Think About It with Michael Leppert

Political conventions are not for me. I went to my first one, at the state level, last month and I thought I was going to break out in a rash from what felt like life-threatening inefficiency. Of course, I oppose the existence of big graduations, weddings and funerals too, so maybe the problem is me.

I will begrudgingly admit that all of these ceremonies have a purpose.

The Democratic National Convention is meaningful this year, even to me. I'm still glad I'm not going, and I will only watch it a little. But I will be watching the reaction. I will be watching that like a hawk, since that's all that really matters.

The 2020 conventions were both turned into Zoom meetings due to the pandemic. The "party" part of the political parties was as bland and uninspiring as the year itself was. Some watched them on TV, though viewership was down across the board except Fox for the Republicans and MSNBC for the Democrats. I tried to watch, I guess, but I don't remember either one of them.

Even so, voter turnout was juiced in 2020. And when turnout rises, Democrats tend to perform better. That rule applied to Indiana just like everywhere else in America. Pay attention to every race in Indiana that appears to be close at this moment. The new excitement on the Democrat side coming from the new nominees, and now the convention, will help the party in all of the close races.

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Indianapolis has had a bright spotlight on it in 2024. The Olympic swimming time trials in Lucas Oil Stadium, the NBA All-Star game, and the arrival of the biggest name in sports, Caitlin Clark. Now the city is ground zero for something shameful.

Mayor Joe Hogsett is under fire for his mishandling of numerous sexual harassment allegations made against former Chief Deputy Mayor Thomas Cook. The first known allegations were made in 2017, and in recent weeks, extensive reporting has been done on the matter by the Indianapolis Star and Mirror Indy. What we already know from their reporting is terrible.

More terrible news is coming. Count on it.

The book, "Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics" and its movie adaptation have been on my mind the last few weeks. This roman é clef, French for "novel with a key," was first published by Anonymous in 1996. It's an insider's tale of a fictitious southern governor, Jack Stanton, and his 1992 primary campaign for the presidency.

Read the book or watch the movie. "Stanton" is Bill Clinton. The author was later to be revealed as Joe Klein, a columnist for Time magazine who covered Clinton's real-life 1992 campaign. The book detailing this corrupt, womanizing character, and importantly, his campaign team, was published more than two years before the world met Monica Lewinsky.

Lauren Roberts was a deputy campaign manager on Hogsett's 2015 reelection campaign. She was apparently the first to complain about Cook's harassment via email in 2017. Hogsett's initial unresponsiveness led to her direct, in-person report to the mayor in 2019. Hogsett claims action was taken, though it wasn't ever communicated with Roberts. She has since relocated to Denver. But she kept all of the receipts.

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The impact of even a provocative social media post doesn't often linger with me for long. In a presidential election year, even less so. But two of them struck me this week, neither of them mentioning Indiana politics, but to this Hoosier columnist, they feel entirely about us.

The first post came from a politico named Mike Madrid on Friday. Madrid is a Latino campaign consultant, a former Republican and co-founder of the anti-Trump group, The Lincoln Project. He wrote: "There was a time when it could be argued that not all Trump voters were racist, but they were comfortable voting for a racist. Not anymore."

Madrid was referring to Donald Trump's outburst during an interview at the National Association of Black Journalists convention last week questioning Vice President Kamala Harris's rather uncomplicated and well documented ancestry. The racist nature of it was remarkable in and of itself. What is more remarkable, however, is how GOP leaders immediately began repeating the attacks.

Even those who would rather Trump not say these offensive things out loud also didn't object. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, "A time comes when silence is betrayal."

At the top of the GOP ticket in Indiana this election year, are three Trump sycophants: Mike Braun for governor, Jim Banks for U.S. Senate, and Todd Rokita for attorney general. They are all unapologetically devoted to anything and everything the former president says and does. I want their views confirmed on the Harris issue, though I think it's obvious.

These three Republicans don't cross their leader. And as Madrid implied, Trump's racism can no longer be shrugged off as a bug. It's a feature.

The second post lingering with me came from Georgia Governor Brian Kemp.

Trump was campaigning in Atlanta on Sunday, where he is under indictment for his attempts to steal the 2020 election. While on the stage and in his own social media posts, the former president reignited his attacks on Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Kemp, and oddly, Kemp's wife for their collective disloyalty. It was as odd as the Harris ancestry attack in that it makes no sense how it helps Trump's campaign. Kemp and Raffensperger are both extremely popular Republicans in that swing state. They both responded, but Kemp's response was troubling.

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I was in the airport two Sunday afternoons ago when I first saw the news that Joe Biden was ending his presidential campaign. I was still there when he followed up a few minutes later with his endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. By the time I happily put my head on my own pillow that night after a long trip, anyone paying attention could already feel it coming.

Everything about the 2024 presidential election changed last week.

In that week, the newly launched Harris for President campaign raised over $200 million, gathered 170,000 new volunteers, held 2,300 events in battleground states, and in two days on TikTok, attracted 2.9 million followers. Those are some "wow" stats. But none of the data really captures the moment contextually.

Every Democrat who matters endorsed her in that first week. The Clintons, the Obamas, and the leaders of both congressional caucuses have jumped on board. Beyoncé has lent the campaign use of her song, "Freedom," and I've heard it dozens of times already.

Then there are the Zoom rallies. It started with a gathering of black women on July 21st, with over 44,000 participants that led to $1.5 million raised. Black men followed the next day with over 20,000. White women refused to be left out when their call last Thursday had 160,000 participants that raised $8.5 million. White men had 50,000 registered for a call Monday night and that number was still growing as I wrote this.

That's excitement. That's momentum. And in a campaign that the Republican nominee has long reduced to a battle of ratings and rallies, a race he was winning before Biden's departure, he is now getting obliterated. Even polling has begun to shift, with Fox News releasing a poll on Sunday showing favorability flipping in several battleground states to now favor Harris.

Democrats would have always been happy to run solely on the Biden administration's record. It's a good one. But the campaign was flailing because it had been reduced to the issue of the president's age. And the truth is, he is too old to persuade Americans that he's not. I'm glad he stopped trying.

With the uncertainty of a path forward removed on the Democrat side, the post-convention honeymoon for Republicans ended quicker than it should have too. Ten days ago, they were acting like they had already won. They aren't anymore.

It's been a whirlwind for Republicans the last three weeks. Let's recap.

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We had planned a trip to London and Paris in 2020, but it was cancelled by the pandemic. Until last week, we hadn't left the country since before that awful year. Ironically, the thought of visiting or even living someplace else has never taken up more space in my soul. Even my latest book is fundamentally about the mysterious "what ifs" that come from how life might be different if it were simply spent "someplace else."

We finally got to go last week. As a much younger person, I used to wonder why people would even go on trips like this, when there really wasn't some specific reason. Now, I feel true sympathy for those who never do.

First of all, the enormity of London alone is striking, but the best thing about its size is the variety of everything in it. For example, I never thought of London as a great food town. Wrong. There is no food on earth that can't be found there. The restaurants seem smaller, but the pubs, cafes and ethnic offerings are literally everywhere. I wasn't looking for Uzbek or Sri Lankan food, but now I know the most convenient place to find it.

In just six days though, the giant city had shrunk for us, primarily because of its phenomenal train system. No area or neighborhood was difficult to get to, including a little town called Paris. Navigating it also couldn't have been easier.

As a world traveler, I'm a novice. I haven't been many places. Not yet. But every new place I go these days is less of a vacation and more of an adventure. Seeing unfamiliar places, and spending time with unfamiliar people is the most provocative way for anyone to grow. Every adventure teaches me something unexpected. It is so predictable that I purposely make fewer and fewer plans on each new trip. Why bother? The best parts can't be planned anyway.

Visiting the Churchill War Rooms Museum, however, was definitely planned. I'm in the words business, English is my language, and Winston Churchill is likely the greatest orator who has ever lived. Yea, yea, he led and won the big war, but his weapon of choice was language.

Our last exhibit there was a display of the anti-Churchill propaganda that was distributed in Nazi Germany and Japan during the war. None of it was all that surprising, particularly by today's standards, but a museum staffer approached us there and began explaining the depth of the exhibit's importance.

This elderly man pointed out the racism built into the drawings and the impact of its lessons in faraway places, especially on young people growing up with the imagery. He asked us to imagine young people who only knew of the British through this messaging and how difficult it must have been to overcome for generations. He analogized the struggle then to the one today with Russia's Vladimir Putin, the invasion of Ukraine, and the valuable mission of NATO. My wife and I enjoyed his lesson, but I was fascinated with how comfortably he went there with two people from America who could have just as easily been hostile to his suggestions.

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Thomas Matthew Crooks took his father's AR-15, climbed a building near former President Donald Trump's Saturday rally and got several shots off in Trump's direction before being killed by the U.S. Secret Service. The gun was purchased legally in Pennsylvania by Crooks' father. Early background reports indicate that the 20-year-old gunman was a loner, a registered Republican, but had also donated to at least one left leaning organization.

There's no evidence of any political component to anything he did.

Now that I have covered the basics of what occurred, I have one primary question today. What part of those details, if one had precisely predicted them a week, month or year earlier, would have sounded impossible or unlikely at all? Would any of us have struggled to envision such a thing?

I wouldn't have. Not for one moment.

I first heard the news while fading in and out of an early evening nap on Saturday. A text from a friend at 6:26 pm said "Trump got shot!" I quickly sat up and turned on the news to see it was real. Even though some weirdos on social media committed to doubting its validity for far too long, it was clearly real.

None of it surprised me. I did not feel a single second of astonishment for the first hour I was glued to the screen.

Yes, violent crime is declining in America. However, with the suffocating presence of guns here, particularly the absurdly common AR-15, coupled with a largely unresearched mental health phenomena of these suicide shooters, these horrific episodes have become embedded into our daily lives.

When was the last time a shooting like this really surprised any of us?

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As a new adjunct professor six years ago, the class I was asked to teach was titled "Public law and government relations." It was a class designed to teach how ideas become laws. The students were public affairs majors, just like I was, thirty years earlier.

Explaining the "how" part is complicated. I'm forced to make hard choices on how to prioritize my lessons. I have learned to focus on two primary ideas: One, that governing is choosing; and two, there is no bigger asset or burden in the public policy process more powerful than time.

The best contemporary policy example to use for understanding American democratic processes is the debate on women's reproductive health freedom. Not just because of the Dobbs or Roe decisions, but because it is a policy that is truly a governing choice, unimpacted by infinite conditions beyond decision-makers' control.

Oh sure, we watch Schoolhouse Rock and discuss the school bus railroad crossing example dozens of times too. But if you recall from the video, the "local congressman" uses a typewriter to create the famous "I'm Just a Bill." As good as the video is, it's old.

Every politician claims a vote for them will lead to a better economy. Sometimes they even explain how. But the truth is that the "economy" has too many variables in it for that platform to be certain. Foreign affairs policies are almost as unpredictable. It's hilarious to hear Donald Trump and his lemmings explain how the world will absolutely cow tow to America when he's in charge, or even how it did before, as if none of us paid attention way back when.

Eleven states are headed for referenda votes in November on constitutional proposals to create or protect abortion rights. Nine of them were initiated by voter petition. Four of those states already effectively have bans in place. Even Arkansas reached their threshold of signatures last week just before that state's deadline.

In states where voters can vote, they either already are, or soon will. And because of the Dobbs decision, a vote on reproductive freedom is no longer a hypothetical discussion. There is data to drive the thinking of those clinging to rational thought on the matter.

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I have never met anyone who I believed to be intelligent who was also humorless. When comedian Nate Bargatze took the stage last week at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis he spent a few moments making sure the crowd knew he was not an educated man.

Bargatze is intelligent though. And he's as funny they come.

In contrast, the Supreme Court of the United States was once regarded as the sage, learned body, epitomizing intelligence, credibility and thoughtfulness. This once esteemed tribunal personified its "supremacy" for rational, unhumorous reasons. However, as of Monday, July 1, 2024, its self-desecration is complete, and has now become a laughingstock.

The conservative majority of the court has twisted itself into knots to help Donald Trump with the absurdity that he should have some immunity from prosecution for his criminal acts. The mantra of "no man is above the law" ended this week in America.

The 6-3 Trump v. United States ruling produced dissenting language in a tone unheard of in the court's storied history. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote on behalf of the minority, "With fear for our democracy, I dissent."

The cloud of this debacle will feel like a diversion soon though, because there's so much more.

Let's discuss nitrous oxide. You've likely heard of it. It's what dentists give patients to relax them before needles and drills are used to bludgeon their mouths. It's laughing gas. It's fun. And it should never be confused with nitrogen oxides, which is what the Environmental Protection Agency regulates to control pollution.

Justice Neil Gorsuch famously mistook one for the other, five times, in his Ohio v. EPA ruling on Thursday. Then on Friday, SCOTUS ruled that courts are better positioned to do what regulatory experts have broadly done since 1984. In Loper Bright v. Raimondo, the supremes ruled that courts are more suited to decide anything and everything, scientific and complicated, than actual experts. Experts like those who know the difference between pollutants and laughing gas.

The 1984 decision, Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, established what has become known as the Chevron deference. The late Justice Antonin Scalia was a notorious supporter of the deference, because it provided a dependable "background rule of law against which Congress can legislate." He believed Congress wanted agencies, or subject matter experts, to exercise discretion on the implementation of their laws. I've been a regulator and a legislative consultant, and I know this to be historically true.

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Life in Stephen King's Shawshank State Prison, at its best, is mundane, repetitive, and stagnant. As is the state of politics in Indiana. Surviving either or both, doesn't require lightning to strike. It requires hope. Hope that can lead to a movement.

Democrats in Indiana nominated former Republican Superintendent of Public Instruction, Jennifer McCormick as their nominee for governor in May's primary. Last week, McCormick announced her preferred running mate as former Democrat state representative, Terry Goodin.

The latter was a mistake.

There are three unrelenting, unequivocal policy issues that define what a Democrat is in 2024. To be credible with Democrat voters these days, a candidate must support women's reproductive freedom, equality for all minority communities, and common sense gun safety measures. This isn't the entire platform, but when asking a candidate about their support for these three, they are simple "yes/no" questions. And the answer to them must be an unwavering "yes."

I won't vote for any candidate, for any office, who answers any of those questions with a "no," a "sort of," or even a "generally."

Yes, that purity test applies to those running for city council, school board and county auditor. Why? Because politics, like culture, is a continuum. That pro-life county auditor might run for U.S. Senate in two years. That pro-gun rights school board member might run for Congress. And then the weakness becomes trouble.

The truth is that these deficiencies are always trouble. They're indicators a party is willing to bargain with its own morals.

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"Mike and Mike in the Morning" was the last sports radio show I ever regularly listened to. I don't remember why I stopped. I wasn't angry about some hot take or uncalled-for disrespect toward the Colts. I simply lost interest. Besides, I know enough about sports, according to me, and don't need anyone explaining why my team won or lost. And predictions? Everyone is terrible at them, that's why we watch the games.

Now, the Mike and Micah political show in Indiana will have a whole host of far more serious problems. That's Mike Braun, the Republican nominee for governor, and Micah Beckwith, the surprise nominee for lieutenant governor. They have a show to put on, and based on the preview, it's not looking good.

Braun was likely planning on continuing his primary campaign platform, one famously declared by me as being about nothing. However, things changed on Saturday at the Indiana Republican Convention. Braun's campaign for governor transitioned from being about nothing to being all about his running mate.

Beckwith is a self-proclaimed Christian Nationalist. He claims to be a prophet of sorts. He notoriously supports banning books, specifically those of my favorite author, Indianapolis' John Green. He apparently thinks that the LG offers some "check" on the governor, as opposed to being a dutiful devotee. In short, he's trouble for Braun, and that's entirely Braun's fault.

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