We’ve often embraced a consensus history, one devoid of conflict. A bloody civil war becomes a noble cause. The white supremacy that began in 1619 to build the largest system of forced labor in world history becomes a sidebar with modest significance. Such myths are prerequisites for so-called patriotic history. They comfort us, at least until we understand them as simple propaganda ill-suited to democracy.
There have been times young Hoosiers flooded into the political arena. Indiana’s first territorial governor, William Henry Harrison, was in his late 20s when he assumed office. Jonathan Jennings just turned 30 when he became the first state governor.
Indiana was for a century and a half the heartland of the American Dream. Pioneers bought land cheaply, built log cabins, grew corn, and soon acquired iron stoves and store-bought clothing.
I’ve been listing to the Swan Silverstones. “Don’t blame it on the children,” this gospel group sings, which got me thinking about who’s to blame for the failure to regulate all our state’s child care facilities.
We sometimes hear the advice to “get on the right side of history.”
Which of our leaders ever talks with us about a good book she or he has recently read?
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It’s a tale of two Indianas—one rich, one poor.
“We are governed by swine,” Meredith Nicholson lamented.
Promising to cut taxes is not political leadership. It’s cheap and easy.
Are there Hoosiers still waiting for 1950s-type manufacturing jobs or another Milan miracle?
