Gerrymandering allows the GOP to control state legislatures with supermajorities even when voters prefer Democratic candidates by hundreds of thousands of votes. It thus nullifies elections and insulates lawmakers from democratic accountability.
Tribalism has clearly triumphed over logic. The desire to “own the libs” has proved to be more powerful than self-protection.
Assertions that critical race theory is being taught in America’s elementary and high schools are ludicrous. As I have been complaining pretty much forever, schools aren’t even teaching the most basic concepts required for civic literacy.
Our ambitious attorney general has cast his lot with those Republicans, who—it must be admitted—are representative of what the Grand Old Party has become.
Researchers estimate that the pandemic has cost America 2.5 million restaurant jobs and closed more than 100,000 eateries, so it is worrisome that, just as the nation begins to return to whatever “normal” looks like, so many restaurants that did survive can’t find staffers.
Democratic senators represent about 40 million more voters than do Republican senators—a disproportion not reflected in the Senate’s 50/50 split, a split that depends upon Vice President Kamala Harris to wield a tie-breaking vote. And it is likely to get worse.
In a country that is increasingly removed from anything resembling actual democracy, people who live in the nation’s cities have demonstrably less political voice than do their country cousins.
Why do our legislators continue sending Hoosier tax dollars to private schools, rather than spending to improve public education?
Today’s linguistic game revolves around “socialism.” If policymakers were really discussing economic systems, rather than using labels to hide their actual motives, they would define their terms.
Outgoing Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill wants states to be able to deny married same-sex couples the right to be recognized as parents of their children.
Despite Donald Trump’s sneering disinclination to help “mismanaged blue cities,” the current state and local government financial crisis is a result of the pandemic, not incompetent governance. And this crisis isn’t limited to Democratic jurisdictions.
Political science research tells us that people affiliate with a political party for one of two reasons: They agree with the party’s basic approach to issues of governance, or they identify with the other people in that party.
When you contract away your flexibility and your authority to make decisions that are responsive to unforeseen events, you can end up owing a lot of money to the private vendor.
Americans’ economic battles are being fought between ideologues who have convinced themselves that their favored economic system is “the” answer to every problem.
In today’s highly polarized America, an individual’s self-identification as Republican or Democrat has come to signify a wide range of attitudes and beliefs not necessarily limited to support for a political party. Affiliation with a political party has made Americans’ increasingly tribal social identities most predictive—and most consequential.
More citizen participation in the political process is obviously good for democracy. So why is the GOP hysterically claiming—despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary—that encouraging vote-by-mail will enable fraud and “rig” election results?
When Daniels and the Republicans in the Statehouse told Hoosier voters they were “protecting taxpayers” by putting tax caps in the state’s constitution, objections by mayors and warnings by fiscal and tax policy experts were pooh-poohed. Politics won. Prudent and informed policy lost.
The most important lesson to be learned by policymakers and plutocrats alike is that fortunate people are secure only when everyone is secure.
Their most consistent behavior, year after year, is their adamant refusal to allow cities and towns—especially Indianapolis—to do much of anything unless and until our overlords in the Legislature deign to give local elected officials their official blessing.
The collapse of the business model that sustained local newspapers is well-known; the consequences, however, are only beginning to be appreciated.
