Think About It with Michael Leppert

I started writing my column in the spring of 2014, and oh how things have changed since then! Barack Obama was president, and Mike Pence was the governor of Indiana. There were already Republican supermajorities in both chambers of the Indiana General Assembly, and those legislative maps have since been updated and fortified to protect that offensive imbalance for the foreseeable future here. Of course, that assumes Hoosier voters will keep voting red, no matter what that ultimately means. The Republican brand of 2014 would be unrecognizable to a new Republican in 2025. Ronald Reagan is no longer a hero. Richard Nixon is no longer an embarrassment. And Antonin Scalia is unknown to most modern GOP voters. "12 Years a Slave" and "Dallas Buyers Club" cleaned up at the Oscars that year, both of which were stories of historic heroism in response to horrible periods of American history. Those hit movies make me wonder what the great stories about this moment will be, decades or even centuries from now. Early next year, I will publish my second novel, "The Edge of Motherland." The setting is early 2020 in Indianapolis, and the story details an unusual friendship that begins just as the pandemic is locking down the city and the country. The actual historic events, and their impact on people during the first half of that year were remarkable all by themselves, and the book documents plenty of them. But the reason for writing it is to document how the moment felt, and how those feelings inspired a reevaluation of what "home" means. It's not a book about politics or government. Eleven years ago, I was a contract lobbyist, primarily working for clients who needed assistance communicating and advocating to state government. I had been consulting in the private sector for a dozen years following a career of similar length as a state employee and agency executive. Government, and the politics that steered it, was what I spent my professional life studying and working to impact. My résumé would indicate I was an expert in a niche market that was financially rewarding. But I was losing interest in it. Writing this column helped keep it interesting for me back then and for many years since. I have now published more than 600 columns, and almost 500 of them have been specifically about politics and government. When I look back at the body of work, most would agree, some more than others, that on these topics, I've written enough. So, I am going to stop writing about politics in my weekly columns.    Before I go though, I want to leave a few parting thoughts.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert Michael Leppert is an author, educator and a communication consultant in Indianapolis. He writes about government, politics and culture at MichaelLeppert.com. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.  

It was a lovely September morning in Indianapolis in 2018. We had been living in our new townhouse downtown for about a year, relocating from a house just two blocks up the street. I was still a consultant back then and this was still my offseason. So, I had casually risen and slow-walked my way through my morning routine, making my way to the shower around 10:30 am. When I got out, the crime rate in my house had skyrocketed. A burglar was downstairs stealing my laptop, backpack and wallet. Last week, the FBI released its Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) summary for 2024. It's an annual report commonly used to understand the "crime rate." The good news in this report, as has been the trend for the last three decades, is that crime in America continues to slow. However, much of America doesn't seem to know it or doesn't want to admit it.  Feeling like crime is on the rise justifies doing dramatic things like mobilizing the military in cities like Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. when there is no actual justification. It's not really about actual crime. It's the crime drama that is in play here. It would be convenient to give credit to some politician, political party, or civic group for the sharp declines in violent and property crimes since the early 90s. But the reduction is too big and has been trending for too many political cycles to support such a claim. Besides, in 2025, much of the public would rather pretend that crime, in general, is rampant, a scourge that must be given the highest priority to eradicate. Yes, it is my belief that much of America would actually prefer to believe that crime is a growing problem, not a shrinking one. Pew Research published an update to its extensive study on the issue last year. The most shocking part of the study is how disconnected the public's perception is from the reality of actual crime rates. For example, between 1993 and 2022, violent crime has decreased by 49%. By half! But when asked, the perception that crime is up "in the last year" has continued to rise from 47% in 2000, to 77% in 2023. As crime rates have shrunk, the perception of its growth has risen. And almost as sharply. Why is that? One contributing factor is how crime is reported.

To me, "1984" was originally a rock album, the last studio collection of songs by the original members of Van Halen. It was July 7, 1984, when the 16-year-old version of me earned his way to a spot right in front of Eddie Van Halen's place on the stage at Roberts Stadium in Evansville for the biggest tour of the year. Back then, we fought for those spots on the arena floor. The album was named after George Orwell's classic book, even though there is no artistic connection between the book's "Ministry of Truth" and songs like "Hot for Teacher." Back then though, even after learning more about the book and growing out of Van Halen, both seemed like nothing more than inconsequential examples of make-believe. That was a different time. Last Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its monthly jobs report—as has been typically done on the first Friday of every month. The first bit of bad news in this report was the 73,000 jobs added in July, significantly lower than the forecasted 109,000. But that initial bad news got worse. What is commonly done in the monthly jobs report are revisions to prior monthly reports after data is more accurate and complete. The BLS revised the May and June reports downward by 250,000 jobs, the largest revision outside of the COVID era, since 1979.  As reported by the BBC, "It is not unusual for the BLS to amend jobs figures as more data comes to light, however. During Joe Biden's presidency, statistics for 12 months over 2023-4 were retroactively revised downward by 818,000 jobs." Importantly, the article also stated, "Though this month's changes were much larger than usual, analysts said the updates were consistent with other data showing slowdown." It's not great news. When I saw the numbers, I wasn't surprised at all. I also wasn't giddy about how they might make President Donald Trump's obviously questionable economic strategies look as perilous as I think they will be. I remember saying out loud to the report, "Well, yea." Trump apparently thought the report should say something different and was also apparently so enraged by this bad news that later that day, he fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer. She was appointed as the commissioner in January of 2024 and was confirmed by the Senate on an 86-8 vote. Then-Senator and current Vice President J.D. Vance voted yes. Then-Senator and current Secretary of State Marco Rubio voted yes. Her impeccable qualifications were reported extensively by Fortune on Sunday.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. X @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert Michael Leppert is an author, educator and a communication consultant in Indianapolis. He writes about government, politics and culture at MichaelLeppert.com. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.  

On Monday night, I sat in my recliner writing my third novel. I'm about halfway done with it, and my editor is expecting that first half by the end of the week so she can do a midpoint "assessment" of the story. She worked on my last book, and I know how she operates. The first question she will contemplate is whether or not the story is grabbing the audience quickly. That's on my mind this week, though I'm 40,000 words into this soon-to-be classic already. As I was pecking away on my laptop, my wife was on the couch reading. She hadn't made a sound in a while, and without my notorious pounding on the keys, the living room would have been silent. Until she unexpectedly burst into tears. "I didn't see that coming!" she announced while asking me to get her some tissues. Bursting into tears, or laughing out loud, or even descending into an extended stretch of quiet contemplation are what people often seek when they read. It's the joy of thinking. That's what reading for pleasure is. People are reading less than they once did. I write "they" because I'm reading more than I ever have. And my wife grew up a reader and it's clear she will always be one.  The recent news of our education challenges in Indiana is telling a different story. First, Casey Smith reported for the Indiana Capital Chronicle last week, "Indiana's college-going rate drops again, dipping to 51.7%." This descent scares me for my home state. Not just because I am a college teacher and my craft appears to be losing popularity, but because I believe that the prosperity of all people depends on their ongoing commitment to learning. Any learning. All learning. The culture wars instigated by Indiana's political leaders on the state's public and private institutions of higher education will only deepen this specific decline. As a teacher and writer, I wonder what Hoosiers really want for themselves. Behaviorally speaking, apparently destroying "wokeness" and "owning the libs" are more important than learning. There's no question those things are cheaper. But only in the moment. Prioritizing those repulsive behaviors will end up being wildly expensive. Smith reported, "Indiana's college-going rate has dropped more than any other state tracked by the National Center for Education Statistics over the past 15 years. Previously, Indiana reached a college-going rate of 65%." What do our leaders believe the outcome of this collapse will be five years from now? How about ten?   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert Michael Leppert is an author, educator and a communication consultant in Indianapolis. He writes about government, politics and culture at MichaelLeppert.com. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.  

Last week, GOP U.S. Rep. Maria Salazar of Florida, filed "The Dignity Act of 2025," a bipartisan immigration reform package that would provide legal status for certain undocumented immigrants. She filed similar legislation in 2023, but the political climate has changed wildly since way back then. Unsurprisingly, the economic demand for migrant labor has not. Donald Trump is now in the White House and the mass deportation initiative he promised is being implemented at breakneck speed. The masked raids by a growing masked army known as Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, are happening in unpredictable places all over the country. The impact of the sweeps, however, is as predictable as the sunrise. What else has changed in politics? U.S. Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Indiana, recaptured Indiana's 3rd Congressional District seat after Republican Jim Banks vacated the seat to run for the U.S. Senate. Stutzman is one of 10 GOP House members to sign onto the Dignity Act 2025, and that is no small gesture. In normal times, of which these are certainly not, Stutzman's co-sponsorship of legislation designed to protect the agricultural economy that dominates his district would make perfect sense. And make no mistake about it, the legislation is a far cry from what immigration hard liners could legitimately pan as an amnesty policy. As reported by the Indianapolis Star, the bill "would provide legal status to undocumented immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for at least five years, so long as they pass a criminal background check, pay a $7,000 fine across seven years and begin paying taxes. The bill would allow people with this status to stay indefinitely, though they would be ineligible for federal benefits." Documenting living in the U.S. for five years by an undocumented immigrant would seem to be the first challenge. The second challenge is the "fine." Is it really a fine? It seems more like an installment program for the purchasing of legal status. I can hear the sales pitch now: "For the low, low price of $1000 a year, you can live out your days as a farm worker in peace and prosperity." ICE will be able to sort all of that out during their masked kidnappings, I'm sure.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert Michael Leppert is an author, educator and a communication consultant in Indianapolis. He writes about government, politics and culture at MichaelLeppert.com. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.  

Last week, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced there will be no release of the "Jeffrey Epstein files." It's hard to predict when people will have finally had enough. The tolerance level of undesirable traits and behaviors from other humans will vary from person to person of course. And in today's world of unexplainable group think, a rational understanding of group tolerance is often fleeting. This is not a column that will provide some new theories about what's in the elusive Epstein files. No, I will never have confidence that the entire truth of that monster's life will be known. I didn't before he died, and with each passing moment since his death, the whole truth has drifted further and further from us. But we did know enough about him, and his disgusting existence, long ago, to know who not to trust with giving us the facts. Epstein had been friends with Donald Trump. They socialized together. They traveled together. They womanized together. Anyone paying attention already knew all of this. Trump and his minions were never going to be the truth tellers in this or any other saga. But particularly this one. So, I never understood why Trump's supporters sought "transparency" regarding the U.S. Department of Justice's infamous "Epstein Files." Did they seek confirmation of what was already widely known? It can't be that. No, there was seemingly some menu of conspiracy theories floating around in their ecosystem that would cause the stench of Epstein and his sex trafficking operation to stick to others. It always seemed like an elaborate fantasy of MAGA world that if someone from the other side was as dirty and as guilty as Trump, it would make all of his badness tolerable somehow. But again, what is it that causes that kind of devotion, that kind of naivete?   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert Michael Leppert is an author, educator and a communication consultant in Indianapolis. He writes about government, politics and culture at MichaelLeppert.com. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.  

Oh, to have existed in a period of time named the "Renaissance," a French word that means "rebirth." As explained by Brittanica, "it was primarily a time of the revival of Classical learning and wisdom after a long period of cultural decline and stagnation." The recently enacted biennial budget crafted by the Indiana General Assembly is hostile toward learning in favor of stagnation. The Commission for Higher Education announced last week that six of the state's public universities are suspending or consolidating more than 400 academic degree programs to comply with the new budget. "The cuts are intended to help students focus on more in-demand fields and to comply early with the new state budget, which now sets minimum enrollment and completion thresholds for all degree programs offered at public institutions," as reported by Casey Smith of the Indiana Capital Chronicle. Absurdité. Sorry, that's another French word that means "nonsense." Look at the list of programs on the chopping block. Some highlights include undergraduate foreign language programs at Indiana University; graduate programs in literature at Purdue; international business at Ball State; and graduate programs in history and political science at Indiana State. These cuts aren't going to help students do anything. It is a decision to teach fewer things, to offer less to young Hoosiers, and importantly, it is a move toward "cultural decline and stagnation."   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert Michael Leppert is an author, educator and a communication consultant in Indianapolis. He writes about government, politics and culture at MichaelLeppert.com. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.  

Every semester, the students in my business writing class are divided up into teams and are assigned a real-life challenge from a company looking to elevate its performance in any number of ways. It's an opportunity to research the complexities of a market, to create an entrepreneurial solution and to effectively communicate all of it to the company looking to grow. And it's an opportunity for me. I get to teach them the value of feedback. The worst ideas I've seen in my career come from organizations that spend too much time only talking to each other. The habit skews logic and rationality and creates blind spots allowing for fantastical outcomes that ultimately prevent actual success. So, let's talk about this lesson plan in the context of "The One Big Beautiful Bill Act," or "OBBBA." First, the name itself. What likely started as a spasm straight from the mouth of President Donald Trump has become the dumbest title of landmark legislation in history. It communicates nothing of what the legislation actually does, good or bad, and sounds unserious, sarcastic and irritating in its vagueness. On Tuesday while researching the latest in the U.S. Senate, I spotted the first commercials for Trump's new men's cologne and women's perfume on social media. I, of course, thought it was a hoax at first, but confirmed it's reality. The scents, called "Fight, Fight, Fight" and "Victory 45-47" must feature a refreshing aroma; sweet, soothing and subtle with a sort of locker room-esque approachability. After that brief rancid distraction, I went back to looking for the talking points from those who support Trump's legislation. I came across the promotion of "OBBBA," on the White House webpage. This document is truly stunning in its silliness. Please look at it. It honestly looks like an ad for the smelly cologne, or possibly an ad for a pride-swallowing memoir about the smelly cologne. But I'm a professional, so I scrolled past that embarrassing half page to get to the words part of this debate. There are endorsements rolling by on a ticker under an oversized header, "Backed by American Industry." This list is actually pretty short: Verizon, Comcast, Dell, 3M, Delta and Uber. Hmm. Uber? The company that finally turned its first annual profit in 2023 is supporting OBBBA because of the bill's elimination of taxes on tips. But that elimination doesn't appear to apply to Uber drivers in its current form. This endeavor is so gimmicky, even those who support the idea in theory often overlook its limited impact. The Economic Policy Institute's February piece is a valuable source on the issue.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert Michael Leppert is an author, educator and a communication consultant in Indianapolis. He writes about government, politics and culture at MichaelLeppert.com. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.    

I spent last weekend in New York, as I try to do once a year, for the primary purpose of seeing the latest hot show or two on Broadway. I'd love to say I am expert at picking the best shows, but the truth is, if a show has gotten my attention in the heartland, it's a safe bet. "Maybe Happy Ending" first caught my eye with its list of Tony nominations, so I bought the tickets. After my purchase, the show won six, including Best Musical. While I was in the city, the political ads were relentless on TV and on many of the digital billboards in Times Square. Tuesday was the Democratic primary election for mayor of the city—a contest that lately has, if nothing else, been a source of entertainment for the rest of the country. This time around, however, the contest is enraging. Former New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, has been leading in the polls to win. Victory will bring him a new job, and as some suggest, redemption. Cuomo resigned from office in August of 2021, during his third term as governor. The state legislature was preparing to impeach him at the time. New York's attorney general had released the results of an investigation that found Cuomo had sexually harassed at least 11 women. He had created a work environment "rife with fear and intimidation." Where are these women now? Our culture doesn't ask this question or consider the answer deeply enough. The public is being asked to forgive or forget how the politician's abhorrent behavior forever changed their victim's life trajectories. If we collectively put this question up front, where it belongs, we would be less susceptible to reenlisting for the ridiculous: That these perpetrators are worthy of their victims' trust or ours ever again. Cuomo's career in public service should have ended permanently four years ago. His resignation was the end of his defense and likely provided some level of closure to those he harmed. I doubt the ending was happy for the victims, but that "Maybe Happy Ending" was better than the fantasy that the abhorrent behavior never occurred. Cuomo's attempt at "redemption" is an exercise in pretending.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert Michael Leppert is an author, educator and a communication consultant in Indianapolis. He writes about government, politics and culture at MichaelLeppert.com. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.  

A quarter century ago, as a young bureaucrat, I had a disagreement with my bosses. Energy commodities markets were going through an historic price spike, and my agency set the final rates customers would pay. I wanted rates to mirror the market to send "price signals" to consumers and provoke a reduction in consumption. The bosses wanted to spread costs over a long period to mitigate "rate shock." They feared the infinitely possible responses that could come from an angry public. The bosses won, as bosses usually do, and we kept rates flat, and the public remained calm. Governing has changed since then. Last Thursday, June 12th, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, D-California, was forcibly removed from a news conference being conducted by the U.S. Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem. He was ultimately tackled and handcuffed before being released. Why? He wanted to ask Noem some questions, and there were no questions to ask her that she would have been able to easily answer, so her security detail overreacted early. Where? In Los Angeles, where Padilla is arguably far more important than Noem. This wasn't a mistake on Noem's part or on her security detail's part. It was purposeful theater. While Padilla was being restrained unnecessarily, Noem was saying this according to NBC News: "We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialist and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country," referring to California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, both Democrats. The Trump Administration is declaring war on state and local government in California. Or was Noem just trying to see what the reaction to that possibility would be? On Friday, June 13th, Israel began firing missiles into Iran. As reported by Reuters, "The air war between Iran and Israel - which began on Friday when Israel attacked Iran with air strikes - has raised alarms in a region that had already been on edge since the start of Israel's military assault on Gaza in October 2023." Israel claims the bombing was necessary to preempt Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Yes, this issue had been addressed during the Obama Administration when the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was signed, specifically to prevent it. President Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement during his first term and failed to craft a new nuclear deal with Iran to replace it. Now we have a replacement: war. The U.S. has been working to avoid this conflict since the Reagan Administration.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert Michael Leppert is an author, educator and a communication consultant in Indianapolis. He writes about government, politics and culture at MichaelLeppert.com. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.  

I am working on publishing a new book this year. So, I'm spending time with other writers, readers, editors and consultants to make sure the finished product is as good as it can be. While online the other day, an editor wrote: "The purpose of fiction is to ask the audience questions to consider; the purpose of non-fiction, is to give them answers." I assumed that was a famous quote, because it's so wonderful, but I can't find its originator for attribution. "Who said that?" is a question in need of an answer. I don't ever seem to run out of questions, and neither does humanity. Answers, on the other hand, are scarce and precious. We should treat them that way. As reported by the Indianapolis Star on June 5th, "Purdue University announced it will no longer help distribute its student newspaper on campus — one of a handful (of) decisions distancing itself from the independent student publication." The Purdue Exponent has been a vital news publication during my 30-year career in the Indiana media space. The student newspaper is 135-years-old and has been invaluable to students, the Purdue community and to the state for the entirety of that time. This decision by Purdue follows similar moves made by Indiana University in 2024 directed toward its student newspaper, the Indiana Daily Student. A particularly curious part of the Purdue announcement is the instruction that the newspaper "should" omit the use of "Purdue" in its name moving forward, even though the publication has the name trademarked until 2029. Expansive explanations for this kind of hostility toward the paper have not been provided yet, but questions about that specifically are things we all should ponder. On June 8th, Lauren Tomasi, a correspondent for 9News of Australia was shot by a rubber bullet while covering the Los Angeles protests. The video of the incident can be seen here. On the same day in LA, British photojournalist, Nick Stern was also struck by "non-lethal" rounds fired by law enforcement. He said in an interview with The Guardian, "I'm walking around taking photos…walking across the road when I felt a mighty pain in my leg. I put my hand down and felt a lump kind of sticking out the back of my leg." He is currently recovering from surgery that was necessary to treat his injury.  Questions abound. Here, in the once shiny city on the hill known as America, our institutions of authority are turning on our nation's "Fourth Estate."   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert Michael Leppert is an author, educator and a communication consultant in Indianapolis. He writes about government, politics and culture at MichaelLeppert.com. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.  

I love June in Indianapolis. School's out for me. The gardens, flowers and lawns around town are blooming and greening with optimism. And the city is quiet as it recovers from its traditionally hectic month of May. As my favorite performer, David Ryan Harris, sang in concert many years ago, this time of year transforms "slow like the breezes of springtime melt into summer's grace."  As a dad, I am treated well in June. As a golfer, Indiana's greens rarely run smoother. As a proud downtown dweller, my neighbors never love each other better. And that last one is all because of Indy Pride. Indy Pride is celebrating thirty years as an organization in 2025. Its founding preceded President Bill Clinton's declaration of June as Pride Month in 1999. Yes, there are organizations all over America holding events during this wonderful month. I've had comparative conversations with people from other cities countless times. They usually go like this: "Our Pride is the best because…" An opening that often leads to an interruption of, "No, ours is better because…" The truth is all of them are special, and while I love mine the most, Indiana is not all that different from the rest of America. Cities and towns all over the state also have events of their own. From Fort Wayne to Spencer, from Greenwood to River City Pride in Warrick County, Hoosiers celebrate the LGBTQ community, and importantly, our collective love of it this month. That is why it so truly evil that Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith hates it so much. I recognize Beckwith's hatefulness. It grows from ignorance, and his relentless commitment to it. On May 30th, he posted "PRIDE MONTH ALERT: The Rainbow Beast is Coming For Your Kids" on his Micah Beckwith for Indiana Facebook page. The kooky post is largely lifted from the story posted on an equally kooky website called "The Dissenter." It's difficult to editorialize on the lunatic rantings of, again, the sitting lieutenant governor of the State of Indiana. It's akin to arguing with an idiot; there's not much to be gained in the exercise. But as humanity begins the loving and celebratory month of June, it is important to bring attention to a primary reason why Pride exists. It is the ignorance, the lunacy, and the hatefulness from the smallest of people, like Beckwith, that should motivate those of us who love Pride's celebrations to stay focused on its absolute necessity.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert Michael Leppert is an author, educator and a communication consultant in Indianapolis. He writes about government, politics and culture at MichaelLeppert.com. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.  

In the 1983 classic film, "Trading Places," Louis Winthorpe III and Billy Ray Valentine are victims of a scientific experiment that is thrust upon them by the elite bosses of a Philadelphia commodities brokerage. Winthorpe is a young, snobby broker at the firm, with all the right credentials and upbringing. He is comprehensively replaced by Valentine, a streetwise but uneducated nobody. The amateur sociological experiment aimed to prove that environment is more predictive than genetics in determining personal success or failure. After the switch, Winthorpe spots Valentine wearing the clothes he once owned, specifically his Harvard tie. Only the cream of the crop, the elites among the elite are worthy of wearing the school's crest. An enraged Winthorpe exclaims, "Like oh sure, he went to Harvard!"  I used to repeat the line out loud anytime I saw Harvard gear being worn by anyone, anywhere--especially to friends who actually did go to school there. It used to be fun. In 2025, Donald Trump is trying to destroy arguably our most reputable institution of higher education based on his "claims that Harvard has failed to stamp out antisemitism on campus," as reported by NPR's Steve Inskeep, in the Morning Edition on Tuesday. It's nonsense of course. Pretend for a moment that a specific ground zero of all American antisemitism actually existed. Where would that place be? I might look at the places flying Nazi or Confederate flags. I might look at the places where historic hostilities toward minorities of any kind thrive. I might look where hate crimes are being committed and civil rights are under threat. Trump has chosen to look at Harvard, a university with a Jewish population among undergraduates of approximately 26%, according to Hillel International. That's where the MAGA crowd believes antisemitism needs thwarted. More importantly, they believe the make-believe crisis is worthy of annihilating one of the world's most respected institutions to solve it.  Again, it's all nonsense. No one actually believes any of this. However, Trump's supporters love destroying things. The destruction of our global reputation, the U.S. Capitol, the rule of law, etc. are proof of that. Damn the consequences, they primarily enjoy burning stuff down.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert Michael Leppert is an author, educator and a communication consultant in Indianapolis. He writes about government, politics and culture at MichaelLeppert.com. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.  

Bureaucracy is a word that is often used as an excuse. It is the bogeyman that serves as the source of mysterious and insurmountable odds preventing government from delivering the obvious good and right things to its people. Why are the streets in Indianapolis so horrible? Why is school funding seemingly always distributed unfairly? Eventually, the answers to those questions lead to the faceless phantom, known as bureaucracy. However, sometimes that phantom is identified, making accountability possible for whatever ails us. That's when we point at an actual person, the sinister "bureaucrat." On May 7th, Whitney Downard reported for the Indiana Capital Chronicle, "'A giant leap backwards': Indiana opts out of summer program for hungry schoolchildren." She reported that in 2024, Hoosier families who qualify for food benefits and reduced-price school meals got a summertime boost: $120 per child monthly for food while schools were closed. It provided that assistance to 669,000 children. What made it news earlier this month is that Indiana's participation last year, won't be repeated this year. The reason? You guessed it, bureaucracy. Downard asked "three state entities" about the withdrawal from the SUN Bucks program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, including the important question: why? At that time, no reasoning was provided. I was hopeful more reporting would follow, and on May 16th, it did. Rachel Fradette reported for WFYI that in a statement from Indiana's Family and Social Services Administration, that "clear direction" was needed from state leadership last year for the program to be rolled out in a timely manner. "Upon taking office, this administration quickly submitted a waiver application to the Food and Nutrition Service to explore all possible avenues for launching the program this summer…However, our review revealed that the gaps in prior preparations prevented implementation in time for Summer 2025." That's the classic blaming of bureaucracy. But there's a face here, and that face is Governor Mike Braun. Could this Trump loyalist have made a phone call to the White House? Yes. Did he?   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert Michael Leppert is an author, educator and a communication consultant in Indianapolis. He writes about government, politics and culture at MichaelLeppert.com. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.  

In the opening scene of the film, "The Hate U Give," a father is having The Talk with his two young children. It is a common discussion Black families have in America to prepare for the inevitable contact with law enforcement they will face, and how to stay safe in those situations. It is a sad necessity, but a necessity all the same. The movie was based on the 2017 award-winning novel by Angie Thomas. It was inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, though plenty of important things have happened in real life since then. In The Talk, the father is instructing his kids how to be submissive when confronted by an armed aggressor with governmental authority. That submissiveness communicates to the authority the intent to be compliant and peaceful and is designed to lower the temperature of the moment. The goal is to survive the moment and then worry about justice through due process later. It's good advice. At least it used to be. Before 2025, the advice from The Talk made some assumptions. Primarily, that those claiming to be the police were exactly that. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, has apparently made mask-wearing part of the standard attire when detaining people. Sometimes they are in military style clothing, and sometimes they are in plain clothes, an inconsistency that makes them even less trustworthy. The agents are often armed with semi-automatic rifles adding to the fear factor of the costumes being worn when capturing their targets. When I first noticed it earlier this year, I was surprised and curious. With each passing video, my initial concern has evolved into outrage. It is disturbing how this approach to law enforcement has quickly become the norm at the Department of Homeland Security, the governing department of ICE. We cannot stand for this practice to spread to other law enforcement agencies, or for it to continue with DHS. And The Talk won't work for this.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert Michael Leppert is an author, educator and a communication consultant in Indianapolis. He writes about government, politics and culture at MichaelLeppert.com. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.  

In "Mother Night," Kurt Vonnegut wrote: "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." I might add: "And for how long." I was invited to join a small group of students last week to celebrate the completion of their undergraduate degrees. We first met four years ago, and I remember the moment vividly. It was my first day as a full-time instructor at an elite business school and they were freshmen in their first week of classes.  Heading into the fourth lecture of that first day, I wasn't convinced I had made the right decision to leave a lucrative private sector career to teach. I didn't know how the technology in the classroom worked. I didn't know I could move the furniture around any way I wanted. I was so consumed with my own ignorance that I hadn't even considered the far more unsettled condition of these young people. They expected me to be brilliant, to be a source of stability in the middle of the chaos of their first week of college. I wasn't brilliant. I was pretending. And I wasn't pretending very well. The first three classes that day were filled with students who were nervously silent. My own nervousness didn't help. But when I entered that last class of the day, the students were talking and laughing with each other like they were old friends, hardly noticing that the evil professor had arrived. One of them made eye contact with me and I asked, "What, did all of you go to high school together?" She looked at me curiously, seemingly wondering if I had forgotten that it was the first day of school, and said, "uh, we just met." That moment changed everything for me. Four years later, the first days of my semesters are wildly different. I am a little evil, but not accidentally. I am a little anxious, but only because I know the fun that lies ahead. I'm more than a little curious about my new students. I'm truly fascinated by them. And that curiosity is everything. I teach speech and writing to students who didn't go to college to learn either. They can all follow instruction on rhetoric and persuasiveness, and they all know what a complete sentence is. Teaching that stuff has become the easy part. The real challenge is helping them find their voice.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert Michael Leppert is an author, educator and a communication consultant in Indianapolis. He writes about government, politics and culture at MichaelLeppert.com. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.  

Since the measure was first coined by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1933, the "First 100 Days" is the standard we exclusively give new presidents "as a symbolic window to set the tone" of their administration. "It represents a kind of political version of a first impression," according to History.com. In 2025 though, the new president isn't really new, the first impression isn't actually the first one, and the symbolic window is less about the tone and more about the zone. That zone is being flooded right now, a strategic mantra of President Donald Trump's on-again, off-again, ex-con adviser, Steve Bannon. Monday, April 28th, was a classic day from this playbook. Two national stories detailed an attack on the Civil Rights Act from two different federal agencies and on two different targets. The stories were written as if the perpetrators of them were independent of one another, operating without a hint of knowledge that both were attacking the same iconic American standard: equal rights. On April 23rd, Trump signed an Executive Order titled, "Restoring Equality of Opportunity and Meritocracy."  As Newsweek reported: "It calls for an evaluation of all pending proceedings under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), which was first passed in 1974 and amended in 1976 to prevent lenders from discriminating against women based on marital status." The obvious, rational question this EO provokes is a simple one: why? The EO is attacking the principle of "disparate-impact liability," or "the idea that racism, sexism, or some other form of discrimination can occur without explicit intent." Bluntly, the Trump administration is concerned that the protections against discrimination created by ECOA half a century ago might be resulting in negative consequences for those clearly responsible for the original problem. Ben Olinsky, senior vice president of Structural Reform and Governance at the Center for American Progress explains that the Trump team's justification of reviewing the laws this way: "Because that somehow might, in individual cases, cause a white young man to lose out because the criteria has been shifted." Yes, of course. The ridiculous notion of "reverse discrimination" is often described with terms like "meritocracy" by those known for ridiculous notions. And no, an EO cannot repeal a law. But it can direct federal agencies to behave differently, and in this case, the primary enforcement agency of ECOA is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The Trump team apparently wants to take the "protection" out of that agency's mission across the board. Specifically in this example, protecting women, any and all women, is being rolled back.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert Michael Leppert is an author, educator and a communication consultant in Indianapolis. He writes about government, politics and culture at MichaelLeppert.com. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.      

I have often wondered where the phrase "spinning a yarn" came from, and what differentiates the descriptive from the blunter, "making stuff up." This week's absurd spin, courtesy of Indiana Gov. Mike Braun, finally inspired me to do a little search for it. Merriam-Webster theorizes that "it may be connected to the sailor's task of rope making," because of the path of the term's traceable usage through the maritime world. The tedious process of twisting fibers into yarns, yarns into strands, and then strands into rope by hand must have been torturous in the early 1800s, when the term first appeared in print. "It is likely that tales were told by the sailors while making rope, leading to the figurative use 'spinning a yarn' for storytelling." Piles of rope were apparently made in the Indiana Statehouse last week in response to the updated and gloomy revenue forecast. Some mysterious set of circumstances turned the December forecast of $800 million in growth for the next biennium into more than $2 billion of expected losses. Hmm. What changed? As reported by Arika Herron for Axios Indianapolis, "The dismal forecast is driven by slower than expected growth in jobs and wages, stock market declines and the effects of federal policies around tariffs, immigration and spending cuts." Uh, yea. That was as predictable as tomorrow's sunrise. But while the forecast is truly dismal, it is still just a forecast. There is no reason to be certain in it because the source of its dismal nature is uncertainty itself. Reality could be worse. And here's where the fibers-to-yarns process begins. Gov. Braun issued a statement the day the forecast was released. He said: "Today's forecast reflects what we are dealing with in the aftermath of disastrous Bidenflation. There will be some tough times ahead, but the America First economic policies we are pursuing here and in Washington will unleash an economic boom." Wow. In those two prepared sentences, and I emphasize that they were prepared, the Indiana governor is blaming the former president for the problem, acknowledging tough times ahead, and topping it off with baseless economic optimism that the state's own forecasters won't predict. That's an awful lot of rope.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert Michael Leppert is an author, educator and a communication consultant in Indianapolis. He writes about government, politics and culture at MichaelLeppert.com. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.  

"Bridge of Spies" is a 2015 movie about an insurance attorney, James Donovan, who finds himself representing a Soviet spy, Rudolph Abel, in a highly publicized espionage trial in 1957. Yes, it's directed by Steven Spielberg, and Tom Hanks stars in it, so, of course, there are Academy Awards involved. And yes, there were dramatic embellishments in the storytelling sprinkled throughout the film with one important exception: The government never betrayed its duty to the U.S. Constitution. Imagine 1950's America. We were at war with the Soviet Union. No one could be more unanimously seen as evil than that ominous enemy and their soldiers. And Rudolph Abel was guilty. Not because J. Edgar Hoover said so, but because he was convicted in a court of law. I have immense pride in the things that make my home what it is. I have traveled abroad and met people where they live, and I have met an abundance of people here, who are not from here. The circumstances of our lives are what fascinates us with one another. And I have always preferred mine to theirs.  Those circumstances changed on Monday. History will date it. Last Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a decision by U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis instructing the government to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador where he was erroneously deported. SCOTUS specifically instructed the Trump administration to "facilitate and effectuate" the return of Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant who had been living in Maryland and has had a work permit since 2019. The Department of Justice had been fighting the lawsuit filed by Garcia's family in response to the deportation, even though it acknowledged it was done in error. The legal wrangling of the government to avoid righting its wrong in this case has been absurd for weeks. However, when the highest court in the land issued its decision last week, the American in me had a brief rush of hope that our constitution would hold. That hope is now gone.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert Michael Leppert is an author, educator and a communication consultant in Indianapolis. He writes about government, politics and culture at MichaelLeppert.com. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.  

The term "glad handing" appeared in the American vernacular at the beginning of the 20th century, through the phrase, "to give the glad hand," or extend a welcome. But that type of welcome has generally come with a twist, an intention, or an agenda. Merriam-Webster defines the term as "a warm welcome or greeting often prompted by ulterior reasons." It makes sense that the practice is most often attributed to politicians who are working a room. Even with ulterior motives, the practice would feature a pleasantness and happy charisma to audiences, much like an effective Instagram account would today. Not all politicians are great at it, even though most used to at least try to be. Not Sen. Jim Banks, R-Indiana though. No, no. His communication strategy flips glad handing on its head. He doesn't want people, voters, you know, Hoosiers, to see him being insincerely polite or jovial. Not even in a moment of weakness. He's proudest of his public displays of meanness, or what should now be labeled, "mad handing." I'm in the words business, so I'm taking my shot at coining a phrase in hopes of making it into a credible dictionary someday. ABC reported last week about the now infamous and viral video of Banks telling a man on Capitol Hill who identified himself as a recently fired Health and Human Services employee that he "probably deserved it" because "you seem like a clown." The freshman senator is proudly refusing to apologize and is even promoting the video himself as some sort of achievement. Why? I went on a search to try to identify the phenomenon and there actually is some science out there that is helpful. Dr. Mark Travers wrote "When Anger is a Strategy" for Psychology Today in 2022. The article reviewed a study published in the medical journal, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. The sports-based study found that low competitive status is linked with higher aggression. Dr. Macià Buades-Rotger of the University of Barcelona and co-author of the research said, "Put bluntly, losers are more aggressive than winners on average, and that makes sense: If your rival outperforms you, you must resort to aggression to try and stop them." Yes, it makes perfect sense and in so many ways. Not just on the playing field of sports, but in the constant jockeying for fame and favor in right-wing politics. In the Banks example from last week, he didn't have the confidence or courage to defend the haphazard and mass firings that have decimated many vital federal institutions, so he defaulted to aggression. Not by mistake, but by design.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert Michael Leppert is an author, educator and a communication consultant in Indianapolis. He writes about government, politics and culture at MichaelLeppert.com. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.  

A friend sent me a link to an episode of "Pod Save America" on Sunday with the short message, "This is worth your time." The podcast is a favorite among the left, hosted by a small group of former Obama advisers who describe the show as being for people "who are not ready to give up or go insane." I have occasionally listened to it, but frankly, I didn't want to give it an entire, torturous hour of my precious weekend. A few hours later, I find myself in the middle of a project: learning about the "abundance agenda." Jon Favreau hosted the episode featuring authors Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson and a discussion of their new book, "Abundance." The blurb describes it as "a once-in-a-generation, paradigm-shifting call to renew a politics of plenty, face up to the failures of liberal governance, and abandon the chosen scarcities that have deformed American life." The challenge in that description is obvious. Liberals have to face up to their failures? Oh no, anything but that! Commentary and polling data of late is showing a frustration toward what appears to be a void of leadership on the left. It's a predictable cycle following an election like the one that happened five months ago. The other side won. Electoral minorities don't get inaugurated. They don't have black-tie galas to celebrate their defeat and anoint the poohbah of the resistance either. In the spring following an election like 2024, it is customary for the losing team to still be searching for its recovery plan. However, this moment is clearly different than that typical spring-after. American institutions are being decimated by a Trump administration not because of some ideology or consensus-based ambition of the GOP, but simply for the joy of the decimation itself. Resisting, effective resisting is what the Democrat faithful seem to be demanding more than anything. Democrats, and mathematically, the majority of Americans, can vividly see what it doesn't like happening in Washington. What is less clear to both leaders and followers of progressive politics is what the proactive alternative should be. Abundance, as an agenda, could become that alternative. Basically, the agenda is that blue cites and blue states need to govern better, but not just for the sake of governing. Klein explains on the podcast that abundance, as an agenda, attempts to answer this simple but important question: "what don't we have enough of and how do we get it?"   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert Michael Leppert is an author, educator and a communication consultant in Indianapolis. He writes about government, politics and culture at MichaelLeppert.com. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.  

Henry Reider is a young man from Sierra Leone who recently and miraculously survived tuberculosis. Using the words "recently" and "miraculously" to describe his recovery from a disease that has had a preventive vaccine since 1921 and a cure since 1943 is reason enough to become obsessed with the question: why? "Everything is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection" is not a book I would choose to read under normal circumstances. Outside of the medical community or those afflicted with it, who would? I am hopeful that, for starters, it will be read by the same people who put other John Green books on the bestseller lists. And then growing from that unusual initial gathering of readers, it reaches the souls of every individual who needs to read it. Green met Reider and his mother several years ago on a trip to the west African nation, and the families have become friends. Green's son, not to mention his famous brother, is also named Henry, which has led Reider to refer to both as the "namesakes," in their regular calls since his recovery. All of the components of that recovery serve as the primary human story and the vehicle for the latest great book in Green's library of greats. Reider's story is fascinating, especially when told by one of the great storytellers of our time. But the history and the evolution of responses to the infection is the real star here. From the now ridiculous sounding strategies and treatments of it, to the way cities and even states, like New Mexico, were developed in large part to combat the infection, are all expertly detailed. Even fashion trends would evolve and modify based on what can only today be seen as irrational theories on how infections function.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert Michael Leppert is an author, educator and a communication consultant in Indianapolis. He writes about government, politics and culture at MichaelLeppert.com. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.  

Sun Tzu, the former Chinese general, military strategist and philosopher, is known for his treatise, "The Art of War." It's remarkable how valuable the writings, believed to have been written in the 5th century BC, continue to be today. Forget the arguments about whether he is the one who wrote it and when. It doesn't matter. The lessons are simple, and they still work. I cannot recall a legislative decision as ridiculous as the one made Friday by New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and the Senate Democratic Caucus he leads. After weeks of articulating the awful things contained in the Republican version of the budget continuing resolution, or CR, he abandoned his position at crunch time and chose to give it enough votes to pass. Democrats gained, let me count, zero things in exchange for their acquiescence. Two days earlier, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, told NBC News, "Democrats had nothing to do with this bill. And we want an opportunity to get an amendment vote or two. And so that's what we are insisting on." Apparently not for long. One of Sun Tzu's principles of war is to seize opportunity. Democrats failed that one. They seized nothing by conceding to the Republicans here. Absolutely nothing. Schumer's stated reasoning for caving was that a shutdown would create opportunity for the White House to do even more unconstitutional and damaging things. Donald Trump and Elon Musk weren't asking congress for permission before Friday's vote. Now that the shutdown has been averted, they still aren't. I think the mere existence of the filibuster is dumb, and I always have. The 60-vote necessity to proceed, particularly on CRs, served Republicans well throughout Joe Biden's presidency. Likewise, it should have been used last week by the Democrats to either block the CR or to gain concessions by using it as leverage. It's the reason it exists. Neither happened. Worse yet, Schumer and the Democrats gave the Republican budget package ten votes, when all the concession required was seven. By giving the GOP three more votes than they needed, it gave Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, the freedom to vote no on the package for his personal, political reason that the package doesn't reduce debt. That's simply malpractice.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert Michael Leppert is an author, educator and a communication consultant in Indianapolis. He writes about government, politics and culture at MichaelLeppert.com. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.  

I teach storytelling, though the official titles of the classes are things like presentations, writing or speech for business. But on the first day of school in all of my classes, I put a slide on the screen with this quote from the late Steve Jobs: "The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller." Then I ask my new students if they believe that or not Jason Isbell is one of America's greatest storytellers, and yes, he's on one of my first day of school slides too. His latest album, "Foxes in the Snow," was released Friday morning, and in my opinion, it's his best album yet. I was predisposed to loving this one because the production is stripped down to nothing but Isbell, his guitar and a microphone. I first became a fan because of the words he writes. Then I noticed he is an incredible guitarist. I love this album most because that's all we get. The best songs are always at their best in their simplest of forms. On "Foxes," Isbell tells the Wall Street Journal: "There's a lot of heavy stuff on the record, and it felt private…I didn't really want anybody else in the room for that." Listeners get to join him there. I'm not sure this stuff is any heavier than usual, but I get why it's heavier for him. His recent divorce, his new love interest and his new part time residency in New York City are detailed throughout the song list. What seems to make it heavy is that this is a new world for Isbell, filled with disappointment and excitement, but most of all, newness. That's what I hear in all of these songs, particularly in "Open and Close," in which he sums up the description of his new life with the declaration, "it's time to be brave." What I am trying to get my students to achieve with their audiences is connection. That sounds like a vague, generic term when they hear me use it the first time. But as should be expected, there is a scientific term for it, known as "neural coupling." This is "the literal synchrony in brain states between speaker and listener. When you're the speaker, your goal is to replicate the same pattern of brain activity that you have in your head inside the head of your conversational partner," as described by Dr. Matt Johnson in Psychology Today. I don't feel the specific pain of Isbell's divorce or the specific excitement of his new love, but I mirror many of the components of his emotional state that come from facing a new world. Specifically, the pressure that is felt from the need to be brave. This is why storytelling is so powerful. Amanda Zurawski never had plans to describe a profoundly personal slice of her life on a big stage. Yet she was at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater in Bloomington on Friday for a screening of "Zurawski v Texas," the 2024 documentary about her battle for women's reproductive rights. The film's synopsis captures what has become a familiar modern story: "Women denied abortions under Texas' ambiguous and unforgiving abortion bans band together with a fearless attorney to sue Texas." The fearlessness is the thing that connected with me.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert Michael Leppert is an author, educator and a communication consultant in Indianapolis. He writes about government, politics and culture at MichaelLeppert.com. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.  

I left public service in 2002. The experiences of the thirteen years I spent as an employee of the State of Indiana help define me. On paper, my career path wouldn't make immediate sense to most people today. But it makes perfect sense to me. Why? Primarily because I enjoyed serving the public, and importantly, I was good at it. People thanked me for my service when I left. In less than two months since the inauguration of President Donald Trump, approximately 75,000 federal employees accepted a buyout package offered by the new administration and voluntarily left public service. Another 30,000 have been fired. For context, Delta Airlines employs 100,000 people, and United Airlines Holdings, Inc. employs 107,500. This will cause significant and widespread suffering in predictable and unpredictable ways. Americans will feel this, one way or another. Even in the post-trust era, this is one thing we can all count on. And Trump and Elon Musk are just getting started. Included in those breathtaking numbers are individual people who were doing important things, vital things, even life-saving things that are no longer being done. An excellent example is "Emily," a recently terminated lab technician who worked at the National Institutes of Health. She worked in a cancer research lab, and she worries what these cuts will mean to people who need the treatments NIH is, or was, developing. "People will lose their lives," she said in an interview with the NBC local affiliate in Washington. Also commenting was White House spokesperson Kush Desai. He said, "The Trump administration is committed to slashing waste, fraud, and abuse while increasing transparency of where limited taxpayer dollars from NIH are going and how exactly they're advancing scientific research and development." The "waste, fraud, and abuse" bit is the go-to storyline for the entire enterprise of this profoundly troubling cleansing of public servants. And while that spin is becoming the new Big Lie, adding the phrase "increasing transparency" makes it even more absurd. In Indiana, Luke Britt, the state's longest serving public access counselor, stepped down last week after 12 years in the role following changes to his office by state lawmakers this time last year, as reported by WFYI. Prior to last year's legislation, Britt's office was designed to construe disputes about public access to government records in favor of government transparency. His office was created in 1999 in response to public outcry for exactly that, transparency.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert Michael Leppert is an author, educator and a communication consultant in Indianapolis. He writes about government, politics and culture at MichaelLeppert.com. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.  

There are so many stars and influencers surrounding us these days, it's difficult for the uncool to keep up. I don't know exactly when I crossed over into that territory, but I'm guessing it was shortly after my first son was born. He celebrated his 30th birthday this month. Back when I was cool, reading was not among the reasons. Now, it might be the coolest thing I do. In my youth, Dolly Parton wasn't cool. She was originally a country and bluegrass musician, which in the world of my youth, was cool's opposite. But after her singing voice slowly became embedded in the fabric of America, her cultural voice followed. That voice is cool as it gets.  Parton started the Imagination Library in 1995 for the children within her home county in East Tennessee, not far from my childhood home. The program delivers one age-appropriate book per month to children five-years old and younger. To recipients, the books arrive via U.S. Mail, free of charge. Do the math. That's as many as 60 books in a personal library of each participating child. There is no catch, no burden, no problem. But as the uncool know so well, nothing is truly free. Books cost money, and thirty years since the program started in one county, it is now available in five countries and gives millions of free books each month to children around the world. It's an intricate operation, involving a long list of operational and funding partners to make it all happen. Indiana is one of 21 statewide partners in the U.S., though the partnership is now threatened by the Indiana House's recently passed budget. In 2023, the legislature approved a $6 million expenditure in its budget for the program. That's a budget item big enough to notice, and small enough that cutting it can't possibly be celebrated. I am unaware of any public discussion about discontinuing the appropriation during the first half of this year's legislative session. So, when the House passed its budget last week and the funding was surprisingly gone, the silence about it ended. I learned about it first from the national media. "We are hopeful that Gov. (Mike) Braun and the Indiana legislature will continue this vital investment by restoring the state's funding match for local Imagination Library programs," Jeff Conyers, president of the Dollywood foundation, said in a statement to the Daily Beast. Conyers was not hysterical about it. He was cool. And while Braun responded quickly to the call out coming from an organization with a big name on it, I found the response to be less than cool, even cold.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert Michael Leppert is an author, educator and a communication consultant in Indianapolis. He writes about government, politics and culture at MichaelLeppert.com. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.  

An abundance of adjectives can be used to describe the first 30 days of the second Trump administration. "Chaotic" would be my first choice. But Thesaurus.com provides a list of synonyms to consider in my search for the perfect word. The six strongest matches to my top choice also work. "Tumultuous" or "turbulent?" Yes. "Disorganized" or "helter-skelter?" Ditto. "Lawless" and "anarchic" are the others on that short list, and yes, they both sadly apply as well. This first month has not been about egg prices or healthcare. Nor has it been about education or justice. And though headlines are big about Ukraine and Gaza, those too are merely components of what today's true battle is really all about: turf. America is in the midst of a turf war. It's so old-school, most don't even recognize it for what it is. But when Trump's new leadership at the Department of Justice eviscerated the Republican team in its Southern District of New York to force the dismissal of the corruption case against Mayor Eric Adams, the White House was seizing the local government of the city. The case against Adams is, or was, about as open and shut as possible. Turkish nationals were pumping campaign funds and luxury travel to the mayor and were receiving favors in return in several easily traceable instances. The corrupt relationship began when Adams was the president of the New York borough of Brooklyn. It intensified during his mayoral campaign, and it continued after he took office. The SDNY has or had the goods on him. So, what is the motivation for Team Trump to dismiss a corruption case against a prominent Democrat? Again, with the word calisthenics, an oft used political descriptor would be "leverage." But I think that word is a soft, understatement.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert Michael Leppert is an author, educator and a communication consultant in Indianapolis. He writes about government, politics and culture at MichaelLeppert.com. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.  

February 12, 2025 I have been thinking about Winston Churchill since Donald Trump announced his planned seizure of the board of trustees of the Kennedy Center last Friday. In 1938, Churchill said, "The Prime Minister (Neville Chamberlain) …has reminded us of the old saying that it is by art man gets nearest to the angels and farthest from the animals." On the floor of the Indiana Senate last Thursday, Minority Leader Shelli Yoder, D-Bloomington, made a point of order just before the vote on Senate Bill 289. The bill would create a series of prohibitions and requirements regarding diversity, equity and inclusion programs in Indiana. It's a conglomeration of poorly developed ideas that chaotically attempt to send a message to Hoosiers that the undefined "woke" ideology is being put down in the state for good. It's a bad-idea bill that is written poorly enough that even four Republicans voted against it. I am certain I will write about the awfulness of this bill in future columns. Today, I will just label it as a collection of pretzel-like twists of racist gestures designed to comfort a constituency who has demonized DEI programs before bothering to learn what they are. Stay tuned for more on the substance of it. In the midst of the three-hour Senate debate on SB 289, Lt. Governor Micah Beckwith posted this to his campaign Facebook page: "Indiana just TORPEDOED Woke Indoctrination!" The post goes on about how the rebellion of equal rights has been put down, and how "the left is LOSING IT." It's the kind of post to more likely come from a MAGA-cult member standing in line to get into a Lee Greenwood concert. Except it wasn't. It came from the President of the Indiana Senate, in reference to legislation that was being debated on the Senate floor at that very moment. And it was written in past tense, as if the vote and the outcome had already occurred. It was at least two hours early. In Indiana, the lieutenant governor is the nonvoting, presiding officer of the Senate. He or she manages the process and is assisted by a parliamentarian to assure the process is followed in accordance with the state's constitution and the rules of the Senate. From 1989 through 2004, a Democrat presided over the Republican controlled body. Awkward, right? Nope. Not at all. Both of those former governors, Frank O'Bannon and Joe Kernan, in their roles as lieutenant governor, did their jobs with a commitment to statesmanship and respect for the body. It is not what either man will be remembered for, primarily because it didn't take great restraint or character to simply do the damn job as our citizenry has come to expect. And by the way, every Republican LG, dating back to at least 1980, has done the same. Today, that is apparently too much to ask of Micah Beckwith. He would rather use the position to garner attention for himself, even if it means prejudging outcomes while he presides.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert Michael Leppert is an author, educator and a communication consultant in Indianapolis. He writes about government, politics and culture at MichaelLeppert.com. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.  

February 5, 2024 It's an old joke, and though I made a reasonable effort to track down the original source, I failed. However, I did find that early versions of it, dating back to at least 1930, centered on indecent proposals for sex. Not surprisingly, and nearly a century later, the anecdote often is aptly applied to policy dealmaking negotiations in legislative bodies across America. Skipping the indecency of the set-up, this is a family friendly column after all, a version of the punchline goes like this: "We've already established what we are. Now, we're just haggling over the price." Healthcare debates in the Indiana Statehouse are primarily an exercise in "haggling over the price." But like the original version of the joke, the more important part of the debate really is the "establishing what we are" part. Whitney Downard, reporter for the Indiana Capital Chronicle, succinctly reported last week on a hearing of the Indiana Senate Committee on Health and Provider Services that featured five legislative proposals moving forward that were almost entirely about the price. The bills dealt with financial incentives for patient referrals, tracking the average negotiated charge between healthcare providers and insurers, non-compete agreements for physicians, prior authorization of care by insurers, and finally, two bills regarding pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs. Whew. I read the story several times and still don't see the part about Hoosiers getting healthier. The most important part of the healthcare debate often doesn't even come up in the rooms where decisions are being made: What can we do to live healthier lives? Anyone who believes that either Indiana or America will magically become healthier by resolving all the debates about price first, should also be shopping for Jack's beanstalk beans. Establishing "the price" isn't the mission. Improving the public's overall health is.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert Michael Leppert is an author, educator and a communication consultant in Indianapolis. He writes about government, politics and culture at MichaelLeppert.com. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.      

January 29, 2025 The word Indiana is literally defined as "the land of the Indians." When Congress divided the Northwest Territory in 1800, it named the western section the Indiana Territory, and when it became a state in 1816, Indiana became its name. In 2025, new Governor Mike Braun, in his first budget proposal in office, proposes to end funding for the Native American Indian Affairs Commission. The cut comes as part of his 15% cut to the Indiana Civil Rights Commission. That may sound like a lot of money, but it isn't. The state is spending less than $3 million a year on the ICRC in the current budget. A new governor's first budget proposal is uniquely important. Voters' eyes often glaze over when this part of governing comes up, and I get that. But budgets are where we as a people proclaim what matters to us. Though the legislature must enact the two-year spending plan, governors generally propose them at the beginning of the law-writing session. The first budget proposal from a newly elected governor is a marker. It defines his priorities to us, and in this case, aptly defines his character as well. On January 6, 2025, outgoing Governor Eric Holcomb signed a government-to-government agreement with the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians. Holcomb said in a news release, "I've sincerely enjoyed learning about Pokagon history and culture as well as getting to know and work with Chairman (Matthew) Wesaw." The state has a relationship with the federally recognized tribe, and our now former governor treated it with respect. Times have apparently changed.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert  

Hear ye! Hear ye, America! It's Inauguration Week! But please don't confuse it with infrastructure week. The swearing in of a convicted felon actually did happen on Monday. The striking components of Donald Trump's second inauguration speech weren't filled with goodness, with inspiration, or with charm. Of course they weren't. What child of our nation was expecting a highlight real like that? The sequel to his 2017 "American Carnage" inauguration address was not terribly different in its tone or in its fundamental wrongness. This speech's title will likely come from his promise of the beginning of a "Golden Age of America." Again though, the erroneous assumptions contained in it are strikingly similar to eight years ago: everything is broken and terrible and his presence in office will magically fix all of it and make it wonderful. Just like eight years ago, it was a speech grounded in civic ignorance directed only at those who share the same fantasy-laden view of the office he reclaimed on Monday. But it is that ignorance that is necessary for much of his agenda, if one can call it that, to become reality. Exhibit number one is the executive order Trump signed on Monday attempting to end birthright citizenship. No, this constitutional provision cannot be repealed by executive order. If it could, the entire document that effectively defines America, could also be ended by the same pen. This is not new posturing from him, but the certain legal response from an army of litigants will force another branch of government, the courts, to defend the jurisdiction of our founding document again. Exhibits two and three are not as clearly unconstitutional, but merely illegal.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert  

January 15, 2025 At a beach in south Florida ten days ago, I was halfway through my daily walk, listening to an excellent book, and occasionally scanning the Gulf of Mexico for any passing dolphins. Public parking at this particular beach is located at both ends, so that's where the beach camps, picnics, and sandcastle makers tend to gather. My down-and-back walks there are highlighted by the crowds at each end. On this day, a group of ten people had formed a circle around a large Trump flag flying on a pole at least ten feet high. The shrine was positioned right at the end of the sidewalk leading to the south end of the beach in the middle of a few hundred people who had planned on spending their Saturday free from politics. A thousand miles to the north in Indianapolis, State Rep. Kyle Miller (D-Ft. Wayne) was preparing to file HB 1259. The bill inserts two words, "a flag," to Indiana's statute governing campaign communications. Adding flags to this specific section of the Indiana Code would require that those pesky disclaimers be added to them. The "sponsored by" lingo on yard signs and billboards, and the "I approve this message" sound clips on video and radio ads are already required in Indiana, as they are in most places. Let's pretend for a minute that a Democrat-led campaign regulatory initiative can become law in the era of supermajority control by Republicans. What would the impact of a law like this actually be? No, I don't think it will bring the ridiculous and hostile flags down, but it will require the money making machine of the Trump campaign to at least pretend that the rule of law still applies to it. Flags have a fascinating history. I've researched and written about them before, because it is another unique feature in this political moment in America. They are more demonstrative than bumper stickers and yard signs. They are harder to ignore. They also take more of an effort to fly. For example, I watch people struggle to put umbrellas up on the beach almost every time I'm there. That ten-foot flagpole I saw ten days ago did take a little effort. I imagine the flags flying behind a Harley Davidson do occasionally get tangled or dragged whenever the bikers approach a speed trap or a stop light. But these symbols do have a history. As explained in Brittanica, "Flags originally were used mainly in warfare, and to some extent they have remained insignia of leadership, serving for the identification of friend or foe and as rallying points." And that is still what flags mean to me.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert  

I vividly remember the first time I heard the expression, "this bill is a solution in search of a problem." I was a young legislative liaison for a state agency, and we were supporting legislation that the industry we regulated believed was unnecessary. Their spokesperson used the line in his committee testimony against the bill. "That was a good one," I thought with an envious smile regarding the quip. But after the hearing, the agency went to work documenting the alleged and elusive "problem." Then we had a meeting with the industry to discuss solutions that would eliminate the need for the legislation. Problem solved. That was thirty years ago. Politics and legislative strategy have both changed since then. The 2025 legislative session in Indiana begins this week. After the holidays have passed and the ceremonial and celebratory dust has settled from the most recent election, the big ideas start landing on paper and become introduced as bills. There are always some doozies. Many of them comically looking for the problem to justify their own hilarious solutions.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert  

Maggie Rose has landed her first Grammy nomination for her latest album, "No One Gets Out Alive." It's nominated for Best Americana Album, a fitting category, though on my first listen of it earlier in the year, I declared it to be the album of the year in every category. I walked away from cable news after the election two months ago. I just needed a break, I told myself. Now, I can't imagine ever returning. In my brief time away, I have come to realize that those platforms aren't all that meaningful to me. Their product is the argument, the disagreement, the conflict. That product wasn't provoking thoughtfulness in me, it was preventing it. So, that break I needed has become a lifestyle change for which I'm grateful. There are far better sources for perspective, yes, even coming from this political columnist, than the pundit world. In 2025, I recommend we invest more of our time listening to those better voices. Rose has a beautiful and powerful voice, and her years of Nashville experience combine to make her a true professional at her craft. The metal-head inside of me was drawn to her hit's title—I was expecting something dark and nihilistic—which was my mood at the time. Wrong. The title track is a guide on how to embrace life and living, because we only live once. It's an Americana lesson, through a voice that sounds like a combination of Bonnie Raitt and Aretha Franklin. It's perfect. The song is simple. "Call the boy. Ask the girl. Have no regrets when you leave this world. Cause you know no one gets out alive." What else is an example of simple? The benefits of a fluoride-enriched public water supply. The CDC has all the data to show how we are healthier as a result of fluoridation, and don't confuse that term with the state. Collier County in southwest Florida, where I spend some of my wintertime, will remove fluoride from its water supply on January 1. There's no evidence-based benefit of the move, just barbershop theories that likely came from the cable news playing on the shop's tv. Turn it off. Read the data. Don't trust the CDC? Pick any of the countless other scientific studies that reached the same conclusions. It will be five minutes well spent. Then go listen to some new music, watch a new movie, or read a new book.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert  

I remember when, as a child, this time of year was filled with unmitigated joy. Like Ralphie in "A Christmas Story," dreams really could come true. But as a nine-year-old boy, I never thought to ask Santa for a Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model Air Rifle. By the time I was nine, I didn't believe in Santa, and my best friend already had a BB gun. We didn't need two. Almost fifty years later, most of that joy has returned for me, and it's no mystery how. I really only have two holiday goals. First, as a gift to myself, I keep it simple. Next, all of my "shopping" for others is replaced with simple acts of kindness. Johns Hopkins Medicine writes, "4 Mindful Tips to De-Stress This Holiday Season," to describe  a plan that can make a difference for many. I don't teach math, but even I can count to four. The first tip is to "accept imperfection." Over the years, I'm glad I didn't keep track of all the angst the drive for the perfect family holiday caused people around me. Clark Griswold's failed attempt at it in "Christmas Vacation" is hilarious, yes, but only unusual in the details. Hosting or participating in the "perfect" holiday is a goal fraught with peril. The crowded house I grew up in was the entirety of my holiday universe then. School would be out for two whole weeks, there was no available room for pesky relatives to stay, and the food, oh the food, was the primary feature of every one of those days. The holidays of my childhood were perfect, right? Of course they weren't, and even though I remember them as if they were, I wasn't the one creating them. The adults did.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert  

It's been fifteen years since the state of Indiana violated the sixth commandment, "you shall not kill," from Exodus 20:13. The translation of the original text to "you shall not murder" in the last century by many churches is not without controversy. Professor Wilma Ann Bailey of the Christian Theological Seminary devoted an entire book to the debate in 2005. Either way, Indiana is scheduled to kill Joseph Corcoran on December 18th.  His sentence for murdering four men in 1997 was upheld last week by the Indiana Supreme Court. It's a sad truth in a modern society that 60% of Americans support this barbaric practice, according to Pew Research. Their research shows minor ebbs and flows of support and opposition over time, which indicates to me that some dramatic change in the national perspective on the matter is unlikely anytime soon. Twenty-two states use the death penalty as a legal criminal sentence, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Take a look at that map of states. Now, take a look at the state map from The Guttmacher Institute showing the new restrictive laws on abortion access. It's not a perfect match, but it's close. Life is so precious in these states that an embryo is worth statutorily protecting, to the detriment of a human woman. In primarily the same places, a human adult can be destroyed, specifically by the state's government, because the people of that state are mad at them. Yes, the reasons states and the federal government sentence people to death is almost always officially for murder, but not every murder, only the really bad ones. I often wonder why this killing qualifies and that one doesn't, even though deep down I know the answer. Some horrific killing happened in a state and the people responded angrily by adding that type of act to the list of acts worthy of a death sentence. The anger is the key.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert  

Fans of the movie, "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," will remember the scene. Ben Stein plays a famously boring high school teacher giving a lecture about economics to a room full of teenagers fighting to stay awake. In about a minute, he covers the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act and the Laffer Curve, fundamental economic topics, desperately trying to get the students to engage with him. "Anyone? Anyone…" is the memorable device Stein uses, to no avail, to engage an audience who couldn't care less. Some analysts say the economy is the reason voters chose Donald Trump for a second term in last month's election. His economic plan is rooted in the broad and cavalier use of tariffs on imports from friends and foes alike. Last week, he announced his plan to impose 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico. The announcement prompted a surprise visit from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and a phone call from Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. Meanwhile, the American public, particularly Trump voters, remain in an economic daze much like Ben Stein's class. The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act was passed in 1930 in an attempt to thwart the impacts of the Great Depression. It was legislation initially designed to provide relief to the American agriculture sector but became "a means to raise tariffs in all sectors of the economy." It also marked the end of an entrenched Republican platform of protectionist policy making during that era. The policies ended because they were...anyone…anyone? Failures. Ignorance has become a vital asset in the political space these days. Yes, it is an asset in politics, but it is the devil in economics. As a political asset, there are voters who believe that simply throwing a tariff at any nation they are mad at has nothing but benefits. Mad at Mexico because of migration? Slap them with a tariff and border crossings will go down, right? A good number of voters believe the answer is yes. Though this is almost entirely wrong, politically speaking, that ignorance served the pro-tariff candidate in November. Economically however, the only real certainty that a 25% tariff on Mexico will have, is a 25% price increase in America. There actually is no disagreement on how tariffs functionally work, but I will refer to PBS for a simple explanation. Importers here pay the tariff, otherwise known as a tax, and remit that payment to the U.S. Treasury. How they pass that increase in costs along may vary a little from merchant to merchant, but ultimately it ends up in the price the American consumer pays.

The late John Prine, in his 1971 classic song, "Illegal Smile," wrote: "You may see me tonight, with an illegal smile. It don't cost very much, but it lasts a long while." The journey marijuana has traveled in American culture during my lifetime is a fascinating one. A quick review of the music written about it alone, lays out a chronology of an embattled, yet steady shift in perspective since Prine wrote about it. Last week, Leslie Bonilla Mũniz wrote for the Indiana Capital Chronicle, "Prominent Republicans back 'safe and regulated' marijuana legalization group." Republicans? Yes, Republicans. This election issue varied in prominence from state to state this year, but one thing that has become clear across the country is that the once prominent partisan lines of disagreement among citizens are gone. "Safe and Regulated Indiana" has produced a thirty second ad encouraging Hoosiers to contact their legislators to support legalization, though they steer clear of that word. They also don't announce on their website specifics about who is in their coalition, though I do like the site's anonymous scroll of individuals, listed by first name and hometown only, showing the volume of support. It's this anonymity that is easy to identify as a campaign weakness. This is no longer 1971. Supporting a safe and regulated marijuana market in a state surrounded by existing markets, really doesn't have much risk. More accurately, support is the viewpoint of the majority, just about everywhere in America. Last year, Ohio voted to legalize marijuana for both medical and recreational use by a 57-43 vote. While Kentucky hasn't legalized recreational use, legalized medical usage goes into effect on January 1, completing the surrounding of Indiana with markets. But it's not just our neighbors. Earlier this month, Florida voted on its own referendum. And while the vote failed to achieve that state's needed 60% threshold for adoption, it did achieve a 56-44 percent majority of support. Talk about winning by failing.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert  

I went to see a movie on Friday night. It's one of my favorite things to do. I can walk to Living Room Theaters from my townhouse in ten minutes, and their popcorn is fantastic. There's nothing strange about going, except it had been months since I had been there. Now I have been twice in a week. "A Real Pain" is a new film written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg, who stars in it with Kieran Culkin. They play a pair of mismatched cousins who go on a Holocaust tour through Poland to retrace the experience of their recently deceased grandmother. They are opposites but are united by their shared loss and the enormity of the history they are experiencing. Life goes on. That was the message I left the film with, though admittedly, I was primarily at the movie for that very reason myself. I recommend my strategy to anyone struggling with the recent election's outcome. On Sunday, I deactivated my Twitter/X account. No big deal, really. Except the app had become a habit and ditching it would mean a change in my daily routine. Oh no, not a change! I will admit that all of what I saw on that cesspool wasn't terrible. But I really didn't want to give up the Super 70's Sports feed or Rex Chapman's account. I already had a good sized Threads following, but never really liked the clunky and algorithmic control of it. In the days that followed the election, I quickly became exhausted with the vibe there. Doomscrolling, or as my students refer to it, "rotting," was absolutely that on my post-election-Threads feed. It was filled with people I agree with politically, but most of them seemed to need a fatherly kick in the ass to encourage them to return to the land of the living.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert  

There is no substitute for just showing up. Sometimes I wish there was one, but there just isn't. The relentless polling that exhausted Americans during the last three months of the presidential campaigns never really swung all that much, no matter what the drama of the day was. By the time Labor Day arrived, the persuasion part of the national campaign was largely over. I was skeptical of every undecided voter this year. The presidential choices were so stark, remaining voter indecisiveness was really about whether they would vote at all, not whether they would choose Harris or Trump. 10 million fewer Americans voted for president this year than in 2020. Based on the estimated adult population in the country of 271 million, that means about 54% of eligible voters participated in the presidential election. That is down from 60% in 2020 but is an identical participation rate to 2016. The old adage that Democrats perform better when turnout is better rings true again this year. I believe the adage is true on a macro level, and the swings over the last three elections confirm that. But 2020 was a year like no other, so that likely deserves as asterisk more than a medal. It is difficult for a civic minded person like me to accept that nearly half of Americans aren't participating in their inherited gift of self-governance. It is truly a gift. And when I say, "it is difficult" to accept these shameful participation rates, I am editing out the necessary profanity while speaking through grinding teeth. What is truly difficult to me, is forgiving those who don't show up for this most basic civic duty. That's America. And that data is maddening in and of itself. But then there's Indiana.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert  

Combine the adjectives of anger, fear and apathy to describe any audience, and it predictably equates to trouble. Those descriptors are the features of the American electorate today. Imagine any organization of people, of any kind, that makes its decisions while grounded in those emotions. What could that collective mindset possibly accomplish? While I'm sure there are some things, they would be few, and for those few, I expect the value of these accomplishments would be minimal, or simply the result of dumb luck. Really dumb luck. This year's election, the latest in a string of the most important election of our lifetimes, delivered a litany of results featuring contradictions and just plain thoughtlessness. But that's what happens when decision makers are mad, scared and don't care about productive outcomes. Donald Trump returns to the White House in January for his second, and last, presidential term. He will be inaugurated two weeks after the four-year anniversary of the coup he inspired at the scene of the crime. I'm sorry, I meant crimes, plural. I'm sure the crowd on January 20, 2025, will be an interesting one. There will almost certainly be people in attendance who are on parole because of what they did the last time they were there. The January 6, 2021, crowd was angry. With rage and denial over their candidate's defeat, they exploded. No surprise, really. It was and continues to be a coalition united by shared grievances. It's remarkable how committed that coalition is to the bit. But what we are learning about the bit, albeit the hard way, is that those who are fueled by grievance will never be satisfied. To satisfy its grievance-based mindset is to eliminate its purpose, its usefulness and its energy. After all these years of watching the MAGA cult, this truth has become abundantly clear.  So, the anger, and all of the things that come with it, is the cult's most valuable feature.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert  

Several weeks ago, two board members from the Pre-Law Association at IU came to my office and asked if I could prepare a workshop for the group in late October. I generally say yes to these kinds of things, and I had done one last year for the group about building and maintaining personal networks. Yea, I know that sounds boring, but I deliver it with a great deal of charisma. This year though, they had a real challenge for me. They wanted me to help them prepare for the inevitable and uncomfortable conversations they were predicting this Thanksgiving. Yes, they know. These are juniors and seniors in college, which means they were primarily juniors and seniors in high school four years ago. Most of them weren't old enough to vote in 2020, but they remember Thanksgiving that year. I don't talk politics with my students. I teach speech, writing and advocacy. Politics is not part of the curriculum of any of my classes and it wouldn't endear me with students who agree with my viewpoint any way. Further, I wouldn't want to lose credibility with the students who disagree with my perspective, because contrary to popular belief, I want to teach them advanced communication skills just as much. That clarification intensifies the request for me. What they needed was help having difficult conversations. Most do. But in my academic work, I am concerned that we aren't connecting enough at all. This concern comes from my belief that there is no better way to come to know a person than by having a real conversation with them. Zara Abrams wrote about the research being done in the arena for the American Psychological Association last year. The opening of her article says it well: "Conversations hold immense power. They help us form new connections and deepen existing ones." That may not inspire a loud, "Amen!" from you, but it does from me. And being a "loud" listener is one of the keys to a better conversation. Yes, I mean throwing out the occasional "amen" or "preach" to let your conversation partner know you're listening. But a simple and thoughtful "hmm," or an encouraging "mm-hmm," can be just as productive. Those gestures send valuable messages to your talking partner. Listening, and showing that you are listening, is the key. And while being a loud listener is helpful, asking questions is gold. Nothing leads to conversational connections better than asking questions. The problem with questions is that all questions aren't created equally.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert  

Every so often, the "beat" I cover treats me to a trip down memory lane to the time when I was a public servant. I was a much younger man when I left the government to become a consultant in 2002. And though the details surrounding my old stomping grounds are different, the regulatory compact remains unchanged. On October 10th, U.S. Senator Mike Braun sent a letter to the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission expressing his concern about AES Indiana's petition to transition its two remaining coal-fired generating units to natural gas. It's the kind of letter I used to receive every week as the executive director of the agency, although this one is a bit more awkward than usual. I could numb Hoosier brains with all the ways the IURC works, but I won't. The important thing to know about the agency is that it is in the bad news business. It regulates utility rates. That's right, when rates go up, the commission is responsible. Luckily, it also approves all of the times rates go down, but I'm having a hard time remembering when that ever happened. The agency exists and is organized the way it is so that politicians like governors and senators don't have to deliver this specific type of bad news. Trust me, I spent several years giving ratepayers bad utility news, and the elected officials in the statehouse back then appreciated my work. They would beat me up in public over my insensitive quips to their constituents, then afterward, they would whisper in my ear, "thank you." So, when elected officials begin staking out positions on what will ultimately be the decision of the appointed utility commissioners, pay attention. It's dangerous political territory. Leslie Bonilla Mũniz wrote how "Braun weighs in on utility's coal plant conversion ask" for the Indiana Capital Chronicle last week. Is an entire article necessary to explain an ambitious politician's letter to some sleepy state agency? Actually, it's worthy of two.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert  

Election Day is only three weeks away, and as Donald Trump's third full campaign comes to a close, American voters have a pretty good idea who he is. Imagine having a conversation with a voter anywhere and hearing them say, "I wonder what this Trump fellow is really like." One could just listen to the tunes that surround him. It's not a long playlist. Vice President Kamala Harris was oddly playing a little bit of catch up when she entered the race as the Democrats presumptive nominee in July. Those of us in the political class knew her well, but apparently some voters needed to learn about or adjust to this late entry to the contest. It's hard for me to accept something as absurd as that, but I'm working through it. While large numbers of voters didn't know enough about Harris, I have to admit that I didn't know much about her campaign's theme song, Beyoncé's "Freedom." Yea, I'd heard it, but I never really listened to it. It's played at the places I go. The restaurants, stores and the gyms where I spend time have had it in rotation since it came out in 2016. "Hey! I'ma keep runnin' cause a winner don't quit on themselves," is the last line of the chorus that hits the hardest for me. Put those words with the power of Beyoncé's sound, look and aura, and you get a walk up, and a mic drop song all wrapped up into one. It's been used both ways for many causes over the years because of it. At the other party's events, in some other swing state, the song being played is, gasp, "God Bless the U.S.A." by Lee Greenwood. I've kept it to myself for a long time now, but that ends today. It is simply an awful song. Admittedly, it's simply not my genre, but I don't know whose it is. I won't hear it anywhere I go, and if I did, I would immediately leave. It's a rip off of "God Bless America," another song that never comes up in anyone's shuffle. My favorite line from it is, "'Cause the flag still stands for freedom, and they can't take that away." Aah, the generic "they." That's who we need to unite against, whoever "they" are. We need to wrap ourselves in the flag and then get out there and bless something. And the music? It sounds like the kind of stuff that was sold late at night on a 1980's infomercial. It's just not cool.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert  

I watched the first Indiana gubernatorial debate with great interest on October 2nd. The hour long event featuring Jennifer McCormick (D) and Mike Braun (R) was only a few minutes in when I could tell this was likely going to be a good night for Democrats. Only a few minutes later, I found myself disappointed because I knew this important moment was not going to be seen by as many Hoosier voters as it should have been. Americans expect more from political debates than we often get. This year is quite an exception. Both presidential debates delivered, at a minimum, a clear contrast between the participants that should drive decision making for voters. President Joe Biden's awful debate performance in late June led to a rallying cry from many in his own party for him to drop out of the race. The performance illustrated his greatest vulnerability; that he was just too old for the job. Importantly though, polling data after that bad night didn't move all that much. One could conclude it didn't matter as much to voters as it did to the political class. More likely though, it confirmed pessimism about Biden's ability to inspire movement in his already sagging position. His eventual and historic withdrawal from the race, and the rallying around Kamala Harris drastically changed everything. Debates can do that, though they rarely do. Usually, the contests are exercises in bias confirmation. Dr. Conor Dawling, professor of political science at the University of Buffalo wrote, "Debates can help solidify, or reinforce, choices for folks who are already fairly to very certain which candidate they intend to support." Yes, this is what we normally get out of them. However, this year's battles have delivered more than that several times now. The McCormick/Braun debate last week is one of them. Any objective viewer should have been able to see several things. McCormick had a better grasp of the details of the job. She was better prepared for the predictable questions, and she was confident in her delivery from start to finish. Braun gave, at best, a lackluster performance that raised more questions than it answered. I first wrote that the Republicans were running a campaign about nothing in its quest for the governor's office last October. This is the third time I will remind Hoosiers of that sad truth. I have seen gubernatorial campaigns, and the governing strategies that followed, which seemed to be designed around a "don't make any mistakes" sort of game plan. Former Governor Evan Bayh was committed to the strategy, and it served him well. Former Governor Mike Pence was also committed to it, though he did make a few large, damaging mistakes during his one term in office.  Braun's biggest mistake last week, on admittedly a much smaller scale, was comparable to Biden's June failure. He appeared unprepared for the predictable questions, and his lack of sharpness made him appear old, a critique that he has largely avoided so far. His non-answers to one specific item made it abundantly clear to me that he would not be defending recent comments made by his running mate, Republican lieutenant governor nominee, Micah Beckwith.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert  

What is the market rate for a governor? Well, it depends on the market of course. In New York, the rate is $250,000 a year. In Maine, it's $70,000. That makes perfect sense, doesn't it? These two states might as well be on two different planets after all. It takes five whole hours to drive from Albany to Augusta, a lovely drive that weaves around Boston, where the Massachusetts governor makes $185,000, before the path follows a stretch along the Atlantic coast. The real answer is there is no "market," and therefore, there is no "market rate." Whitney Downard reported last week for the Indiana Capital Chronicle the details on the new salaries of several Hoosier statewide elected officials. They are hefty raises, featuring the new salary of the governor, of $221,024, making it one of the highest paid in the nation. One market-based argument as to why that is outrageously high could be that the Indiana governor is constitutionally weak and should therefore be compensated weakly.  But let's be serious. The new salary is still pretty low when considering the demands of the job. So is New York's. And Maine's? That salary is absurd. However, and if I could scream that word I would, being elected to a high-profile position absolutely creates opportunity. It's just difficult to quantify. These jobs aren't really jobs. Yes, if done even remotely well, they are work, and a lot of it. But in a market sense, they are more aptly described as "platforms," not occupations. And so, the salary matters far less than it otherwise would. Governor Eric Holcomb will end his second term at the end of the year, never receiving the new salary. Tough break, guv. But there will be opportunity for him when his political career is over, assuming this is the end of that. I predict he will do quite well, probably through some sort of "job," coupled with other income-generating ventures that are minimally reported but highly profitable. After a long career of low and modestly paid political positions, he knows people, he has skills and value, and this is America. Following his post-governor life would be important to Hoosiers, if for no other reason, to contextualize what serving as governor is truly worth. These salaries, while they are specifically what taxpayers finance, don't mean much in the end.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert  

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.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert  

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.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert  

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.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert  

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.   Connect with Michael Leppert Visit michaelleppert.com to read the full post and links to any resources or articles mentioned. Twitter @michaelleppert  Facebook at Michael Leppert