Episoder
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Polling data takes up more space in my world than campaign ads do. It’s truly remarkable. In any presidential election year, I am normally exhausted by every candidate’s pitch on TV by now. Thirty seconds at a time, the sound bites should have already eroded a precious sliver of my soul, and possibly yours as well.
Not this year. Not even on my chosen social platforms am I overwhelmed with the ads, barring a few odd, out-of-state exceptions. Nope. Polling data updates, some reliable and some absurd, is what I see most. Maybe it’s just my algorithm. Maybe I’ve been identified as an unpersuadable, data wonk.
Or maybe the red-state-message in this red state is the problem.
A poll released last week by Destiny Wells, the Democrat nominee for attorney general, was the first public one showing details of two statewide races. The pollster, Lake Research Partners, is reputable. The sampling was appropriate, made up of 51% Republican voters and 36% Democrat. Wells only trails incumbent AG, Todd Rokita, 44-41%. Name identification for the incumbent is understandably twice as high as it is for Wells, which leads me to conclude that the more people know Rokita, the more people don’t like him.
Rokita’s low numbers are easy to explain. He is primarily known for performative antics that deliver nothing of value to Hoosiers, led by his unhinged attack on Dr. Caitlin Bernard for doing her job as an obstetrician. He has solicited complaints against state government, otherwise known as his own client. He has never seen a pro-Trump lawsuit he didn’t volunteer to join. And his law license has been regularly in jeopardy for unlawyerly behavior.
He's simply unpopular. Go figure.
The Indiana governor’s race was also included in the poll, and not surprisingly, it too shows a dead heat. Republican Mike Braun’s 41% to Democrat Jennifer McCormick’s 39% is inside the margin of error. Libertarian Donald Rainwater’s 9% support matters too.
McCormick is polling seven points better than the 2020 Democratic candidate performed. The other two parties are lagging last election’s finish. That’s a meaningful turn.
But Indiana’s still red right? Trump is still the favorite here for president, right? Yes. But his polling strength is also weakening here. He won Indiana by 19 points in 2016, by 16 in 2020, and is polling only 10 points ahead of Kamala Harris in this poll, 52%-42%. Again, this is a meaningful turn.
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Bill Murray once said, “It’s hard to win an argument with a smart person. It’s damn near impossible to win one with a stupid person.” For the objective viewer, whoever that is, I expect Tuesday night’s debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump to feel like this. Afterward, those tuning in to root for their chosen candidate will likely declare victory.
Harris supporters know her and will likely not be surprised by the things she says or the demeanor she displays. Even if she stumbles a little or fails to land the knockout punches Democrats are hoping for, it is unlikely she will lose anyone already on the Harris for President campaign train.
Oh, and she will make her case with the facts. That should matter, plenty, but we’ll just have to wait and see about that.
The contrast Tuesday night’s argument will display most distinctly will be exactly that: fact versus fiction.
Trump will likely try to make his case with hopes of exposing some damaging weakness in Harris. Can he make her seem weak? Can he make her seem unintelligent? Whether he’s having one of his high energy days or another one of the growing number of low ones, it’s unlikely he will make her anything at all.
Most of all though, this debate will be between two people so different in sharpness, age and ability, they won’t appear to be even speaking the same language.
My wife took me to the beach this weekend to celebrate my birthday. On Saturday, an average size boat approached the area where we were camped and dropped its anchor. It had two oversized flags flying from the back of it. One was an old, faded U.S. Marines flag, and the other was a “Trump 2024” flag, that looked fresh out of the box. I couldn’t help wondering what he paid for that one, and how many other versions he had previously bought.
I go to the beach to daydream, so after I cycled through the economics of buying the junk his candidate peddles so shamelessly, I started focusing on the old flag.
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Manglende episoder?
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Who is credited with founding the holiday we celebrated Monday? According to History.com, some say it was a man named Peter McGuire, of the American Federation of Labor. Others say it was a man named Matthew Maguire, of the Central Labor Union who proposed it first. If spoken with an average gait, it’s safe to speak either name and still safely sound correct.
Unions have been on a winning streak recently, a trend I expect to continue for the foreseeable future. The trend is good for America, even when it’s inconvenient.
I rolled my eyes a little, OK, a lot, when the Hollywood writers and actors went on strike last year. It was the first time I had a personal stake in a walkout. I had done some, and hoped to do more, consulting on a film that was set to begin shooting in August. The strike caused the project to be shelved, ending my irrational fantasies of fame and fortune. That movie would have been bigger than “Barbie,” according to me.
What could these people who have already “made it” possibly have to strike about? Does Brad Pitt really need better terms? No. But the Writers Guild of America, followed by the Screen Actors Guild, are filled with creators and workers similar to every other industry. And just like industries whose labor struggles have been historically familiar, Hollywood’s impasse was also existential. These strikes became important because they have broadened the discussion.
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It’s the most wonderful time of the year! The fall semester starts this week, and I might be a little too excited. I need to remember to have a little sympathy for my new students, particularly those in my 8:00 am class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. For the rest of their lives, when they hear the term, “morning person,” they will immediately think of me.
Even when my professional world revolved around legislation in the Statehouse, I rarely had business in the realm of education policy. Over the years, I only watched that stuff as a citizen. My sons went to Catholic school, so I felt a little detached from the annual wrangling over what the next moves from the Indiana General Assembly and the Indiana Department of Education would be.
Lately though, the biggest two moves seem to have a common theme: aiming lower.
Last year, Senate Bill 202 was a headline-maker that had folks in the realm of higher education all worked up. Conservative lawmakers were trying to address the reality that college professors tend to be more ideologically liberal or progressive than they prefer. You know, leftists like me are “indoctrinating” young people, not teaching them. It’s a “problem” worthy of an eye roll.
From the perspective of a public university faculty member, I only cared a little about the bill in a practical sense. It never appeared to be impactful on what or how I teach. I already make space for diverse ideological viewpoints when appropriate, and honestly, it matters only in the rarest of circumstances. The “problem” the legislature is trying to solve here is incredibly overblown, and their solution is, in fact, not one. More importantly, that non-solution is expensive.
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Political conventions are not for me. I went to my first one, at the state level, last month and I thought I was going to break out in a rash from what felt like life-threatening inefficiency. Of course, I oppose the existence of big graduations, weddings and funerals too, so maybe the problem is me.
I will begrudgingly admit that all of these ceremonies have a purpose.
The Democratic National Convention is meaningful this year, even to me. I’m still glad I’m not going, and I will only watch it a little. But I will be watching the reaction. I will be watching that like a hawk, since that’s all that really matters.
The 2020 conventions were both turned into Zoom meetings due to the pandemic. The “party” part of the political parties was as bland and uninspiring as the year itself was. Some watched them on TV, though viewership was down across the board except Fox for the Republicans and MSNBC for the Democrats. I tried to watch, I guess, but I don’t remember either one of them.
Even so, voter turnout was juiced in 2020. And when turnout rises, Democrats tend to perform better. That rule applied to Indiana just like everywhere else in America. Pay attention to every race in Indiana that appears to be close at this moment. The new excitement on the Democrat side coming from the new nominees, and now the convention, will help the party in all of the close races.
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Indianapolis has had a bright spotlight on it in 2024. The Olympic swimming time trials in Lucas Oil Stadium, the NBA All-Star game, and the arrival of the biggest name in sports, Caitlin Clark. Now the city is ground zero for something shameful.
Mayor Joe Hogsett is under fire for his mishandling of numerous sexual harassment allegations made against former Chief Deputy Mayor Thomas Cook. The first known allegations were made in 2017, and in recent weeks, extensive reporting has been done on the matter by the Indianapolis Star and Mirror Indy. What we already know from their reporting is terrible.
More terrible news is coming. Count on it.
The book, “Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics” and its movie adaptation have been on my mind the last few weeks. This roman é clef, French for “novel with a key,” was first published by Anonymous in 1996. It’s an insider’s tale of a fictitious southern governor, Jack Stanton, and his 1992 primary campaign for the presidency.
Read the book or watch the movie. “Stanton” is Bill Clinton. The author was later to be revealed as Joe Klein, a columnist for Time magazine who covered Clinton’s real-life 1992 campaign. The book detailing this corrupt, womanizing character, and importantly, his campaign team, was published more than two years before the world met Monica Lewinsky.
Lauren Roberts was a deputy campaign manager on Hogsett’s 2015 reelection campaign. She was apparently the first to complain about Cook’s harassment via email in 2017. Hogsett’s initial unresponsiveness led to her direct, in-person report to the mayor in 2019. Hogsett claims action was taken, though it wasn’t ever communicated with Roberts. She has since relocated to Denver. But she kept all of the receipts.
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The impact of even a provocative social media post doesn’t often linger with me for long. In a presidential election year, even less so. But two of them struck me this week, neither of them mentioning Indiana politics, but to this Hoosier columnist, they feel entirely about us.
The first post came from a politico named Mike Madrid on Friday. Madrid is a Latino campaign consultant, a former Republican and co-founder of the anti-Trump group, The Lincoln Project. He wrote: “There was a time when it could be argued that not all Trump voters were racist, but they were comfortable voting for a racist. Not anymore.”
Madrid was referring to Donald Trump’s outburst during an interview at the National Association of Black Journalists convention last week questioning Vice President Kamala Harris’s rather uncomplicated and well documented ancestry. The racist nature of it was remarkable in and of itself. What is more remarkable, however, is how GOP leaders immediately began repeating the attacks.
Even those who would rather Trump not say these offensive things out loud also didn’t object. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “A time comes when silence is betrayal.”
At the top of the GOP ticket in Indiana this election year, are three Trump sycophants: Mike Braun for governor, Jim Banks for U.S. Senate, and Todd Rokita for attorney general. They are all unapologetically devoted to anything and everything the former president says and does. I want their views confirmed on the Harris issue, though I think it’s obvious.
These three Republicans don’t cross their leader. And as Madrid implied, Trump’s racism can no longer be shrugged off as a bug. It’s a feature.
The second post lingering with me came from Georgia Governor Brian Kemp.
Trump was campaigning in Atlanta on Sunday, where he is under indictment for his attempts to steal the 2020 election. While on the stage and in his own social media posts, the former president reignited his attacks on Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Kemp, and oddly, Kemp’s wife for their collective disloyalty. It was as odd as the Harris ancestry attack in that it makes no sense how it helps Trump’s campaign. Kemp and Raffensperger are both extremely popular Republicans in that swing state. They both responded, but Kemp’s response was troubling.
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I was in the airport two Sunday afternoons ago when I first saw the news that Joe Biden was ending his presidential campaign. I was still there when he followed up a few minutes later with his endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. By the time I happily put my head on my own pillow that night after a long trip, anyone paying attention could already feel it coming.
Everything about the 2024 presidential election changed last week.
In that week, the newly launched Harris for President campaign raised over $200 million, gathered 170,000 new volunteers, held 2,300 events in battleground states, and in two days on TikTok, attracted 2.9 million followers. Those are some “wow” stats. But none of the data really captures the moment contextually.
Every Democrat who matters endorsed her in that first week. The Clintons, the Obamas, and the leaders of both congressional caucuses have jumped on board. Beyoncé has lent the campaign use of her song, “Freedom,” and I’ve heard it dozens of times already.
Then there are the Zoom rallies. It started with a gathering of black women on July 21st, with over 44,000 participants that led to $1.5 million raised. Black men followed the next day with over 20,000. White women refused to be left out when their call last Thursday had 160,000 participants that raised $8.5 million. White men had 50,000 registered for a call Monday night and that number was still growing as I wrote this.
That’s excitement. That’s momentum. And in a campaign that the Republican nominee has long reduced to a battle of ratings and rallies, a race he was winning before Biden’s departure, he is now getting obliterated. Even polling has begun to shift, with Fox News releasing a poll on Sunday showing favorability flipping in several battleground states to now favor Harris.
Democrats would have always been happy to run solely on the Biden administration’s record. It’s a good one. But the campaign was flailing because it had been reduced to the issue of the president’s age. And the truth is, he is too old to persuade Americans that he’s not. I’m glad he stopped trying.
With the uncertainty of a path forward removed on the Democrat side, the post-convention honeymoon for Republicans ended quicker than it should have too. Ten days ago, they were acting like they had already won. They aren’t anymore.
It’s been a whirlwind for Republicans the last three weeks. Let’s recap.
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We had planned a trip to London and Paris in 2020, but it was cancelled by the pandemic. Until last week, we hadn’t left the country since before that awful year. Ironically, the thought of visiting or even living someplace else has never taken up more space in my soul. Even my latest book is fundamentally about the mysterious “what ifs” that come from how life might be different if it were simply spent “someplace else.”
We finally got to go last week. As a much younger person, I used to wonder why people would even go on trips like this, when there really wasn’t some specific reason. Now, I feel true sympathy for those who never do.
First of all, the enormity of London alone is striking, but the best thing about its size is the variety of everything in it. For example, I never thought of London as a great food town. Wrong. There is no food on earth that can’t be found there. The restaurants seem smaller, but the pubs, cafes and ethnic offerings are literally everywhere. I wasn’t looking for Uzbek or Sri Lankan food, but now I know the most convenient place to find it.
In just six days though, the giant city had shrunk for us, primarily because of its phenomenal train system. No area or neighborhood was difficult to get to, including a little town called Paris. Navigating it also couldn’t have been easier.
As a world traveler, I’m a novice. I haven’t been many places. Not yet. But every new place I go these days is less of a vacation and more of an adventure. Seeing unfamiliar places, and spending time with unfamiliar people is the most provocative way for anyone to grow. Every adventure teaches me something unexpected. It is so predictable that I purposely make fewer and fewer plans on each new trip. Why bother? The best parts can’t be planned anyway.
Visiting the Churchill War Rooms Museum, however, was definitely planned. I’m in the words business, English is my language, and Winston Churchill is likely the greatest orator who has ever lived. Yea, yea, he led and won the big war, but his weapon of choice was language.
Our last exhibit there was a display of the anti-Churchill propaganda that was distributed in Nazi Germany and Japan during the war. None of it was all that surprising, particularly by today’s standards, but a museum staffer approached us there and began explaining the depth of the exhibit’s importance.
This elderly man pointed out the racism built into the drawings and the impact of its lessons in faraway places, especially on young people growing up with the imagery. He asked us to imagine young people who only knew of the British through this messaging and how difficult it must have been to overcome for generations. He analogized the struggle then to the one today with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, the invasion of Ukraine, and the valuable mission of NATO. My wife and I enjoyed his lesson, but I was fascinated with how comfortably he went there with two people from America who could have just as easily been hostile to his suggestions.
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Thomas Matthew Crooks took his father’s AR-15, climbed a building near former President Donald Trump’s Saturday rally and got several shots off in Trump’s direction before being killed by the U.S. Secret Service. The gun was purchased legally in Pennsylvania by Crooks’ father. Early background reports indicate that the 20-year-old gunman was a loner, a registered Republican, but had also donated to at least one left leaning organization.
There’s no evidence of any political component to anything he did.
Now that I have covered the basics of what occurred, I have one primary question today. What part of those details, if one had precisely predicted them a week, month or year earlier, would have sounded impossible or unlikely at all? Would any of us have struggled to envision such a thing?
I wouldn’t have. Not for one moment.
I first heard the news while fading in and out of an early evening nap on Saturday. A text from a friend at 6:26 pm said “Trump got shot!” I quickly sat up and turned on the news to see it was real. Even though some weirdos on social media committed to doubting its validity for far too long, it was clearly real.
None of it surprised me. I did not feel a single second of astonishment for the first hour I was glued to the screen.
Yes, violent crime is declining in America. However, with the suffocating presence of guns here, particularly the absurdly common AR-15, coupled with a largely unresearched mental health phenomena of these suicide shooters, these horrific episodes have become embedded into our daily lives.
When was the last time a shooting like this really surprised any of us?
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As a new adjunct professor six years ago, the class I was asked to teach was titled “Public law and government relations.” It was a class designed to teach how ideas become laws. The students were public affairs majors, just like I was, thirty years earlier.
Explaining the “how” part is complicated. I’m forced to make hard choices on how to prioritize my lessons. I have learned to focus on two primary ideas: One, that governing is choosing; and two, there is no bigger asset or burden in the public policy process more powerful than time.
The best contemporary policy example to use for understanding American democratic processes is the debate on women’s reproductive health freedom. Not just because of the Dobbs or Roe decisions, but because it is a policy that is truly a governing choice, unimpacted by infinite conditions beyond decision-makers’ control.
Oh sure, we watch Schoolhouse Rock and discuss the school bus railroad crossing example dozens of times too. But if you recall from the video, the “local congressman” uses a typewriter to create the famous “I’m Just a Bill.” As good as the video is, it's old.
Every politician claims a vote for them will lead to a better economy. Sometimes they even explain how. But the truth is that the “economy” has too many variables in it for that platform to be certain. Foreign affairs policies are almost as unpredictable. It’s hilarious to hear Donald Trump and his lemmings explain how the world will absolutely cow tow to America when he’s in charge, or even how it did before, as if none of us paid attention way back when.
Eleven states are headed for referenda votes in November on constitutional proposals to create or protect abortion rights. Nine of them were initiated by voter petition. Four of those states already effectively have bans in place. Even Arkansas reached their threshold of signatures last week just before that state’s deadline.
In states where voters can vote, they either already are, or soon will. And because of the Dobbs decision, a vote on reproductive freedom is no longer a hypothetical discussion. There is data to drive the thinking of those clinging to rational thought on the matter.
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I have never met anyone who I believed to be intelligent who was also humorless. When comedian Nate Bargatze took the stage last week at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis he spent a few moments making sure the crowd knew he was not an educated man.
Bargatze is intelligent though. And he’s as funny they come.
In contrast, the Supreme Court of the United States was once regarded as the sage, learned body, epitomizing intelligence, credibility and thoughtfulness. This once esteemed tribunal personified its “supremacy” for rational, unhumorous reasons. However, as of Monday, July 1, 2024, its self-desecration is complete, and has now become a laughingstock.
The conservative majority of the court has twisted itself into knots to help Donald Trump with the absurdity that he should have some immunity from prosecution for his criminal acts. The mantra of “no man is above the law” ended this week in America.
The 6-3 Trump v. United States ruling produced dissenting language in a tone unheard of in the court’s storied history. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote on behalf of the minority, “With fear for our democracy, I dissent.”
The cloud of this debacle will feel like a diversion soon though, because there’s so much more.
Let’s discuss nitrous oxide. You’ve likely heard of it. It’s what dentists give patients to relax them before needles and drills are used to bludgeon their mouths. It’s laughing gas. It’s fun. And it should never be confused with nitrogen oxides, which is what the Environmental Protection Agency regulates to control pollution.
Justice Neil Gorsuch famously mistook one for the other, five times, in his Ohio v. EPA ruling on Thursday. Then on Friday, SCOTUS ruled that courts are better positioned to do what regulatory experts have broadly done since 1984. In Loper Bright v. Raimondo, the supremes ruled that courts are more suited to decide anything and everything, scientific and complicated, than actual experts. Experts like those who know the difference between pollutants and laughing gas.
The 1984 decision, Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, established what has become known as the Chevron deference. The late Justice Antonin Scalia was a notorious supporter of the deference, because it provided a dependable “background rule of law against which Congress can legislate.” He believed Congress wanted agencies, or subject matter experts, to exercise discretion on the implementation of their laws. I’ve been a regulator and a legislative consultant, and I know this to be historically true.
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Life in Stephen King’s Shawshank State Prison, at its best, is mundane, repetitive, and stagnant. As is the state of politics in Indiana. Surviving either or both, doesn’t require lightning to strike. It requires hope. Hope that can lead to a movement.
Democrats in Indiana nominated former Republican Superintendent of Public Instruction, Jennifer McCormick as their nominee for governor in May’s primary. Last week, McCormick announced her preferred running mate as former Democrat state representative, Terry Goodin.
The latter was a mistake.
There are three unrelenting, unequivocal policy issues that define what a Democrat is in 2024. To be credible with Democrat voters these days, a candidate must support women’s reproductive freedom, equality for all minority communities, and common sense gun safety measures. This isn’t the entire platform, but when asking a candidate about their support for these three, they are simple “yes/no” questions. And the answer to them must be an unwavering “yes.”
I won’t vote for any candidate, for any office, who answers any of those questions with a “no,” a “sort of,” or even a “generally.”
Yes, that purity test applies to those running for city council, school board and county auditor. Why? Because politics, like culture, is a continuum. That pro-life county auditor might run for U.S. Senate in two years. That pro-gun rights school board member might run for Congress. And then the weakness becomes trouble.
The truth is that these deficiencies are always trouble. They’re indicators a party is willing to bargain with its own morals.
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“Mike and Mike in the Morning” was the last sports radio show I ever regularly listened to. I don’t remember why I stopped. I wasn’t angry about some hot take or uncalled-for disrespect toward the Colts. I simply lost interest. Besides, I know enough about sports, according to me, and don’t need anyone explaining why my team won or lost. And predictions? Everyone is terrible at them, that’s why we watch the games.
Now, the Mike and Micah political show in Indiana will have a whole host of far more serious problems. That’s Mike Braun, the Republican nominee for governor, and Micah Beckwith, the surprise nominee for lieutenant governor. They have a show to put on, and based on the preview, it’s not looking good.
Braun was likely planning on continuing his primary campaign platform, one famously declared by me as being about nothing. However, things changed on Saturday at the Indiana Republican Convention. Braun’s campaign for governor transitioned from being about nothing to being all about his running mate.
Beckwith is a self-proclaimed Christian Nationalist. He claims to be a prophet of sorts. He notoriously supports banning books, specifically those of my favorite author, Indianapolis’ John Green. He apparently thinks that the LG offers some “check” on the governor, as opposed to being a dutiful devotee. In short, he’s trouble for Braun, and that’s entirely Braun’s fault.
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Maya Angelou gave the best advice with absolutely the best words when she said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” I have found that people are really good at showing who they are, even when that’s exactly what they are trying to avoid. Angelou reminds us of the obvious, to believe what we see, but importantly to not waste precious time reaching the often inevitable conclusion.
Last week, Adam Wren and Daniel Lippman reported for Politico that the House Ethics Committee is making a preliminary inquiry into the behavior of Rep. Victoria Spartz, of Indiana’s 5th District. The reasons stem from complaints made by current and former staffers of the second term congresswoman’s unstable and abusive behavior toward them.
While the reports were troubling, and I will share some highlights, I would be surprised if anyone who has been paying attention to Spartz over the years was surprised by the news.
Here’s an example of the behavior detailed by a current staffer, as reported by Politico: “The common thing is for her to call someone up or to their face, cuss them up, say the F-word about a million times, call them effing retards, effing children, effing whatever…That’s a weekly thing. It’s not rare. All my interactions with her have been filled with complete and total rage.”
That came from a current staffer, quoted in last week’s story. Since January, the resignations have piled up so fast, it would seem that former staffers are easier to find than those remaining on her damaged team.
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The background noise in my house is the television show, “Law & Order.” My wife and I both read more than we watch TV, so reruns that we aren’t paying much attention to mask the noise from the city streets but don’t distract us. We both have already seen every episode. So, when it’s on, we race to declare, “he’s the one who did it,” or “they needed a search warrant for that.” And after about the first fifteen minutes, it’s only noise.
Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York, that ended with his conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records last week, was just as predictable as any other rerun. No prosecutor, of any political party, in any part of the country, would bring a case to trial that he or she didn’t believe could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Add the complicating factors of this defendant’s unlimited financial resources and media reach, and the original reluctance can be multiplied by a thousand.
This is primarily why conviction rates are so high. Cases aren’t brought when the prosecution lacks a provable case. Either the government has the goods on the accused, or it doesn’t. It’s too much work, and too publicly embarrassing, to invest all of the time and resources necessary to obtain a conviction when the evidence is weak. Remember, prosecutors are elected in 47 states, and they never run on a platform of losing.
Since Thursday’s conviction, Trump world has gone bonkers in its attempt to try and make the world believe that their man has been mistreated. Don’t confuse their mania with an attempt to show that he is innocent, that is almost never even part of any MAGA rant. In this case, Trump’s defense team didn’t even present a theory of his innocence. The defense was entirely about how Trump’s enemies were liars, and how the process was unfair.
Was it unfair? Hell yes, it was. For example, it is unfair for a defendant to be found in contempt ten times during a trial and never revisit the jail. But the strategy of whining and victimhood is now the go-to mantra of every scrape the former president faces. It’s never “innocence.”
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I ate my track picnic at my kitchen counter this year. I don’t know if I’ve ever done that before, so I’m writing it down for future reference. The fried chicken was as delicious as any other year, though it felt weird eating it over a plate.
Every year, the Indianapolis 500 is our city’s most special event. It’s embedded in our culture, so grandly, so omnipresent, it’s hard to find a person or a place in the area untouched by it.
The event and its long list of traditions can feel delicate in some ways, reliant on something as unpredictable as the weather. In other ways, it feels as strong as Indiana limestone. When a few hundred thousand diverse people have a shared purpose, it’s amazing how well we can adapt.
A weather delay that forecasters began predicting in the middle of the week actually came true. I love not trusting the National Weather Service when it gives me bad news five days ahead of time. I treat those people like NBA referees: every call they make is the beginning of the argument, not the end of it. But they got it right this time. Golf claps for them this weekend, and I will go back to not trusting them by Saturday.
We ride our bikes to the track on race day, a tradition I recommend for anyone capable within about ten miles of Speedway. It’s a thirty-minute ride for us and we buy advanced parking from Bike Indy right outside the main entrance. It’s so convenient, we waited at home for the weather to pass. Much like my strange race picnic, I took my traditional post-race nap before the race this year. Odd, yes, but I’m too old to complain about any nap.
I started to stir around 2:00 p.m. and when I realized it wasn’t raining, I jumped a little. I yelled at my no-napping wife for a weather report, and she told me things were looking good, so I better get it together. The text messages from our bike group started chiming in while I was in the shower, and at 3:00 p.m., nine of us left the neighborhood for the track.
When we got close to our seats in Stand A, we wondered what the concession stands would run out of first. With a four-hour delay, that’s like hosting two races to the vendors. Beer was the consensus pick, but we were wrong. Food ran out first. I’d like to think that collectively we simply drink less these days, but that can’t possibly be true.
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While writing on Sunday night about the truly remarkable week surrounding a criminal trial in New York, I was captivated by the final story on 60 Minutes. It was titled, “The Album,” with Anderson Cooper reporting. The subject was an album of 116 photos discovered in 2007 that were collected by a Nazi leader at Auschwitz.
“Here There Are Blueberries,” is the new Broadway play that attempts to make sense of the pictures by those connected to the victims there. Importantly though, it also provides context of the horrific events as seen through the eyes of those committing the crimes. The pictures make the killers appear happy to be there. One particular photo showed a large group of young German girls happily eating blueberries at an apparent party, while outside the frame, death surrounded them. It’s the source of the title of the play.
How did these once normal, average people become the monsters we now know them to be?
Last week in New York, Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, appeared outside the courthouse where the criminal trial of Donald Trump is nearing its end. He was there to hold a press conference to support his leader and to label the trial “election interference” and declare the justice system “corrupt.”
The appearances at the trial of the most sycophantic members of the GOP, as Dylan Stableford writes for Yahoo! News, “began with a trickle, then became a steady stream.” Members of the U.S. Senate, former presidential candidates, and of course, a litany of House members have appeared there the past two weeks of the six week trial. Their uniform reason to appear is to suck up to the boss, and to fan the irrational flames of the boss’s support network.
The theatrics accomplish other things though, whether intentional or not. Most importantly is that it communicates that loyalty to this criminal is more important, more valuable, than the American judicial system itself. A large swath of the nation’s citizenry has arrived at a place where justice only exists in their eyes when it aligns with their loyalties, regardless of reality. It is that singleness of vision and commitment that allows the madness to grow.
To answer the question above, this is exactly how average people become monsters.
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If one wants to be a homer in Indianapolis, there’s no better time of year for it than May. This year, the Pacers have rejuvenated their playoff rivalry with the Knicks, Caitlin Clark has come to town, and the Greatest Spectacle in Racing is almost here.
And one more thing this May, the movie adaptation of John Green’s 2017 novel, “Turtles All the Way Down,” was released on Max. It’s one of my favorite books, the only one I ever read twice, written by Indy’s greatest author since Kurt Vonnegut. As a bonus, it’s set here in the city. Yea, yea, I know it was filmed in Cincinnati, but that’s another column for another time.
The story chronicles the mental health struggles of a teenager named Aza Holmes. She was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder and suffered the loss of her father who died unexpectedly, both when she was a little girl. She and her mom, who teaches at Aza’s high school, are consumed by these two life challenges.
It’s just another story really. The primary themes are relatable because of how often they exist in normal people’s lives. Normal. Aza would kill to feel like what she believes is normal. But her OCD drives her into “thought spirals,” revolving around the micro-organisms and their function inside her body. We casually refer to people as “germophobic” often these days, and more so since COVID-19. Aza would call most of these people “normal” too. The intensity of her fears is far more profound and dangerous. And still, her condition and her life are not rare.
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French philosopher and statesman Joseph de Maistre is credited with saying it first: “Every country has the government it deserves.” In America, we more often credit the sentiment to Thomas Jefferson, who specifically said, “The government you elect is the government you deserve.”
Ouch. Regardless of the version or the originator, it hurts more than usual on this Primary Election Day in Indiana. It’s designated as a state holiday, for all of the civic reasons that theoretically make sense. This year however, Hoosiers need to celebrate the end of the preseason, the undercard, the opening act that no one wants to watch at the overpriced concert.
Do we really “deserve” this? Sadly, I must concede that we do. As much as I have made fun of the Republican primary campaigns this year being about nothing, there actually is some value hidden in the noise. It’s telling us some hard truths about ourselves.
One truth is that the campaigns I have viewed in central Indiana do not differentiate themselves in any meaningful way on the issue of governing. Writing down that “governing” is an “issue” being inadequately addressed in any campaign for public office is, well, a problem.
Amazingly, the marketplace of ideas, has produced almost no actual ideas. It’s easy to point at campaigns and complain that they aren’t delivering what we, the voters, want. But in markets, supply and demand respond to one another. To summarize, we aren’t demanding enough.
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