Going Around in Circles

On the Indiana General Assembly, Project 2025, and "The Greatest Spectacle in Racing"

Hey all. I’ve been trying something a little different here the last couple weeks. In order to keep a steady stream of content coming your way, I’m experimenting with releasing an essay every week, a couple days after the interview podcast drops, discussing something we talked about on the show. Interviews should come out Tuesday with the essay coming out Thursday or Friday.

And beginning on May 18, I will be hosting a live Sunday morning talk show featuring a panel of guests from around state. HoosLeft This Week will bring together a range of Hoosiers from the democratic socialist left to principled never-Trump conservatives. MAGA Republicans lie and argue in bad faith. My hope is, without that element around, the rest of us can discuss the full range of what is possible in our state once we overcome the current crisis. The new show will air live on Project Next’s YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch streams at 10:30 ET Thanks, y’all.

At the 1930 Indianapolis 500 | Unknown Photographer | Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

I recently spoke with MADVoters Director of Advocacy, Kaitie Rector. If you missed the interview, check it out here. She broke down the major legislation coming out the Indiana General Assembly, which adjourned at the end of April. Governor Mike Braun put his pen to the last of these new laws, including the state budget for the next two years, on May 7. Kaitie and I talked about property taxes, public education, Medicaid, the culture wars, and even the occasional good bill that made it through. There is a lot to digest, but - it being May in Indiana - many Hoosiers’ eyes are laser-focused not on the statehouse, but six and a half miles west at 16th Street and Georgetown Road.

The eyes of the sporting world are upon our state at the moment. WNBA phenom Caitlin Clark has the Fever poised for a championship run in her second season. The Pacers have advanced to the NBA’s Eastern Conference Finals for the second straight year and a likely matchup with the New York Knicks conjures memories of Reggie Miller in Madison Square Garden. But, for many, the month of May means only one thing - “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing" - the Indianapolis 500.

And I, with all of these things flying around at once, can’t help but see some similarities between the goings-on at the statehouse and the racetrack.

For over twenty years now, Indiana Republicans have maintained a stranglehold on power in the capitol, with a trifecta - the Governor’s office, the Senate, and the House - for 80% of that timeframe. They’ve had the ability to enact their agenda without significant pushback, the freedom to advance their vision for the state, the time to move Indiana forward - but here we are just going around in circles.

Listen, the race is a great time. I like to binge drink and pass out in the hot sun even more than the next guy. But you have to admit - a whole lot of time, money, and attention goes into preparing for and executing this event where the drivers might put 500 miles on the odometer, but they don’t actually go anywhere.

And while the race is the centerpiece around which all else orbits, much of the pageantry surrounding it is about emotion, ritual, and nostalgia. It’s about Bump Day, Carb Day, and the 500 Festival Parade. It’s about the Snake Pit, kissing bricks, and a tall glass of milk in the winner’s circle. It’s about “Back Home Again in Indiana” and “Gentlemen, start your engines” as much as who takes the checkered flag. It’s about vibes.

Unfortunately, the GOP supermajority operates the state legislature in much the same way. It’s about soundbites, donor favors, and pissing contests far more than it’s about improving Hoosiers’ lives. Hours of testimony given to lawmakers who’ve already decided. Taxpayer money wasted on dead-end symbolic votes. The best-resourced team always wins while the rest are just lucky to have been there, right? It’s a race to nowhere - burning through fuel, making a ton of noise, trying the locals’ patience, leaving mountains of trash - furiously spinning our wheels only to end up where we began.

Actually, going nowhere might be the best case scenario. On the track at Indy, drivers spend 200 laps turning left. At the statehouse, our legislators have spent year after year turning hard to the right. They’re taking us backward.

Senator Gary Byrne’s SB289 prohibits diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in state agencies and schools, driving us in reverse toward pre-Civil Rights era discrimination. Meanwhile, Spencer Deery’s 2024 SB202 - the one with the “Intellectual Diversity” paint scheme - imposes vague “free inquiry” mandates at universities, threatens professors with loss of tenure, and pushes faculty to self-censor - straight out of Cold War red scare loyalty tests. And then there’s Whiteland’s Representative Michelle Davis, whose anti-trans HB1041 comes straight out of 1930’s Germany.

Then, look at just some of the spectacular wrecks from this year’s legislative session. A multi-bill pileup led by Indianapolis Representative Robert Behning ran our state’s public education system off the track. His HB1002 was the lead car that lost control - clearing the way for mass charterization of public schools while simultaneously reducing oversight and professional standards - taking the steering wheel away from educators and handing it to privatizers and ideologues. Team Byrne’s SB287, which mandates that school board candidates must declare a party affiliation - inviting further polarization into public ed - was also involved in this crash. So too was Tim Wesco’s clown car, HB1348. That junker of a law stipulates that graduation certificates from unaccredited home schools or private institutions are legally equivalent to an actual high school diploma.

Christian nationalist weasel Lieutenant Governor Micah Beckwith zig-zagged wildly around the track, leaking oil and leaving hazards for everyone else to slip in. Finally, the number one vehicle in Governor Mike Braun’s garage - adorned in the language of property tax “relief” - ran into the wall at full speed, blasting a gaping hole in the budget of every city, county, school district, and state agency.

Attacking public schools, public health, and civil rights? Stripping women and transgender Hoosiers of their bodily autonomy? Coming down hard on intellectual rigor and students’ ideological freedom at our colleges and universities? Attempting to engrain conservative Christianity into law? Indiana Republicans might be driving us around in circles, but they’re still using a roadmap - the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.

This publication, along with just about every left-leaning outlet, spent much of last year warning about the GOP’s 900+ page policy playbook, and its detailed blueprint to remake America in a radically reactionary mold. Alas, these warnings were not heeded, and the Trump regime’s speed-run over this country’s most hallowed laws and norms has completed north of 40% of Project 2025’s goals just four months into this administration.

So, I guess I need to tweak my analogy. If the Indianapolis 500 is analogous to Project 2025 - “The Greatest Spectacle in Racism,” perhaps - that means the miniature version Hoosier Republicans are running is less like 230mph turbo-charged road rockets zipping around IMS, and more like a team of undergrads furiously peddling in IU’s Little 500 bicycle race - same concept, smaller scale, and according to State Representative Jim Lucas, just as good a reason to get completely shit-faced.

But, whatever racing metaphor we use, we have to ask ourselves what we’re racing toward, and who’s even driving this thing? You know, Indiana University’s famed intramural bike race once inspired a major motion picture. Here’s hoping that Indiana’s GOP supermajority - by consistently turning right and speeding furiously toward a more unequal past - will similarly inspire Hoosiers to “break away” from them.