And In Trumpy Indiana

I’ve been seeing calls for a national protest on February 5th–to take place at all 50 statehouses. I believe from noon to 2:00. If anyone can confirm, or identify the original sponsors, please post that information. If you need something tangible and Hoosier to protest, today’s post should deliver…

If you wondered whether Indiana’s new Governor, Mike Braun, would follow the agenda of his running mates–Beckwith, Banks and RoQuita, all of whom are “out and proud” White Christian Nationalists–there’s no longer any doubt. Braun is slavishly following Trump’s assault on anyone who isn’t a straight White Christian Male.

Mike Leppert has accurately described Braun’s assault, which consists of “othering” any group that doesn’t fall into that slice of Hoosier citizenship. Braun immediately followed Trump’s lead by purging state government of any DEI efforts. Then his budget proposal took an ax to disfavored “others.”

He began with the Indians.

In 2025, new Governor Mike Braun, in his first budget proposal in office, proposes to end funding for the Native American Indian Affairs Commission. The cut comes as part of his 15% cut to the Indiana Civil Rights Commission. That may sound like a lot of money, but it isn’t. The state is spending less than $3 million a year on the ICRC in the current budget.

It got worse from there.

As Leppert quite accurately noted, budget proposals from a newly elected governor are a marker, defining his priorities– and in this case, defining his character as well.

In addition to withdrawing from his predecessor’s agreement with the Pokagon Indians, Braun’s budget eliminates funding for the Indiana Commission for Women, an organization created to assess the needs of Indiana women and their families and promote their full participation in Indiana society. Also gone is $10 million earmarked for Martin University, and the College Success Program. Martin University is Indiana’s only predominantly Black institution; the Success program assists minority and first-generation college students.

These cuts by Braun won’t change the lives of any white, male, Christian. Except for those comforted by real or perceived harm to the other. It’s a foundational change in governing philosophy that is still taking shape…

Braun isn’t managing money with these cuts, he’s managing messaging. These moves are proclamations of what he supports, or in these cases, what he opposes. And the fallout is not simple addition and subtraction in this one document.

As Leppert says, the message is obvious: Native American, Black and female populations are now officially “the others” in Indiana. Those populations now join the GOP’s ongoing attacks on trans people–and by implication, all LGBTQ Hoosiers.

We certainly won’t see any pushback on “othering” from a legislature that owes its GOP dominance from persistent gerrymandering. Senate Bill 235, for example, co-authored by the odious Mike Young, gleefully prohibits “state agencies, recipients of state contracts or grants, state educational institutions, and health profession licensing boards” from taking account of diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

Indiana’s legislature has also continued and deepened its all-out assault on education. Senate Bill 202–a sweeping bill attacking academic freedom in Indiana’s public colleges and universities– has been joined by HB 1002, a “high priority” of the Republican leadership. Its 130+ pages includes three especially noteworthy efforts to dumb down public education in the Hoosier state:

  • It removes all prerequisites for a person to be appointed to be Indiana Secretary of Education, paving the way for the Governor to appoint a non-educator or non-resident. 
  • It removes a requirement in current law that requires a governing body to provide a non-charter school that students of the same age or grade can attend.” This should be seen as a companion bill House Bill 1136, which would dissolve IPS and other urban districts and turn all of their schools into charters.  
  • HB 1002 also removes an existing responsibility of charter authorizers to ensure that the school is in compliance with applicable law. One of the ways charter schools currently differ from the private schools that accept vouchers is that they are subject to more stringent legal oversight; this provision would dramatically undermine that oversight–which is entirely absent from the voucher program.

It is impossible to miss the GOP’s agenda, both nationally and at the state level. That agenda follows the anti-democratic, anti-civic-equality prescriptions of Project 2025: ensure that straight White Christian males recover social dominance; continue and strengthen the anti-majoritarian systems (gerrymandering, electoral college, etc.) that facilitate governance by the Republican minority, make it difficult or impossible for higher education institutions to maintain intellectual integrity, and destroy the public schools that bring different students together, replacing them with religious schools that harden tribal affiliations. 

And while all that is going on, eradicate sources of information inconsistent with White Christian nationalist dogma–not just educational institutions, but media outlets unwilling to bend the knee, and government websites that might accidentally contain factual information about the composition of the American polity.

Blue states might resist Program 2025, but not the racist, misogynistic, homophobic troglodytes in Indiana government.  

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It’s Even Worse Than We Expected

I expected the incompetence and the racism, and the first few days of the Trump Administration fulfilled those expectations. The wholesale assault on diversity–not just the elimination of DEI, but the scrubbing of any mention of minorities from websites (including those used by medical researchers)–accompanied the nominations of pathetically unqualified Whites, unintended confirmation of the charge that MAGA defines “merit” as “White guys.”

Those nominees are being confirmed by spineless GOP Senators to “manage” a workforce that is under attack. Those of us who read and understood Project 2025 anticipated these deeply concerning efforts to destroy civil service rules that  protect  professionalism and guard against politicization of the federal workforce.

But as Robert Hubbell has recently explained, what we are seeing is monumentally worse. It’s a coup. And–as he also says-the longer we fail to recognize that we are seeing a slow-rolling coup attempt, the longer it will take for us to recover. The coordinated attacks on the DOJ, FBI, Office of Personnel Management, Treasury Department, and dozens of other agencies leave little room for doubt.

Taken together, those actions amount to a hostile takeover of the US government by those who are loyal to Trump rather than to the US Constitution. The only word that accurately describes that situation is “coup.” Any other description is a sign of fear, submission, or surrender.

Hubbell proceeds to enumerate the activities that justify identifying what is occurring as a “coup.” (The linked essay has references confirming the allegations.)

Elon Musk and his DOGE infiltrators have taken over the Office of Personnel Management (OPM.) They’ve connected non-government computer servers to the US personnel mainframe computers, seized private information about millions of federal employees, and locked senior managers out of their agency’s computers. They’ve moved “sofa beds” into the OPM offices and put the offices into a “lockdown mode.”

That takeover is what allowed Musk to send his unauthorized memo inviting millions of federal employees to resign in exchange for eight months of “non-working paid employment.”

Musk and DOGE have also attempted to seize control of the US Treasury payments system. That system is the gateway through which all federal funds flow.

When a senior manager at the Treasury asked why Musk needed access to the highly sensitive system, the manager was immediately placed on leave. He chose to quit, instead. ..The Acting US Attorney for Washington, D.C., fired about 30 US Attorneys who prosecuted January 6 insurrectionists…. Think about that for a moment: The convicted felons who attacked the Capitol have been pardoned and the loyal servants of the Constitution who prosecuted them have been fired. That fact should outrage every American.

At the same time, the FBI fired eight of its most senior leaders. They headed divisions responsible for cybersecurity, national security, and criminal investigations.

The FBI has also fired dozens of agents who worked on investigations of January 6 insurrectionists and asked for a list of every agent across the US who worked on the largest criminal investigation in the history of the FBI. That list will include hundreds—possibly thousands of FBI agents. The implication of the memo ordering the compilation of the list is that those agents may be fired.

Dozens of government websites have been taken offline to be scrubbed of references to diversity, gender, or human attributes that are not white, male, and Christian. (The Census Bureau website was offline, presumably to remove evidence that America includes people who are not white male Christians.) Websites relating to LGBTQ equality, women’s health, transgender issues, and scientific knowledge in general were taken down.

The Pentagon has advised NBC, NYT, NPR, and other mainstream media outlets that they would be “rotated out of the building (i.e., the Pentagon)” to make room for NYPost, Brietbart, and OANN.

All of this is happening as the Economic-Idiot-in Chief has slapped 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico. As Hubbell quite accurately notes,

the Canadian auto industry—which is a major parts supplier to the US auto industry—cannot survive for a week with 25% tariffs. The Canadian supply chain will shut down, the American car industry will be severely damaged, and tens of thousands of US autoworkers will be laid off. We aren’t talking about inflation increasing or the cost of eggs. We are talking about tens of thousands of job losses and an economic shock likely to lead to a recession….

Soon, very soon, Americans will be called upon to leave the comfort of their homes and the anonymity of their computer screens to engage in massive, coordinated action to remind Trump and Musk that they are servants of the people, not vice-versa.

There is no longer any way to ignore what is happening, or to “sane-wash” MAGA…..

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Calling Musk’s Bluff

I have long admired Elizabeth Warren, and recently she’s given me another reason to salute her. She has called Elon Musk’s bluff–while shining a bright light on his ignorance and naivety.

As anyone who follows the news knows, Musk has bragged that he can cut two trillion dollars out of the federal budget. His hints about how he plans to accomplish that feat mostly revolve around sticking it to the poor, ill and elderly via cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and making it impossible for the federal government to do its job by slashing the federal workforce.

Warren’s advice to Musk has done two things: it has demonstrated that there are alternative ways to cut spending, and has reinforced the reality that funding decisions are policy decisions–that where and how government spends money is a reliable guide to what it considers important.

Time Magazine had the story. In a letter that Warren sent to Musk, she listed 30 recommendations for eliminating $2 trillion in federal spending over the next decade.

The list includes several of the progressive icon’s long-held policy fixations: renegotiating Department of Defense (DOD) contracts that independent analysts have found waste billions each year; reforming the Medicare Advantage insurance program and allowing Medicare to negotiate lower costs of prescription drugs; and closing tax loopholes for corporations and the wealthiest earners.

As the article noted, Musk has already walked back his promise to cut two trillion out of the budget, given that he is constrained by Trump’s vows not to touch Medicare and Social Security, and Republican refusal to cut military spending, (As the article notes, “DOGE will have to find less conventional ideas to fulfill Musk’s budget-slashing fantasy.” )

For years, Democrats and Republicans alike have wanted to curb wasteful government spending. While much of Washington recoils at Trump’s disruptive, norm-shattering second-term agenda, some see an opportunity for strange bedfellows to emerge. “In the interest of taking aggressive, bipartisan action to ensure sustainable spending, protect taxpayer dollars, curb abusive practices by giant corporations, and improve middle-class Americans’ quality of life,” Warren writes to Musk, “I would be happy to work with you on these matters.”

As the article notes, actual collaboration is probably not Warren’s goal–her letter is undoubtedly intended to make a point  rather than inviting Musk to work together. Musk, after all, is one of those “let them eat cake” deficit hawks who insist the only way to cut budget deficits is to slash the entitlement programs that prevent millions of Americans from falling into grinding poverty.

I am an advocate for a Universal Basic Income, and I take very seriously the (reasonable) charge that so expensive a measure would require massive changes to the federal budget. Accordingly, I’ve researched what experts (not self-engrossed billionaires) have to say about where we might cut current expenditures. Among the obvious possibilities are the obscene subsidies we continue to give to fossil fuel companies, and the incredibly bloated defense budget. (Even pro-defense scholars estimate that defense spending could be cut by 25% without damaging  U.S. defense capabilities.)

Warren points to similar research.

The biggest cost-saving idea in Warren’s letter is to preserve $200 billion by renegotiating Defense contracts. She points to an Inspector General report from 2011 that found contractors regularly hike prices for the military. One egregious example includes the Air Force overpaying 7,943% on soap dispensers. To rectify the problem, she urged passing legislation she previously introduced with Mike Braun, the former Republican Senator from Indiana, that would close loopholes to prevent defense contractors from price gouging the DOD. “There is a huge problem of the government being able to supervise these contractors carefully enough to be able to make sure we’re getting our money’s worth,” says Don Kettl, an expert on government administration and former dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland.

Kettl recently wrote an essay in the Washington Monthly arguing that the federal government needs more and better skilled civil servants to oversee contractors and that Musk and Trump’s plans to massively reduce the federal workforce will perversely lead to higher, not lower, government spending. “The argument is that the market can do the government’s work better and cheaper,” Kettl says. “The problem is that that’s not always the case, and contractors often get higher wages.”

Musk and Trump and their ilk continue to prove the accuracy of that old H.L. Mencken quote:”For every complex problem, there’s a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.”

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Bigotry Unbounded

There is no longer any way to mask what MAGA is all about: Christian Nationalism, White Supremacy and the “othering” of anyone who isn’t a White “Christian” male. The persistent attacks on the Constitution are efforts to overcome legal impediments to the goal of returning White “Christian” men to social dominance. 

The evidence is everywhere.

The new Secretary of Defense, the unreconstructed (and thoroughly unqualified) Pete Hegseth, has ordered the military  to suspend all observances and/or recognition of the following holidays: Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Black History Month, Juneteenth, Women’s Equality Day, National Hispanic Heritage Month, Pride Month, National Disability Employment Awareness Month, Asian American Pacific Islander Awareness Month, and American Indian Heritage Month.

He has also indicated his desire to revert military installations to their former Confederate names.

Incoming MAGA officials have wasted no time before eliminating all DEI–diversity, equity and inclusion–programs. Trump’s fire hose of Executive Orders has been matched in red states like Indiana, where incoming Governor Braun undoubtedly delighted his Christian Nationalist running mate Micah Beckwith by ridding Indiana government of any DEI efforts to combat years of discriminatory practices.

Some DEI efforts have arguably gone too far toward what we used to call “political correctness,” and research has suggested that they have been relatively unsuccessful in erasing bias. But it is impossible to ignore the message intentionally sent by their wholesale erasure.

My Christian friends (including several in the clergy) tell me that “Christian Nationalism” is many things, but Christian isn’t one of them. Wikipedia agrees.

Christian nationalism has been linked to prejudice towards minority groups. Christian nationalism has been loosely defined as a belief that “celebrate[s] and privilege[s] the sacred history, liberty, and rightful rule of white conservatives”.  Christian nationalism prioritizes an ethno-cultural, ethno-religious, and ethno-nationalist framing around fear of “the other”, those being immigrants, racial, and sexual minorities. Studies have associated Christian nationalism with xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny, political tolerance of racists, opposition to interracial unions, support for gun rights, pronatalism, and restricting the civil rights of those who fail to conform to traditional ideals of whiteness, citizenship, and Protestantism. The Christian nationalist belief system includes elements of patriarchy, white supremacy, nativism, and heteronormativity.  It has been associated with a “conquest narrative”, premillennial apocalypticism, and of frequent “rhetoric of blood, specifically, of blood sacrifice to an angry God”. 

MAGA evidences all of those elements.

Trump’s intemperate rage against immigration has always been directed against Black and Brown immigrants–those from “shithole” countries. Despite his rhetoric about expelling “criminal” immigrants, the recent ICE raids have swept up  undocumented people who had never committed any crime and people who are U.S. citizens.

MAGA’s war on women is in high gear. Christian Nationalists are determined to strip us of autonomy over our own bodies, and return us to a status subservient to–and ultimately dependent upon– males Having achieved their goal of overturning Roe v. Wade, they are now coming for birth control. In several states, Republican lawmakers are pushing to restrict access to birth control methods they claim are “really” abortifacients.

The escalating attacks on trans youth are part and parcel of MAGA homophobia. Given the broader culture’s about-face on LGBTQ rights generally, MAGA bigots have thus far focused on the tiny group of trans individuals who are less well understood.

And who can forget the rioters in Charlottesville– described as “fine people” by Donald Trump–who chanted “Jews will not replace us”? Or efforts to keep all Muslims out of the country?

Any and all efforts to move the American public beyond bigotry are met with claims that efforts to eradicate discrimination against any minority group really amounts to discrimination against White Christian men, and a retreat from “meritocracy.” Trump even blamed “DEI hires” for the recent plane crash–presumably, because “DEI hires” would be less competent than the pathetic assortment of unqualified clowns he has nominated.

Hegseth is an excellent example.

Lloyd Austin, Biden’s Secretary of Defense– a Black man– had a distinguished 41-year career in the U.S. Army, retiring as a four-star general. He held key positions, including Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, Commander of United States Forces – Iraq, and Commander of United States Central Command (CENTCOM). He was awarded the Silver Star for valor. Following his retirement from the military in 2016, he served on the boards of several companies, including Raytheon Technologies, Nucor, and Tenet Healthcare. 

Hegseth did serve briefly in the Army. He subsequently was fired from two nonprofit organizations for mismanagement, and became a Fox News host. Aside from those “accomplishments,” he faced credible accusations about extreme drunkenness and wife-beating. He also reportedly sports White Supremacist tattoos.

But hey! He’s a White “Christian” male, so obviously superior to the Black guy.

Welcome to MAGA world.

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I Told You So…

Okay, okay…I hate smart-alecks who say “I told you so”– and now I’m one of them.

During my twenty-one years as a university professor, I constantly talked (well, ranted) about the American public’s lack of civic literacy–Americans’ gob-smacking lack of knowledge of our national history and constitutional structure. I established a Center for Civic Literacy at IUPUI (now IU Indianapolis), where researchers documented the gaping holes in public understanding of even the most basic elements of the country’s legal and political structures.

That public ignorance is largely responsible for our ignorant, embarrassing and very dangerous President.

David French connected those dots in a recent “conversation” among opinion writers for the New York Times. The writers had been discussing whether people cared about Trump’s assaults on America’s most fundamental philosophical commitments, and French pointed to the elephant in the room (pun intended): civic ignorance.

I really wish those of us who follow politics very closely understood more, because there’s a another question besides “Do people care?” and that is “Do people know?”

French noted that one thing that distinguishes Trump from other presidents “is the extent to which he has weaponized and exploited civic ignorance.”

One of the things that I think we’re learning is how much the American experiment has depended on the honor system. That presidents of both parties, with varying degrees of truthfulness and honor, by and large, maintained American norms and did not explicitly weaponize American ignorance in the way that Trump has.

I think what Trump and the people around him have realized is that he can do wild things, like some of the executive orders that will thrill MAGA and, of course, enrage his opposition. But then outside MAGA, there won’t be a ripple that any of this occurred at all.

Those American norms were rooted in the political philosophy that undergirds the Constitution and the Bill of Rights–a particular approach to the purpose of government, and especially to the importance of restraints on the exercise of government power. When a majority of the population doesn’t understand that philosophy and/or the centrality of those restraints, would-be dictators emerge.

I have previously posted about the importance of language and the effects of imprecise usage. An example is the way in which the term “limited government” has been transformed from the meaning given to it by the Founders into a belief in small government. The early American public insisted on passage of a Bill of Rights as a condition of ratifying the Constitution, and that Bill of Rights incorporates their insistence upon limiting the power of the state. (And since we are talking about words and their usage, I will note that “the state” in this context means government.)

If most citizens understood  America’s foundational principles, today’s media propaganda would be far less effective–audiences would recognize when claims being made are incompatible with America’s constitutional structure. Fox News and its clones rely heavily on the civic ignorance of their viewers.

In our system, government is supposed to be limited (not small). Among other things, it cannot tell citizens what they can say, what they can read, what they must believe. Government may not base laws on any religion. It may not interfere with citizens’ activities in the absence of probable cause. It must guarantee criminal defendants due process, and may not impose unreasonable penalties on those who are subsequently found guilty.

In the wake of the Civil War, the 14th Amendment added further limitations. Probably the most important was the mandate of equal protection–government cannot treat different kinds of citizens differently. (That amendment also included a provision that anyone born on American soil is a citizen–a provision that can only be changed by Constitutional amendment.)

The original Bill of Rights also explicitly limited the authority of the federal government by providing that powers not expressly granted to the federal government are retained by the states and/or the people.

Trump and his racist MAGA movement stand in opposition to virtually the entire Bill of Rights. It is very likely they have absolutely no familiarity with, or understanding of, that document. Worse, the election of Trump is evidence–as if we needed it–that the majority of Americans (especially those who didn’t bother going to the polls) were unaware of the degree to which a Trump victory would be inconsistent with America’s founding principles; evidently ignoring the campaign rhetoric that clearly pointed to that inconsistency and threatened those principles.

Too many Americans simply fail to understand that–far from making America great– Trump is intent upon destroying the genuine greatness to which America has aspired.

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