Think About It with Michael Leppert

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."

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.