Tag Archives: Indiana

The Middle Finger Of The South

Ah, Indiana! Long understood by sentient Hoosiers as the middle finger of the south, a state trying valiantly to replace Mississippi at the bottom of the civic barrel.

I thought about Indiana’s retrograde governance when I came across an article from The Bulwark, arguing that while Trumpism is clearly incompatible with liberal democracy, it is quite compatible with the governance of  states that have never quite emerged from the Confederacy.

Liberal democracy has never put down deep roots in the South in the way it did across the rest of the country. The region never really abandoned its warped electoral politics and inclination to single-party cronyism, a Southern political instinct that helps explain how Democratic dominance transformed so completely into Republican one-party rule following the civil rights era. Inequality continues to define economic life in the region. Southern states have remained hostile to many minority groups, particularly LGBTQ Americans, and they are wildly out of step with most other states on reproductive rights. And incarceration in the South remains both less humane and more common than in other regions.

Trumpism is intent upon “southernizing” America. (Okay, I know that isn’t really a word…) The article quoted our creepy vice-president, JD Vance, who during the campaign opined that “American history is a constant war between Northern Yankees and Southern Bourbons” and went on to conclude that “whichever side the hillbillies are on, wins.” He added that he applies that image to America’s current politics , because–in his (Yale-educated) hillbilly view– ” the Northern Yankees are now the hyperwoke, coastal elites.”

The Bourbons, in this understanding, were the Southern planters and professionals who opposed Reconstruction. They fomented discord among poor whites to ensure that they would focus their political energies on their peers rather than those who were their de facto rulers. That elite applauded when, In 1896, the Supreme Court approved segregation with the principle of “separate but equal.”

In 1898, America’s first coup d’etat took place as the Democrats of Wilmington, North Carolina issued a “White Declaration of Independence.” They were attacking the coalition of black Republicans and white Populists that had control of the local government in the 1890s, which the old Confederates of the city found intolerable. With their resentment and rage being fueled by white Democratic powerbrokers, two thousand armed men forced out the duly elected government. None were more pleased by this result than their Bourbon backers.

The article reports that this “banker-planter-lawyer” class is largely responsible for the South’s political and economic underdevelopment–that it was “ostensibly pro-business but viciously self-interested” and that as a consequence, the South as a region still lags economically—pinned down by poverty and hobbled by the absence of public investments. The states have few worker protections, and its working classes have difficulty earning a living wage, making It “virtually impossible” to exist on the income of a single, low-wage, 40-hour-a-week job, especially in the absence of social welfare/healthcare.

That paragraph could have been written about Indiana.

From “Right to Work” (for less) legislation, to one of the nation’s most regressive tax systems, to the legislature’s constant knee-bending to landlords who prey on the poor, to vicious cuts in Medicaid, to restrictions on abortion that are sending medical practitioners out of the state, to the theft of tax dollars from public schools in order to subsidize wealthy Hoosiers and religious schools…the list goes on.

Some years ago, I wrote about ALICE, an acronym for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed; it applies to households with income above the federal poverty level, but below the actual, basic cost of living. United Way of Indiana found that more than one in three Hoosier households was unable to afford the basics of housing, food, health care and transportation, despite working hard, that 37% of households lived below the Alice threshold, (14% below the poverty level and another 23% above poverty but below the cost of living), that these were families and individuals with jobs, so most didn’t qualify for social services in Indiana, and that the jobs they fill are critically important–these are child care workers, laborers, movers, home health aides, heavy truck drivers, store clerks, repair workers and office assistants—and they are unsure if they’ll be able to put dinner on the table each night.

And just like those southern Bourbons, our elected overlords couldn’t care less. They focus instead upon deflecting responsibility by turning struggling Hoosiers against each other–hence the legislative attacks on trans children and DEI and moronic pronouncements that Black folks benefitted from the 3/5ths compromise. 

The theory is, if we’re provided with scapegoats, perhaps we won’t notice the Bourbon corruption, or the lack of public investment in social and physical infrastructure…

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Red State Blues

I don’t know indiana State Representative Chis Campbell, and I had to look up her district (26) but everyone in Indiana ought to understand the contents of her recent newsletter, detailing the losses that Indiana will sustain as a result of the carnage being wreaked by the Trump/Musk administration.

Deep-Red Indiana, where citizens love to hate the federal government, is the state third-most reliant on federal funding. We are behind only Louisiana and Mississippi (a statistic that gives credence to the frequent accusation that Indiana’s terrible legislature wants to turn Indiana into the Mississippi of the north).

According to Representative Campbell, nearly 44% of Indiana’s budget comes from federal agencies and grants.

So what are a few of the biggest impacts Trump’s plans will have on Hoosiers? Rep. Campbell lists them.

First, there’s the projected impact of Trump’s insane tariffs. The Conversation calculates that Indiana will be the third most impacted by those tariffs, losing $4.82 billion (a 1.12% decrease in our GDP), primarily in the auto, manufacturing, and agriculture industries. “The auto industry, one of Indiana’s biggest economic sectors, is expected to lose $28.2 billion because of these tariffs.”  It is projected that a Hoosier family of four will spend an extra $2,836 each year, “equivalent to half a year’s worth of utility payments.”

If Trump is successful in ridding us of the much-maligned Department of Education, Indiana will lose $1.8 billion we now get for K-12 and higher education.

The Division of Family Resources (DFR), which primarily funds schools with a high number of low-income students or students in need of special education, receives a little under $2 billion from the federal government. Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) receives approximately $670,000 in Title III funding. These dollars help students who are learning English as a second language, and they benefit approximately 6,400 students in the IPS system. Additionally, students with disabilities rely on the DOE to enforce the right to an individualized education plan.

Then there’s Medicaid.

Congressional Republicans have proposed $880 billion in federal cuts, which would be impossible to achieve without cutting Medicaid or Medicare. Since roughly 70% of Indiana’s funding for Medicaid comes from the national government, Indiana could be in a serious bind. It’s estimated that close to 484,000 Hoosiers would lose their health care coverage if these federal cuts are passed and Indiana fails to cover the costs.

As Representative Campbell notes, the assault on healthcare isn’t confined to Medicaid. Cuts to the NIH–the National Institutes of Health–will dramatically affect Indiana University and Purdue University, both of which rely heavily on federal funding to conduct on-campus medical research.

Cuts to HUD will worsen Indiana’s challenging housing market. We are already one of the most difficult states in which to rent  (Fort Wayne is ranked the third least renter-friendly city in the U.S.). And since HUD enforces fair housing laws, Trump’s cuts to the agency will join his other efforts to revive Jim Crow.

If Trump was capable of rational decision-making, he would re-think his wildly unconstitutional Executive Orders and his support for Musk’s equally unconstitutional chain-saw “efficiencies,” because the data shows that the mayhem is hitting Red states like Indiana far harder than it is affecting Blue states.

It is unlikely that Trump understands that differential impact, or recognizes the European Union’s very deliberate effort to target its responses to his tariffs to the states inhabited by his supporters.  As the linked article from Fortune reports:

The EU measures will cover goods from the United States worth some 26 billion euros ($28 billion), and not just steel and aluminum products, but also textiles, home appliances and agricultural goods. Motorcycles, bourbon, peanut butter and jeans will be hit, as they were during President Donald Trump’s first term.

The EU duties aim for pressure points in the U.S. while minimizing additional damage to Europe. The tariffs — taxes on imports — primarily target Republican-held states, hitting soybeans in House speaker Mike Johnson’s Louisiana, but also beef and poultry in Kansas and Nebraska. Produce in Alabama, Georgia and Virginia is also on the list.

Unfortunately those of us in Red states who aren’t members of the MAGA cult will suffer along with everyone else. And of course, residents of Blue states won’t escape the effects of the combined madness (Trump, Musk) and cowardice (Republicans in Congress).

As the consequences become increasingly impossible to ignore, the resistance will grow. It is already gathering speed: over 11,000 people turned out to hear Bernie Sanders and AOC in bright-Red Greeley, Colorado, and an amazing 34,000 turned out in Denver.

Even in Red Indiana, Town Halls are packed with Americans who aren’t going down without a fight. And as the cuts to Social Security staffs make access difficult-to-impossible, those crowds are exploding.

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It Isn’t “Rigging”–But It’s Just As Bad

Our mob-boss-channeling President attributes any losses he experiences to various nefarious plots against him–that poll was rigged, that data has been tampered with…and especially, he couldn’t have lost that 2020 election fair and square, it must have been “rigged.” His inability to grow up has infected the MAGA cult, which is now busy deconstructing things they very obviously don’t understand. 

Just as there are perfectly reasonable efforts to improve government efficiency–efforts that don’t require destroying the village in order to save it–there are deficiencies (mostly unintentional) in election administration that operate to disenfranchise voters and skew election results. Here in Indiana, where Republicans rule and don’t worry a lot about the consequences of what they’re doing, those sloppy irregularities can significantly affect close elections.

That was in all likelihood the case in the contest between Tiffany Stoner and Becky Cash for Indiana House District 25–a race Stoner lost by 64 votes our of several thousands cast. I don’t understand why the Democrats didn’t demand a recount, given the extensive evidence of irregularities the party uncovered in the two weeks following the election.

A Democratic compendium of those irregularities included the following:

Approximately 280 absentee mail-in ballots were rejected across Hendricks County. The clerk’s office never gave a definitive and accurate number despite several requests.

An unknown number of absentee ballots were sent to voters without the required security initials from the clerk’s office. After the error was discovered, the clerk knowingly chose not to inform voters that their ballots would be rejected due to the office’s mistake. Consequently, any completed and returned ballots were not counted, and the affected voters remain unaware of this issue. 

Voting machines were left unattended at polling locations overnight, raising concerns about their security. One machine was powered off and its votes were not even tallied until the following day, while another was found to be broken and went unused. 

The county clerk’s office rejected dozens of absentee ballots, citing signature mismatches. However, signatures can vary due to changes in style, age, illness, or disability. Notices were sent via the postal service to affected voters on November 7th, requiring them to submit a signed affidavit by 12 noon on November 13th. This left voters with very little time to address the issue and resolve the rejection.

The county election board rejected a military ballot, claiming the signature did not match the one on file. This decision denied an active-duty service member, currently defending our freedoms, their vote. Moreover, they were not provided the legally required notice or opportunity to correct the issue.

Mistakes occurred in voter registration and the transfer of registrations between government agencies. For instance, the BMV failed to include a voter’s signature in one case. In other instances, voters who registered through the Secretary of State’s portal discovered their registrations were never processed. One voter with an Indianapolis address, but residing in Hendricks County was forced to vote provisionally after their registration was erroneously sent to Marion County.

Inspectors weren’t present at any early voting site. This is required by statute on election day and most counties employ these same secure practices in early voting.  One description we received from a poll-worker said, “everyone and no one was in charge.” We even discovered an instance where a librarian gave the keys to the room where voting machines were secured to a poll worker without confirming their identification.

These errors very obviously disenfranchised some number of voters. (You might expect the party of “election integrity” to care, but you’d be wrong. It’s not about integrity; it’s all about winning.) Whether these lapses in competent administration would have changed the outcome of that election is unknown, but the mere number of errors certainly should affect voters’–and candidates’– confidence in the system.

In the wake of the election, several Democrats have called for the creation of a nonpartisan voter protection organization. In stark contrast to the typical GOP whining about the “unfairness” of losses and unfounded accusations of “rigging,” that proposal sounds…what’s that word…adult.

In fact, looking into the documented irregularities of the Hendricks County vote prompted me to contemplate the differences between Democrats and MAGA Republicans that are demonstrated by their responses to election losses. It occurred to me that America’s political polarization isn’t between the informed and uninformed, or the educated and uneducated–striking as those divisions are.

It’s between grown ups and children throwing tantrums.

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The Blind Leading The Blind

Assuming that we still have human civilization and historians a hundred years from now, the era we inhabit will probably have been dubbed the Age of Insanity.

Wherever you look, the people we’ve voted into power are pursuing “policies” that defy basic common sense. Here in deep Red Indiana, the so-called Second Amendment defenders–aka gun nuts–have eliminated all rational restrictions on the ownership of weapons. Are you a domestic abuser? No problem. Have you given friends and neighbors cause to think you are off your rocker? Hey, buy an assault weapon. 

Are you blind? Here’s your permit! I

f you think I’m exaggerating, the linked article will disabuse you of that opinion.

WhenTerry Sutherland argued about gun laws with family and friends over the years, he would often joke about whether  he — a legally blind man — should get a gun permit.

Everyone would laugh. Sutherland didn’t think it was possible.
 
“But eventually it kind of started weighing on me,” Sutherland told The Washington Post. “And I started thinking, ‘I wonder if it’s actually possible, and what would it mean if I could?’”
 
So last fall, Sutherland applied for an Indiana license to carry a handgun. He expected someone to stop him at some point in the application process, he said, or at least test if he could shoot at a target.

A few months later, Sutherland received his permit, as Indianapolis news channel WISH-TV first reported. He put it in a clear case and wears it on a yellow lanyard around his neck in hopes of starting conversations about Indiana’s gun laws, which he said are too lenient toward blind people. Sutherland hasn’t changed anyone’s opinions, he said, but some people have been shocked that he received the license.

Welcome to Indiana, where legislators regularly demonstrate that the only part of the Constitution they’ve read is the Second Amendment. (They routinely display total ignorance of the First–especially the Establishment Clause.)

And how are the geniuses in the Indiana legislature responding to the insanity of  the Trump and MAGA hysteria over (dark-skinned) immigrants?  Are they even aware that the U.S. Constitution makes Immigration a specifically federal responsibility?

Don’t be silly!

As the White House ramps up deportation of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, many Republican-controlled state legislatures aren’t just complying with federal directives but taking additional steps to curb illegal immigration.

That includes Indiana.

More than a dozen immigration-related bills have been filed this legislative session, ranging from a bill that would ban children living in the country illegally from enrolling in public school to higher criminal penalties for immigrants caught living here illegally. But lawmakers have ultimately decided to focus their attention on bills that help police enforce immigration policies and detain people living here without citizenship.

The constitutional allocation of responsibilities is obviously irrelevant to our lawmakers, as is the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court has previously ruled that the public schools cannot be closed to immigrant children. Jim Banks–the ignorant and nasty Christian Nationalist who is perhaps the most embarrassing person Indiana has ever sent to the U.S. Senate (and that’s saying something) has threatened to defund the police if they opt to “stay in their constitutional lane.” (Indianapolis’ Police Chief–who evidently has read the Constitution–used that phrase in explaining why IMPD would continue to focus on crimes against the city’s residents, rather than assisting in terrorizing Brown residents.)

Two counterproductive House bills have been introduced by Jim Lucus, one of Indiana’s most deranged “Second Amendment” legislators (he also has a FaceBook page that makes Twitter/X look like a DEI site). His measures–which are moving through the process– add stronger criminal penalties to immigrants found to be driving without a license. Never mind that research shows such laws endanger everyone. They result in fewer trained, tested, licensed, and insured drivers on the road, compromising safety for all. (They also perpetuate fear within immigrant communities and create barriers to immigrants’ ability to contribute to our communities and the economy.) 

The MAGA animus toward dark-skinned immigrants is part and parcel of the central MAGA characteristic–racism. If you discount Project 2025, neither the state nor the federal GOP has advanced any coherent policy agenda. As Trump’s coup has proceeded and Musk and his DOGE techno-nerds lay waste to various federal agencies, GOP invertebrates express no concern. The only consistent themes have been concerted assaults on science and on efforts to be fair to those they’ve labeled Other: scrubbing federal websites of information, eliminating DEI efforts, and ejecting the immigrants who disproportionately pick our produce and build our houses.

This really is the age of insanity.


 

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Return of the KKK

James Madison–my favorite Indiana historian, not my favorite Founding. Father–has recently written a column documenting what many of us have come to recognize: White Christian Nationalism is the contemporary KKK.

Madison should know. He wrote the book tracing the history of the Klan in Indiana.

The inauguration of Gov. Mike Braun and Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith sparks thoughts of the similar inauguration 100 years ago, on January 12, 1925, when Edward Jackson and Harold Van Orman took their oaths. The past never repeats itself exactly, but in this case there are lines that rhyme and questions that cause concern.

At the dinner following Gov. Jackson’s inauguration, William Herschell recited his beloved poem, “Ain’t God Good to Indiana.”  In the reception line next to the new governor stood Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon D.C. Stephenson, the man who boasted that “I am the law in Indiana.”  The two men had plans.

Madison notes that Jackson is considered the worst governor in Indiana history, and most Hoosiers know that Stephenson–Madison calls him “vile”–was a murderer and a blot on an already dark Indiana history.

The forces that created these two men remain with us. Indiana’s new governor and lieutenant governor are not Klansmen, but in the religious and political culture around them are scents of a century ago, when the Klan dominated the Hoosier state.

Those white, native-born Protestants who flocked to the Klan in the early 1920s called themselves 100% Americans. They boasted that only they were the real Americans. They created enemies to exclude and people to hate. Jews, African Americans, immigrants and, above all, Catholics were “the others.” By 1924, one political operative lamented, “Ideas of race and religion now dominate political thought.”

Those Klan boasts sound eerily like the rhetoric employed by MAGA cultists. Madison tells us that fear of Russian Bolsheviks and German Huns widened to include all immigrants and non-White Christians. The Klan repeatedly insisted on “America First.”

In rhetoric that sounds a lot like Trump’s, the Klan claimed that the country was going to “hell in a handbasket.”

A Christian crusade was the remedy. The Klan promised to enforce prohibition, censor Hollywood films, stop backseat sex, end political corruption, and keep women closer to the kitchen, nursery, and Sunday school room. Giving women the ballot, reported the Klan’s weekly newspaper, The Fiery Cross, “would foster masculine boldness and restless independence, which might detract from the modesty and virtue of womankind.”

Shades of today’s “tradwives.”

Madison explains that Klan members were convinced that they were the real, “100% Americans.” Much like today’s Christian Nationalists, they were motivated by White Supremacy. “Onward Christian Soldiers,” became the “beloved hymn of the Klan.”

Indiana had (and I think it is fair to say, still has) what Madison called “low expectations for government and high tolerance for corruption” –an environment that invited the state’s descent into a Klan stronghold.

Along with a governor, a majority—perhaps a supermajority—of the 1925 General Assembly were Klan members or sympathizers. Nearly all were white, Protestant and native born, joined by only four Catholics, four foreign born, and not a single African American or Jewish member.

The 1925 Klan legislature was mostly a bust. Internal divisions and self-aggrandizement led to only modest success in pushing through the Klan agenda. All assumed there would be other sessions to make good.

Madison’s column includes information about the resistance to the Klan. Stephenson’s conviction for rape and murder in 1925 added to the growing awareness of the Klan’s threat to basic American values, and Madison tells us that by 1930, the Klan was mostly gone in Indiana. “Nobody wanted to admit he’d ever belonged,” one reporter recalled.

Perhaps the most important observation in Madison’s essay is the following:

The intolerance in the last 50 years has come not from an out-of-date Klan but from a potpourri of sprawling and amorphous groups and movements, often linked to versions of Christian nationalism. As with the old Klan, today’s Christian nationalists tend toward binary choices of good and evil, toward a willingness to force their religious and cultural views on all of us, and toward use of government power in undemocratic and authoritarian ways that Indiana’s pioneers would have found appalling. Those pioneers wrote a Constitution in 1816 that contains the finest words ever penned on Indiana soil, including such commitments as “no preference shall ever be given by law to any religious societies, or modes of worship.”

Too many of our lawmakers have failed to heed that state Constitutional provision.

You really need to click through and read the whole essay–and then join us at tomorrow’s rally to kick off resistance to the re-emergence of the Klan, this time wearing red hats rather than sheets.

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