddenly sound like they’re auditioning for a spot on a right-wing podcast — they’re terrified of losing the mob’s loyalty. And here’s the uncomfortable truth Democrats keep sidestepping: a huge chunk of MAGA voters are perfectly willing to suffer. They’ll put up with higher prices, worse health care, collapsing schools, potholes the size of moon craters — and they’ll smile through it — so long as the pain lands harder on someone they hate. Call it recreational spite or political CrossFit: the pain is the point, and the workout “counts” if the libs hurt more. That’s the dynamic behind why they support him.

There’s a substantial body of research confirming that puzzling observation. Illogical as it seems, people who harbor bigotries–people who hate those they label “other”–really are willing to overlook damage they suffer personally if they believe that “those people” are being hurt even more.

Bizarre as that finding is, it explains a lot.

The author quoted Lyndon Johnson, who made the statement as he was signing the Civil Rights Act. Johnson acknowledged that he was signing a measure that would cost Democrats the votes of much of the South (this was back when Southern Democrats were the racists; Democratic support for the Civil Rights Act probably was a factor in the defection of those racists from the party and their migration into today’s White Christian Nationalist cult, aka the GOP.) Johnson quite accurately noted that “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”

As the author noted, “MAGA is basically the LBJ theorem in a red hat. The cruelty isn’t the glitch, it’s the subscription plan — the down payment on the fantasy that at least you’re not on the bottom rung.”

Philosophers and theologians, not to mention psychiatrists, can theorize over the deficits in personality and humanity that lead otherwise normal humans to detest those “others” to such a degree that they will accept considerable personal privation if only they can be convinced that those others are suffering more…

The essay referenced the psychological research that explores–but doesn’t explain–this phenomenon.

There’s actual scholarship that explains why this kind of thinking has such a grip. Relative deprivation theory tells us people don’t measure life by absolutes; they measure by comparisons. You’ll tolerate your own struggles as long as your neighbor isn’t doing better; the second you think they’re moving up, resentment flares. Then comes the darker twist. In 2009, Combs and colleagues documented partisan schadenfreude — the perverse pleasure people feel when the “other side” suffers, even if they’re collateral damage themselves. That’s the political equivalent of the Joker in The Dark Knight setting a mountain of his own stolen cash on fire just to watch Gotham panic. Or think of Cartman, South Park’s eternal bully, who will happily wreck his own life if it means making someone else miserable — and still ends up the kid everyone hates. That’s the mindset: voters cheering their own decline as long as someone they despise loses more.

Once I read this, I began to recognize how it works in Trumpland.

Are those tariffs making groceries and everyday items more expensive? Are even immigrants who are in the country legally terrified of the ICE masked bullies who are rounding up anyone with dark skin? Is the war being waged against science–very much including medical science–making it more likely that you will contract a disease, or that a cure for what ails you won’t be forthcoming? Those and other negative consequences of official corruption and stupidity are bearable, because Trump is keeping his promise to go after “those people.” If there has been one through-line in this administration, it has been the unremitting effort to stamp out the progress made by women, people of color and LGBTQ folks, and to elevate White psuedo-Christian males to their former (albeit unearned) social dominance.

File under “pathetic.”

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