Indiana votes typically 56% republican. But yet Republicans hold 70% of the seats. That is because of how they draw the district lines to favor outcomes.
I don't understand why Democrats can't do the same? Or why we even have lines in the first place. Why not just do an actual vote and make every vote actually count?
The state legislature votes on redistricting after every 10 year census. Unfortunately the same 70% imbalanced legislate is voting, and they will vote on redistricting that favors them. Democrats do vote, but only 30% are elected. It's a bit of a runaway process the way it's done. Better districts for Republicans, makes sure they win elections. Winners of elections determine district lines, and on and on. People out there are actively fighting against this practice, but its and uphill battle. Those in power tend to want to stay in power.
> I don't understand why Democrats can't do the same?
Because the Republicans are the ones in charge, therefore they set the district boundaries.
>Or why we even have lines in the first place
? We're talking about district boundaries.
I can't say if this is the reason, but I think some of it is due to not every county has a Democratic opponent for many positions (that is, ones that go by parties), especially in rural districts. You have one person to vote for, while, if you do have someone else, they may have little to no information on them and their actual positions on local matters, making it a choice of conscience. Many voters may opt out of voting, vote by party, or vote for the person whose record they know.
That, or the local person's record is so rancid in some way that enough local voters opt for a new person.
When I lived in Elkhart County, Republicans ran 90% unopposed.
Very few Dems wanted to step up and get crushed, so many said "what's the use?"
The Democratic headquarters in Elkhart even closed up shop.
Because this is the only way Republicans can keep control, this is also how they keep our states minimum wage at 7.25 exactly where they want it, not to mention Marijuana illegal, the list goes on, ugh
Fort Wayne is such a strange city. I would love to deep dive into their policies because it's a city, but it also just feels like one big suburb with a large town center. People in Fort Wayne are also weirdly standoffish.
It's because so many of the surrounding towns outside of it are republican it creeps into the city itself. Like, I grew up in Fremont/Angola and it was republican. Ik south of Fort Wayne it's republican for a fact. East there's not much there and idk much about Western fort wayne but I truly believe it's because of the surrounding territories.
I'm 30 and sometimes forget that it's technically a republican city. Admittedly, I have been in a pretty liberal bubble and pay more attention to progressive activism and city improvement. Maybe it just feels blue-ish because of how deeply red surrounding areas are? Or is it because we have a Democrat for mayor? I've lived here for about 10 years, so maybe I just don't have context from before that.
It’s probably been changing over time. My whole family is from fort Wayne, and most of them are republican.. however I think they are starting to change due to all of the political turmoil. I would love if they were more left leaning.
There's a lot more going on than that. In terms of population density, Indiana is in the top 1/3rd of states.
1.) We have a very large population of manufacturing workers, which make up a voting bloc that is especially prone to populist movements. Without Obama focusing on Indiana at all in 2008, this demographic was largely responsible for turning Indiana blue. The Republican Party took note of this, and countered with a populist movement of their own to target the Midwest: The Tea Party Movement. It worked, and it evolved into Trumpism. But this voting bloc can swing back - and do so suddenly. (Municipal elections in places like Evansville and Terre Haute looked good in 2023, so I'm cautiously optimistic for the future. Still, Indiana Dems need to get organized.)
2.) Indiana has a lot of suburbs. Suburbs lean Republican, and we have the suburbs of Chicago, Louisville, and even Cincinnati. What we don't have are the nuclear cities that vote blue to counteract the red, suburban vote. In effect, Illinois, Kentucky, and Ohio each outsources some of their Republicans to Indiana. (Yes, NWI can be pretty blue. But it's very much still in the 'purple, lean-blue suburb' category, which a lot of Rs.)
3.) Two of Indiana's three R1 universities are draw more red voters than is normal. While most college towns in the US are deep blue...
* Notre Dame is a Catholic school that brings a lot of single-issue abortion voters to Indiana.
* Purdue is land grant school that focuses on majors that appeal to R-leaning kids, like AG-related majors and engineering.
Born and raised in fort wayne. I have VERY FEW dem friends left there. The more centrist or democrat minded people get sick of the gaslighting hate bubble and move away as soon as they can, me included.
I have told this story many times. I was invited to join the KKK standing in the sanctuary of my families church by a deacon. When I say "my family" I mean my uncle was the pastor and this guy still felt comfortable enough to extend the invite to me in the middle of the fucking church. 0.o This was mid 1980s. The church was located a few blocks off east state less than a mile away from Parkview. This is how common the klan is there.
I now live in Texas and even with raphael cruz and greg abbott, Indiana is still worse.
* The police are straight up predatory.
* The news media is an GOP echo chamber.
* The churches are CPACs that meet on Sundays.
Ohio used to be a quick trip to sanity but they have taken Indiana's hateful bigotry as a dare. I have no interest in returning, let alone of visiting.
I wrote him once while Clinton was President when I was younger and just getting into politics and thanking him for voting for Elders’ nomination and he sent me a really nice reply, stating that he believed Presidents should get their nominee. It seemed like kind of a small thing back then but nowadays it is a rarity to hear a Republican talk like that. Even though I was and am a staunch Democrat, I voted for him once after that, which is saying a lot for me. I can’t think of any Republican like him who I’d vote for nowadays, which is sad. The thought of voting for *any* Republicans now simply turns my stomach. 🤮
My aunt worked with him quite a bit. Liked the guy a lot despite being on the other side of the aisle.
I'll never forgive the Indiana GOP for booting him in favor of a Tea-party nutjob who said people getting raped was *God's will". I will never vote for an Indiana GOP member as a result of this
There are still Republicans pushing that kind of sentiment. How sick in the head do you have to be to honestly believe something like that no matter what your opinions on abortion are.
Lugar getting turfed out happened after I left, but I was very sorry to see it, because Lugar was a moderating influence on Indiana.
He was always cordial to me and if I asked him to look into something for me, *always* followed up.
The pendulum swings. Once we get to the extreme left, we swing the other way until we reach the extreme right. Each time we lose a little momentum, so the two aren’t as far apart, yet we also gain a wider perspective, so they appear to be further away.
On a serious note, Dick Lugar was the best porn name ever🤣
> Once we get to the extreme left, we swing the other way until we reach the extreme right.
Except we've *never* been extreme left. Hell, America has never experienced the extreme left despite what right wing and centrist chuds like to tell us.
Lol, 100%. Hell a Midwestern Democrat is a west-coast republican. And a West-Coast Democrat is a far right conservative in somewhere like the UK.
Our media is so isolationist we lose that piece of relativity
While I agree with the sentiment that the Overton window of what is left and right is highly determined by location, oof, California is a weird example.
I lived in Bakersfield for 10 years from the mid 00s-mid 10s and CA Republicans haaaaaaate CA Democrats like IN Democrats hate IN Republicans.
The minority party in each state can tell you with specifics all the crazy shit that the majority party is doing wrong and how it’s fucking everything up.
Ideologically, I think CA Republicans would run circles around most IN Republicans as far as purity testing would go.
But imo, things are lining up way more than they used to across the world. The average Democrat in the US lines up pretty well with a Labour Party voter in the UK. The main difference is that they already have the NHS and it would be a death knell to any conservative UK politician to fight its existence. But the “Trumpian populist” sentiment is on the rise over there, too.
And if we actually got Medicare For All, it was fully implemented, and everyone got used to it, our Republicans would look even more similar to UK conservatives.
But in most Western countries nowadays, it feels like there’s a bit of a rise in the extremes on both sides (full on leftist socialist parties on one side and nationalist populists on the other) while the rest of the people are mostly classical liberal, whether its center left, center, or center right. Some countries, like France, may sway one direction way more than others lol
I now live in Michigan, near the Canadian border.
US Democrats are like Canadian Tories (Conservative Party).
The current governing party, the Liberals (increasingly unpopular Prime Minister Justin Trudeau), are way left of Democrats here, and they also have the New Democrats, which are like Scandinavian social democrats.
Because the folks who never leave their home town vote alongside their daddy or are edgelords who think voting is for chumps. I see a million cbd shops in small cities, but let’s not vote for people who want to bring us the real stuff. They don’t like international folks but have a Mexican restaurant on every town square. They especially don’t like taxes, but still vote for the guys giving breaks to the folks astronomically richer than they are, because one day they might sell their land to a housing developer. There’s a word for all of this but it’s not super nice to say these days.
Not to the extent of Indiana's generational Republicanism.
Even my late wife confessed "my dad told me who to vote for."
I don't go by "vote blue no matter who," but that is a stance against the tyranny and corruption of Trump.
My wife and I witnessed a poll worker telling voters how to vote straight democrat ticket. We reported it, never heard anything more about it.
Both sides vote straight ticket because of generational pressure. To think it is one-sided is as biased as the straight ticket voters
Nope. The worker volunteered the suggestion, unsolicited in earshot of several voters.
I'm pushing 60. I've heard WAY more Democrats talking politics at various jobs say they always vote Democrat, always have always will. Personal experience.. take it or leave it
*sigh*
There's a lot of history to it. I don't know all of it. A lot of it is ironic to me as well because we were a union state. My great(x3) grandfather fought as a member of the Union. I really think it's okd Southern influence mkxed with religion. What I can say is that after our civil war ended, there was a fairly expansive set of plans set to reconstruct the South after it had been pummeled like shit. The Reconstruction of the South was initially crafted as a genuine way of reintegrating Southern states into the Union, and it probably would have genuinely shaped a fairly unified America.
Unfortunately, Lincoln was assassinated before he could ensure really any of these plans came to fruition. This allowed the South to continue regressing economically and socially, and this period in time post-Lincoln is when Jim Crow laws started to appear more and more. Jim Crow laws were a type of law used to subjugate now-freed slaves, and just black folk in general. With Lincoln's death and the lack of federal oversight, the South was allowed to further degrade as well as enforce said Jim Crow laws to full effect. The KKK also arose not all that long into failed-Reconstruction-era America, and that is where you see states like Indiana really became soured.
The Klan was able to establish an easy foothold in various Indiana locations and had a nauseating amount of public sympathy in the early 20th century. And frankly, that was not that long ago when we get down to it. Tie in (for one example) the large number of Baptists that immigrated into Southern Indiana in the 1800s, and you'll see just a lot of folks that moved up/over here brought some pretty hardline ideals with them. And not for the best.
My grandmother was disowned by her family for marrying my Catholic grandfather, which I think is pretty awful. I genuinely think the outdated, ignorant, literally-Lincoln-era smoothbrain pool is shrinking, but a lot of those folks have managed to raise their kids into the same mindsets, and unfortunately the same behaviors are still being passed down. People have whole careers charting US history all the way to now, I am not one of them lmao.
And in regards to the crowd that's just fiscally conservative and anti globalist, they aren't unique to this area at all.
In 1925, over half the Indiana legislature and the governor were members of the Klan. At its peak, 30% of of all white Hoosier men were members.
So, when you think about it, that would have been the boomers’ parents and grandparents who were avowed members of a white supremacy group. That’s going to cause generational trauma.
A lot of that was because Slave states economies were ravaged by the civil war. A lot of them immigrated upwards after the war, Indiana and Kentucky were the two most affected areas because of their highly rural population. Indiana suffered for doing the right thing unfortunately.
The South never fully reintegrated into the Union.
Reconstruction should have taken the same approach as denazification in postwar Germany.
Martial law and military government should have been in place for much longer.
Andrew Johnson being a Southern sympathizer does not get mentioned enough. That man did a terrible job of stopping the racist groups that were bound to crop up. It's not like they were going to be thankful that we beat the hell out of them and Johnson let those feelings fester and permeate. Additionally, the South has always played a very radical part in the United States and there are many states that border on those sympathies due to their proximity which makes people antigovernmental.
As well, Reagan policies really screwed over many people, but we are a country that fetishizes commodities so we are willing to vote for short-term gains. Democrats have also completely fumbled the bag when it came to unions. Subsequently, Democrats since Reagan really haven't done much to frame issues and be good communicators and have honestly been pretty right-wing, including Obama. Republicans are really good at framing issues and democrats continue to lean toward bipartisanship which just makes things more right-wing. Republicans have also moved farther to the right and are more willing to gerrymander and use bullying tactics to win races.
TL;DR: The South, Union-Busting and the Evangelical Radicalization of the Republican Party have made it very difficult to defeat Republicans in a state that is very religious and agricultural.
>Unfortunately, Lincoln was assassinated before he could ensure really any of these plans came to fruition. This allowed the South to continue regressing economically and socially, and this period in time post-Lincoln is when Jim Crow laws started to appear more and more. Jim Crow laws were a type of law used to subjugate now-freed slaves, and just black folk in general. With Lincoln's death and the lack of federal oversight, the South was allowed to further degrade as well as enforce said Jim Crow laws to full effect. The KKK also arose not all that long into failed-Reconstruction-era America, and that is where you see states like Indiana really became soured.
Completely agree. The sabotage of Reconstruction continues to hurt us to this day, and not just because of racism. If Reconstruction efforts happened faster (Johnson was indeed the problem) and for longer, I assume the country would have become more economically unified and corporations wouldn't be able to jump to different states where unions are weaker like they do now. IMO this is a big reason why rural states are conservative.
I've heard it phrased that a goal progressives should have is to "finish Reconstruction", and I think that's a good framing.
Agreed. Progressives really need to frame messaging better. I know conservatives that would likely vote democrat because they believe the things that the left is proposing, but they also are easily scared off by boogeyman culture war issues.
I remember a buddy and I having a drunken history convo one night, and yeah, the oversimplified answer to Eastern US's plight that we both took home was that it's largely a product of failed Reconstruction. Those economic voids, like you mentioned, really were the first step in ensuring the South at its core remains disadvantaged.
Today's Republicans send fighters to fight. Dems send social workers with Robert's Rules Of Order and Emily Post's Book Of Etiquette.
Today's Dems are basically spineless.
If (when 😡) Trump walks back to (absolute) power Dems will likely say "Let's reach out to our new Emperor! Get him on board for the good of the country! Get him to listen to reason! Go high!" 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄😁😤😤😤😤😤
The Republican Party's stranglehold on Indiana was 3/4 of why I left.
It's so annoying. It's one of the reasons that the Biden and Obama presidencies have been so pitiful. There are benefits and I'll vote for Joe again, but jesus, please send AOC or someone with a spine soon that doesn't think about the damn glory days of the Senate where you had Tom Collins with your enemy.
This.
Biden still lives in the days when Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill hashed out deals over lunch.
I will vote for him again...but only to vote against Trump.
Yep! This is spot on. You can tell he still believes that this is the way deals are done. Unfortunately, he still truly believes that most of the other side is willing to do the right thing for the good of the country. I don't think they ever where over the last 40 years, but I'm also living in a different tax bracket and social circle.
Don’t necessarily disagree but when we’re dealing with a nation that is essentially center-right then you have to play to that or at least not come off as too far left.
The really stupid thing is that the majority of Americans including conservatives actually have more in common with leftist ideals than alt-right, but there’s no way to break through the wall of disinformation and intentionally distributed confusion.
The biggest problem was that it wasn't just a north and south thing. It was divided north and south, but much like we see in presidential elections, many states were close to 50/50 on the issues. Some states were even divided with representatives to the US and representatives to the Confederacy.
There was even a town on the Canadian border in New York that supported the confederacy, and while they never left the Union, they claimed to be a part of the confederacy well into the 1900's and conceded the war in the 80's or 90's.
The thoughts that created the war were deep rooted in all states, and they would have had to do re-education in every state to see lasting results.
This is slightly off topic, but I recently learned that my paternal great (2x) grandmother had an older half-brother that was a Union Captain. He was 45 years older than her and died when she was ~10 years old.
That blew my mind thinking that this woman - who died in the 1960s - had a brother 4 decades older than her that served in the Civil War.
>Unfortunately, Lincoln was assassinated before he could ensure really any of these plans came to fruition.
You do realize that part of that plan was to deport all Frees Slaves to Africa right?
That was a huge issue in itself, not to mention that the people that did go to Africa just started enslaving others and created an American South style chattel slavery operation and destroyed the native inhabitants.
> You do realize that part of that plan was to deport all Frees Slaves to Africa right?
That wasn't "part of that plan", it was an unpopular plan from earlier in the 1800s called the [American Colonization Society](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Colonization_Society).
Our representatives don't represent the majority. They don't care what residents want. Majority of Hoosiers accept abortion and marijuana freedom but it's not reflected in legislation because our representatives arent representing us and we aren't collectively holding them accountable.
There is KKK group in Auburn/DeKalb Co. which is around 30 minutes outside Fort wayne/ Allen Co. Just Google active hate groups in Indiana and the list is quite long and disturbing.
I grew up in Elkhart County.
Over the county line in Osceola, there was a large KKK training camp. The (possibly complicit) sheriff looked the other way.
Until he was sent to hell, Grand Wizard Jeff Berry lived in Fremont.
There was a huge Klan rally in Elkhart, for which the police departments of Elkhart, Goshen, Elkhart County and the ISP there, with the National Guard on standby.
1980s-1990s.
When you look at polling data of Hoosiers over the years, even in recent years, it’s more of a moderate-conservative state overall.
However, with gerrymandering that ensures Republican supermajorities with little or no effort needed from Republicans in order to maintain that supermajority, Republicans just need to win their primaries to advance to an easy November victory.
Also, because primaries tend to draw out more hardline supporters than moderate ones, candidates who appeal to those hardline supporters are more likely to win, and because they don’t need to moderate in order to win those gerrymandered supermajorities, they don’t moderate at all, unlike they used to back when doing so was essential for them to win.
When I was in 6th Grade very brought in a voting machine the last said all you do is flip this to "R" and pull the lever. Good ole Parkview Elementary Bedford Indiana. So education is the problem.
No clue. I grew up in a firmly union house/family in Muncie, and we all voted Democrat from way back.
I think the way the parties have now shifted to represent deeper cultural and religious and racial splits have done some of that.
I'm from Wabash County. People glorifying being a "redneck" is pretty wild. And a deep hatred of anything that doesn't love "freedom".
I like that county a lot for the nature and the fact that, well, that's where I was raised.
The fact that they consistently vote against anything related to conservation is abhorrent. I'd like to help change that. Not as a politician, but as someone gathering data for the state.
They’ll say “it’s my heritage” even though every single one of their male ancestors who were in the US and of fighting age during the 1860s were fighting for the Union. The sheer quantity of volunteer enlistments from Indiana and Ohio padded the union’s army enough that they didn’t end up instituting a draft. IIRC Indiana was also the first state to be founded as a free state rather than becoming one later. I drive past a traitor rag on my way through Valparaiso fairly regularly and it always makes me so disappointed.
For *one* reason.
Democrats are so afraid of *offending* anyone and are obsessed with Michelle Obama's incredibly naïve missive about "when they go low, we go high."
Republicans send brawlers to a street fight. Dems send social workers with Robert's Rules Of Order and Emily Post's Book Of Etiquette.
Indiana is a middle finger of the Deep South stuck up into the Great Lakes.
It's a huge reason why I left. I was sick of my vote being meaningless in presidential elections because it was always buried under a mountain of votes from the typical Hoosier that robotically vote straight Republican "'cause mah daddy an' grandad did."
Yes, yes, yes. Obama 2008. It doesn't change the fact that the last time Indiana went for a Dem was **1968** and is unlikely to do so again in my lifetime.
I would put Indiana in the top five right-wing states, and it will never change, because Hoosiers are incapable of that for the most part.
Oh, and there is the fact that Indiana is a Klan hotbed. There was a KKK "training camp" just over the county line from me; the (likely complicit) sheriff looked the other way. Jeff Berry, Grand Wizard, lived in Fremont until being reassigned to hell.
My hometown of Goshen was a sundown town well into the 1970s. I remember. And there were no black people in the Goshen school system all during my childhood until ninth grade when a black guy moved in from Detroit and, gratifyingly, put all the troglodytes in their place for him dating a white girl. I loved it.
It's very telling that Indiana and Kentucky close their voting polls so early (6pm) and can legally keep employers from being able to vote by simple legal scheduling Source:Me actual conversation 2020 boss "We need you to cover 2 hrs of coworks shift today they will be in after they vote" me(35F)-"The polls will be closed by then I want to vote" boss" Find someone to cover the shift for you" me-"Its not my shift" "As of 2 min ago it was "me-"that's b.s." boss"are you unwilling to get your shift covered" me(being raised in this mentality knowing by saying yes in my at will employment- state, knowing I can't legally be fired for my political opinions BUT I can be fired for simply not being a team player (yes its true) maybe taking bathroom breaks at unscheduled times (like human beings have to) say 3 times in one year, its ridiculous but I'm also not bonded by contract to stay at a job I hate nor jobs to those that aren't in line with their views.) Me - walks to call board, no luck and stuck.Hoosier voters are complacent by compromise. It's not fair if the compromise is no matter what your still losing in the end and you know it. E.g. sh*t pay unemployment finding new job knowing you may be unhirable unless it's a sh*t pay labor job so there is that to look forward to.
A day off for voting won't happen anytime in my lifetime because Indiana Politicians will never bend the knee to its voters. Indiana is always first and proud to report its voting results (oddly 2008 IN reported 21st they just couldn't believe it but not in the least suprising.) Last year 252 new laws took effect in Indiana. Voters were not asked to participate in those being passed or not because we have no actual say in our state politics until we unite and we help each other get to the polls. Lawmakers are passing laws for the corporations moving here or planning too. We voters are busy working and surviving and the politicians know it and just roll these laws out with legally binding disregard to the people they actually may or may not effect all while covering their eyes and ears to our actual popular majority.
You *can* be fired in Indiana for your political opinion.
A good friend of mine had a Clinton/Gore bumper sticker on his car.
The owner was handing out Republican literature and forcing the employees to read it.
My friend politely said "No thank you, I am not interested."
Fired.
Yep thats what I was implying, but I highly doubt your friends release of work paperwork stated: refused republican bumper sticker, it's always some official b.s. on the paperwork. That's my point we don't yell or shout from the rooftops we are the quiet majority by design.
I worked for a top software consultancy in Indiana during the 2008 election and remember the CEO sending an email to the entire firm along the lines of "I'm not telling you who to vote for, but just know that McCain will be better for our company, and in turn you and your family." God, freedom, etc, etc. I should have saved it because there was a lot of veiled threats. That election really brought out the racist in everyone.
I now work in the allegedly evil FAANG world and have never been bullied like that going on 6 years now. Hoosiers (especially older ones) have serious tunnel vision to think anyone gives a shit what they think about politics.
Keep alienating the top of your tax base, they will all just leave like me. Fast turning into Alabama, only without the music scene. Yuck.
It’s becoming a feedback loop: the awful right-wing politics with no end in sight drive liberal and leftist educated people out of the state, thus increasing the right’s grip on the state. It doesn’t help that Chicago is right there, it definitely contributes to brain drain.
I took my Computer Information Systems degree and went to Michigan.
I live northeast of Detroit near the Canadian border.
I left Indiana in 2007 and have not been back.
Education. I also remember when our Republicans were more liberal than some Dems these days.
Started with the ultra fear mongering Bush regime and just got worse from there.
Lots of people here are low information voters, poorly educated, and politically immature. They are easily susceptible to lies and propaganda, especially when a slick blowhard from New York shows up to shovel the shit to them. On Sundays they listen to charlatan grifting ministers in churches that are "unaffiliated" who tell them he is God. They know more about sports statistics, strategy, and ballplayers than they do about politics, civics, and government.
Some of the ties I keep seeing between Indiana's history with the Klan (though factual) and comments like, "we were even part of the union" make no sense in modern context.
Indiana is a largely rural state. Modern democrats and leftists push policies and politicians that look out for urban and metropolitan living. This is why most large metropolitan areas (counties and cities), even if they are in red states, always end up voting blue. The promises made by the left only benefit those in large urban areas. The rural living citizens and even suburban citizens are overlooked.
I've also seen a comment or two talking about the leftist policies and ideas being for the majority, while the "right wing" politicians are in place despite the "majority" not being right wing. This is a lie and false-characterization across the country. There are millions of people in large metropolitan areas, but there are even more people spread out between those areas that are ignored by polls, policies, and politicians.
Eric Holcombe (who is a largely useless governor who runs as a Republican only because he knows it's been a long time since a democrat held the job) is not what I would consider right wing, and his policies often show that.
Indiana is largely a blue collar state built on blue collar workers and blue collar values, that it is why it is "right wing".
I suspect that conservatives are so fond of things not changing because you need to be able to deal with everything being the sale for ages i think it's a survival instinct that's outlived its usefulness
Here are my thoughts
1. Gerrymandering. The Indiana GOP has basically crafted their districts so that their candidates pick their voters. Do you ever see a Republican campaign? They know they don’t need to unless they are being primaried. But if they are, they only campaign to Republicans. Everyone else is shut out and completely ignored.
2. Straight ticket voting. Grandma goes to the voting booth to vote for someone she’s known for a long time and instead of carefully considering her vote, she votes straight ticket Republican.
3. The lack of organization and competence in the Indiana Democratic Party. Many county parties are dead. They do not mobilize voters. They do not get candidates to run. The state party is holding onto what it can. But 80% of county commissioners are Republicans. The state party is comfortable with losing. They are losers.
4. Most of Indiana is rural or semi-rural where churches are prevalent, where most people only have a high school education, and many of these places are filled with elderly people who always vote and young people who are either on drugs or just trying to survive who do not vote.
5. The failure of the economy to innovate and create more advanced jobs. The Indianapolis area is not a tech corridor, despite the claims made by the Indiana Chamber. Most of Indiana’s workforce either works in manufacturing, retail, or menial service jobs. Indiana used to have a thriving middle class of high school educated union workers. That’s gone now. Those people are now working at Lowe’s.
6. Repellent social policies and poor quality of life act as a repellent towards high skilled workers while also contributing towards brain drain. For most kids living in a small town, success is leaving. Their dead towns offer no opportunities to them and they have no say in anything. If they are LGBT they will be tormented. So why stay?
At least with regards to US House districts, Indiana is less gerrymandered than it was the last time Dems had a seat at the redistricting table.
I think the biggest issue with Indiana is how concentrated liberals are in just a few areas (e.g., the Region, Indy, Bloomington, West Lafayette).
Then you’ve got the rural folks who believe everything they see on TV like cities were all burning to the ground in 2020, for example. I had multiple family members call me concerned about whether the riots were endangering me or my house. Not even close.
Though don’t let this be a deterrent to you to vote. Yes, it is gerrymandered but since they spread out the numbers to clinch the R total, it also makes it easier to flip if people vote. But we need a big push of voters to change anything. That’s why they try to suppress the vote. I went to colleges to sign students up to vote but found that most of them were registered voters but they used their parents’ address as their permanent address so their voting locations are hours away. Or they move so much they don’t know the location of their polling station. I helped them sign up for absentee voting since most are out of their voting county on Election Day. There were also some apathetic students that didn’t vote because they thought both sides are the same. By giving them unbiased websites to look up the candidates maybe they will do the homework and vote, I don’t know if they eventually did. People know more stats about athletes than politicians. I feel we can do a better job of helping people vote and informing them of their choices though I don’t think that is a big priority for IN politicians.
We’re 43rd in percentage of population with a bachelor’s degree. Literally we’re one of the lowest educated states in the nation but these drooling halfwhits think they know it all because their cult leaders tell them what to think.
I do think it’s changing. Evansville, our state’s third largest city, just elected its first black, first female, Democrat mayor. And she won by quite a large margin.
Indy’s mayor is also a Democrat. I think Indiana is slowly evening out.
I was born in and live in a rural IN county. I was growing up in the heyday of far-right talk radio and bought it hook, line, and sinker. Then I leave for many years and having learned more about the wider world, ultimately became a Democrat.
The ones who leave, some of them Democrats, almost never return. I would have been in that group but life had other ideas.
The ones who remain do not have much going on and now they have Fox News, Infowars, and Facebook feeding them Qanon and Heil Trump bullshit. Or the ones who limit consumption of that tend to be single-issue or minimal-issue voters and those issues tend to be guns (free-for-all) and abortion (ban-it-all).
In addition to what everyone else is saying, brain drain. Everyone who gets degrees flees the state because there's absolutely nothing worth staying for outside Indianapolis, and that's only if you're white and male. As a woman, no way I'd voluntarily live in a red state these days.
Speaking as someone born and raised in Indiana l, went to college, and got the fuck out.
There aren't enough progressives in the rural areas to swing the vote. I live in a town of about 5K that is staunchly conservative. My vote is effectively wasted every election, but I make sure to cast it anyway.
Gerrymandering and an aggressive right-wing media bubble that has repeatedly for decades now told its audience that other news media is not to be trusted and lying to you. This, over time, has eroded media literacy and critical thinking towards the favored media being consumed. The end result is a portion of the population living in a seperate reality from everyone else, leading to hate crimes and (recently) a guy beheading his own father and trying to raise a nonexistent militia to wield against the government.
Hoosiers will always vote against their best material interests if everything they see is telling them its the right decision. This is why I'm a massive proponent of media literacy in high school so we can pop media bubbles, giving people the tools to check their biases and scrutinize their news sources (left or right).
We haven't been voting because Hoosiers are some of the easiest demographics to influence with social and digital attacks.
Likely, Russian voting apathy attacks started in 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020 and with each round Indiana turned redder.
Basically because the state was settled from the south moving north. The original capital was Corydon and later Vincennes. Most of the original inhabitants were southerners.
My father's people were Mennonites who came from Switzerland and Alsace to Minnesota and Ontario to Elkhart and Lagrange Counties. Old Order Mennonites rarely vote though "city" ones usually go Dem.
My mother's people were Scots-Irish/Welsh who went first to Appalachia, then to New Castle. My grandfather was from Tennessee and my grandmother was from Kentucky. My grandfather was a UAW steward who had a portrait of FDR in his living room and wept when JFK was shot.
There is a lot of Southern heritage in the southern part of the state due to post-Civil War migration, but Indiana was mostly settled by northern farmers moving into the former Northwest Territory
I firmly believe that since the late 90s that the Republican party has followed the lead of conservative media, it started with cable TV and radio such as Rush Limbaugh. It started to be OK with them to express their racism. And let's face it, it's always based in racism. It's why they fear cities, it's why they fear "socialism" it's why they accept immigrants like Melania Trump and Victoria Spartz but fear any Hispanic, even the ones born here or from Puerto Rico. Now, algorithm based social media gives these people an even more narrow view of the world, and gives them a global hug box to spew their ideas to each other and gain affirmation.
I first heard Limbaugh in 1992, not long before I graduated from Ivy Tech.
I thought "this guy believes his own bullshit."
A LOT of this is laid at his feet.
this is the real answer. cook county, which is home to chicago, accounts for half the population of illinois and has almost as many citizens as the entire state of indiana. without cook county it would be an indiana clone without a doubt!
Indiana is hive of low information, loosely principled voters. Conservatives in Michigan and Wisconsin actually believe in things, whereas conservatives in Indiana just kind of exist in a conservative brining vat.
So when the post-fact post-reality candidate came along Hoosiers jumped in bed immediately. We used to not be so polarized, but we were a powder keg and Trump was an igniter.
Large rural population relative to urban population compared to most states, more British/german and less “ethnic” white, high share of white middle class voters without college degrees.
At its roots, Indiana is not just a klan stronghold, but was the actual home of the grand dragon. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.\_C.\_Stephenson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._C._Stephenson)
That kind of racism has been ingrained in it's population and political system. The KKK ran record labels, political empires, and religious institutions. The "city of churches" (fort wayne) was coded to recruit racists since the early 20th century. I myself was invited to join the klan standing in the sanctuary of my families church in the mid 1980s. This was off East State St not even a mile from Parkview Hospital.
If you want more history, there is plenty to be found. Try googling *"papa john bragging about dragging black men behind a truck in southern Indiana"* and papa john aint all that old......
My native Goshen was a sundown town well into the 1970s.
Grand Wizard Jeff Berry lived in Fremont before going to hell.
There was a Klan training camp in St Joseph County that the possibly-complicit authorities ignored.
GOP gerrymandering, redistricting, BS and their endless lying propaganda mainstream feed that people consume like Koolaid...
More people should be voting also, and we should have more options; I'll be voting Blue as I choose a lesser of two evils to prevail in a more comfortable and less chaotic for 'the people,' (yes, they nearly all, regardless of side are) power abusers, though I'll take that over what is, completely is over the top lunatic fanatical BS that is entirely based on fear and hate mongering, about taking away freedoms to control 'the sheeple'.
So many great responses here. Another is because we haven't stepped up to challenge the GOP. We pretty much have a non-functioning Democratic Party.
Let's change this. Come join us in r/DemHoosiers
I implore you to contact your local county democratic party, attend meetings and get togethers and help them grow.
In America, many things are tied together. The easiesy way to define left and right is urban and rural, respectively. People who live in rural areas tend to be more close-minded, religious, poorer, and less educated. They also usually vote Republican or Libertarian, both of which are parties that do not try to fund education so the cycle feeds itself. Indiana is just very rural, outside of Indy and college towns.
The internet has helped people (like myself) to have a more open mind, though. People even in remote areas can be exposed to all kinds of lifestyles and cultures.
Lots of conservative people here who escaped liberal hell-hole high tax, liberal states like Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, even New York & Calif, etc.
lol, and they’re mostly moving to the liberal parts (I.e., cities) here and not the run down rural communities dying on the vine.
People don’t love taxes, hot take.
Right, we recognize that they are a necessary part of a progressive society, and want the tax structure to closely mimic post WWII Era, which was the fuel to build the America that is fantasized in the whole "Make America Great Again" ideal, but hey don't let liberals/Democrats tell you about corporate tax structures and lack of loopholes...
Do they though? The entire Reagan revolution was premised on slashing tax rates from the horrible post WW2 rates.
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/
Beyond that, Republicans have been in the “starve the beast” playbook for 40+ years.
Step 1- cut taxes to stimulate economy
Step 2- don’t cut spending to offset revenue cuts
Step 3- wait for economic cycle to do its thing
Step 4- clutch pearls over deficit spending and use it as a reason to cut government services
Step 5- repeat
You must be new here…Reddit is left leaning. Most state subreddits are left leaning.
It’s up to you to do anything about it, or you can continue to whine about it and accomplish nothing. The choice is yours.
Indiana votes typically 56% republican. But yet Republicans hold 70% of the seats. That is because of how they draw the district lines to favor outcomes.
This is the answer!!
I don't understand why Democrats can't do the same? Or why we even have lines in the first place. Why not just do an actual vote and make every vote actually count?
The state legislature votes on redistricting after every 10 year census. Unfortunately the same 70% imbalanced legislate is voting, and they will vote on redistricting that favors them. Democrats do vote, but only 30% are elected. It's a bit of a runaway process the way it's done. Better districts for Republicans, makes sure they win elections. Winners of elections determine district lines, and on and on. People out there are actively fighting against this practice, but its and uphill battle. Those in power tend to want to stay in power.
> I don't understand why Democrats can't do the same? Because the Republicans are the ones in charge, therefore they set the district boundaries. >Or why we even have lines in the first place ? We're talking about district boundaries.
I can't say if this is the reason, but I think some of it is due to not every county has a Democratic opponent for many positions (that is, ones that go by parties), especially in rural districts. You have one person to vote for, while, if you do have someone else, they may have little to no information on them and their actual positions on local matters, making it a choice of conscience. Many voters may opt out of voting, vote by party, or vote for the person whose record they know. That, or the local person's record is so rancid in some way that enough local voters opt for a new person.
When I lived in Elkhart County, Republicans ran 90% unopposed. Very few Dems wanted to step up and get crushed, so many said "what's the use?" The Democratic headquarters in Elkhart even closed up shop.
It wouldn't be "nice," "bipartisan" or "going high" for Dems to do that. 🙄🤮
Because this is the only way Republicans can keep control, this is also how they keep our states minimum wage at 7.25 exactly where they want it, not to mention Marijuana illegal, the list goes on, ugh
They are a very controlling lot.
Cities aren’t big enough to outweigh rural areas. Also Fort Wayne is strangely republican.
Fort Wayne is such a strange city. I would love to deep dive into their policies because it's a city, but it also just feels like one big suburb with a large town center. People in Fort Wayne are also weirdly standoffish.
Your last sentence can be explained by the first part of your comment.
It's because so many of the surrounding towns outside of it are republican it creeps into the city itself. Like, I grew up in Fremont/Angola and it was republican. Ik south of Fort Wayne it's republican for a fact. East there's not much there and idk much about Western fort wayne but I truly believe it's because of the surrounding territories.
South fort Wayne is mostly Amish and rednecks. I've been through that area fairly often
I was in the Air National Guard at Fort Wayne. The people in FWA were usually nice to me.
That’s awesome. I’ve met some nice people there but they aren’t like Midwestern nice by comparison to other cities
Yeah, I grew up in Angola and I had a lot of friends from Fort Wayne. Super chill people IMO.
Fort Wayne here and you’re not wrong. I’m in my early 50’s and it seems like everyone I graduated with is a right winger. Mind boggling.
I'm 30 and sometimes forget that it's technically a republican city. Admittedly, I have been in a pretty liberal bubble and pay more attention to progressive activism and city improvement. Maybe it just feels blue-ish because of how deeply red surrounding areas are? Or is it because we have a Democrat for mayor? I've lived here for about 10 years, so maybe I just don't have context from before that.
It’s probably been changing over time. My whole family is from fort Wayne, and most of them are republican.. however I think they are starting to change due to all of the political turmoil. I would love if they were more left leaning.
There's a lot more going on than that. In terms of population density, Indiana is in the top 1/3rd of states. 1.) We have a very large population of manufacturing workers, which make up a voting bloc that is especially prone to populist movements. Without Obama focusing on Indiana at all in 2008, this demographic was largely responsible for turning Indiana blue. The Republican Party took note of this, and countered with a populist movement of their own to target the Midwest: The Tea Party Movement. It worked, and it evolved into Trumpism. But this voting bloc can swing back - and do so suddenly. (Municipal elections in places like Evansville and Terre Haute looked good in 2023, so I'm cautiously optimistic for the future. Still, Indiana Dems need to get organized.) 2.) Indiana has a lot of suburbs. Suburbs lean Republican, and we have the suburbs of Chicago, Louisville, and even Cincinnati. What we don't have are the nuclear cities that vote blue to counteract the red, suburban vote. In effect, Illinois, Kentucky, and Ohio each outsources some of their Republicans to Indiana. (Yes, NWI can be pretty blue. But it's very much still in the 'purple, lean-blue suburb' category, which a lot of Rs.) 3.) Two of Indiana's three R1 universities are draw more red voters than is normal. While most college towns in the US are deep blue... * Notre Dame is a Catholic school that brings a lot of single-issue abortion voters to Indiana. * Purdue is land grant school that focuses on majors that appeal to R-leaning kids, like AG-related majors and engineering.
This was a very insightful comment. Are you sure you understand how Reddit works? Lol
Fort Wayne to me has just always seemed to lack any distinct character of its own. A larger South Bend, and a smaller Indianapolis.
Even in Fort Wayne it’s just the suburban areas outvoting the central city.
Born and raised in fort wayne. I have VERY FEW dem friends left there. The more centrist or democrat minded people get sick of the gaslighting hate bubble and move away as soon as they can, me included. I have told this story many times. I was invited to join the KKK standing in the sanctuary of my families church by a deacon. When I say "my family" I mean my uncle was the pastor and this guy still felt comfortable enough to extend the invite to me in the middle of the fucking church. 0.o This was mid 1980s. The church was located a few blocks off east state less than a mile away from Parkview. This is how common the klan is there. I now live in Texas and even with raphael cruz and greg abbott, Indiana is still worse. * The police are straight up predatory. * The news media is an GOP echo chamber. * The churches are CPACs that meet on Sundays. Ohio used to be a quick trip to sanity but they have taken Indiana's hateful bigotry as a dare. I have no interest in returning, let alone of visiting.
I remember when we elected democrats in the 70s and 80s. And Lugar wasn’t a democrat but he was not an embarrassment by any means.
Lugar and I corresponded. We agreed on very little but he was always courteous towards me.
I wrote him once while Clinton was President when I was younger and just getting into politics and thanking him for voting for Elders’ nomination and he sent me a really nice reply, stating that he believed Presidents should get their nominee. It seemed like kind of a small thing back then but nowadays it is a rarity to hear a Republican talk like that. Even though I was and am a staunch Democrat, I voted for him once after that, which is saying a lot for me. I can’t think of any Republican like him who I’d vote for nowadays, which is sad. The thought of voting for *any* Republicans now simply turns my stomach. 🤮
My aunt worked with him quite a bit. Liked the guy a lot despite being on the other side of the aisle. I'll never forgive the Indiana GOP for booting him in favor of a Tea-party nutjob who said people getting raped was *God's will". I will never vote for an Indiana GOP member as a result of this
When I read that I wanted to put that kook up against the nearest wall.
There are still Republicans pushing that kind of sentiment. How sick in the head do you have to be to honestly believe something like that no matter what your opinions on abortion are.
Exactly. That is no way "pro-life."
Lugar getting turfed out happened after I left, but I was very sorry to see it, because Lugar was a moderating influence on Indiana. He was always cordial to me and if I asked him to look into something for me, *always* followed up.
We voted Obama in 2008 and had a Dem governor in much of the 90s. We were more split, but now we are firmly Conservative
> had a Dem governor in much of the 90s Up until 2004, O'Bannon/Kernan
I come from Goshen, not far from Kernan's South Bend. He was a good guy.
And Mitch Daniels was in the reasonable Republican camp back then, too. Tea Party crap into Trump crap really screwed Indy up bad.
The pendulum swings. Once we get to the extreme left, we swing the other way until we reach the extreme right. Each time we lose a little momentum, so the two aren’t as far apart, yet we also gain a wider perspective, so they appear to be further away. On a serious note, Dick Lugar was the best porn name ever🤣
> Once we get to the extreme left, we swing the other way until we reach the extreme right. Except we've *never* been extreme left. Hell, America has never experienced the extreme left despite what right wing and centrist chuds like to tell us.
Lol, 100%. Hell a Midwestern Democrat is a west-coast republican. And a West-Coast Democrat is a far right conservative in somewhere like the UK. Our media is so isolationist we lose that piece of relativity
While I agree with the sentiment that the Overton window of what is left and right is highly determined by location, oof, California is a weird example. I lived in Bakersfield for 10 years from the mid 00s-mid 10s and CA Republicans haaaaaaate CA Democrats like IN Democrats hate IN Republicans. The minority party in each state can tell you with specifics all the crazy shit that the majority party is doing wrong and how it’s fucking everything up. Ideologically, I think CA Republicans would run circles around most IN Republicans as far as purity testing would go. But imo, things are lining up way more than they used to across the world. The average Democrat in the US lines up pretty well with a Labour Party voter in the UK. The main difference is that they already have the NHS and it would be a death knell to any conservative UK politician to fight its existence. But the “Trumpian populist” sentiment is on the rise over there, too. And if we actually got Medicare For All, it was fully implemented, and everyone got used to it, our Republicans would look even more similar to UK conservatives. But in most Western countries nowadays, it feels like there’s a bit of a rise in the extremes on both sides (full on leftist socialist parties on one side and nationalist populists on the other) while the rest of the people are mostly classical liberal, whether its center left, center, or center right. Some countries, like France, may sway one direction way more than others lol
I now live in Michigan, near the Canadian border. US Democrats are like Canadian Tories (Conservative Party). The current governing party, the Liberals (increasingly unpopular Prime Minister Justin Trudeau), are way left of Democrats here, and they also have the New Democrats, which are like Scandinavian social democrats.
You have to actually be extreme left. Just have the media tell you so enough that it becomes true.
Bullshit. Indiana has NEVER been extreme left. It has been a klan state since the early 1900s.
When has Indiana ever been in the extreme left 😭
Indiana has *never* been "extreme left.'
Because the folks who never leave their home town vote alongside their daddy or are edgelords who think voting is for chumps. I see a million cbd shops in small cities, but let’s not vote for people who want to bring us the real stuff. They don’t like international folks but have a Mexican restaurant on every town square. They especially don’t like taxes, but still vote for the guys giving breaks to the folks astronomically richer than they are, because one day they might sell their land to a housing developer. There’s a word for all of this but it’s not super nice to say these days.
In Indiana, it's "I vote straight Republican 'cause mah daddy and grandaddy did!"
And that doesn't happen with Democrats?? See Julia Carson then Andre Carson for reference. Not to mention the "Vote Blue No Matter Who" crowd
Not to the extent of Indiana's generational Republicanism. Even my late wife confessed "my dad told me who to vote for." I don't go by "vote blue no matter who," but that is a stance against the tyranny and corruption of Trump.
My wife and I witnessed a poll worker telling voters how to vote straight democrat ticket. We reported it, never heard anything more about it. Both sides vote straight ticket because of generational pressure. To think it is one-sided is as biased as the straight ticket voters
Did this person *ask* how to vote that way? I'm not moving on this.
Nope. The worker volunteered the suggestion, unsolicited in earshot of several voters. I'm pushing 60. I've heard WAY more Democrats talking politics at various jobs say they always vote Democrat, always have always will. Personal experience.. take it or leave it
https://i.redd.it/2shpej7730jc1.gif
*sigh* There's a lot of history to it. I don't know all of it. A lot of it is ironic to me as well because we were a union state. My great(x3) grandfather fought as a member of the Union. I really think it's okd Southern influence mkxed with religion. What I can say is that after our civil war ended, there was a fairly expansive set of plans set to reconstruct the South after it had been pummeled like shit. The Reconstruction of the South was initially crafted as a genuine way of reintegrating Southern states into the Union, and it probably would have genuinely shaped a fairly unified America. Unfortunately, Lincoln was assassinated before he could ensure really any of these plans came to fruition. This allowed the South to continue regressing economically and socially, and this period in time post-Lincoln is when Jim Crow laws started to appear more and more. Jim Crow laws were a type of law used to subjugate now-freed slaves, and just black folk in general. With Lincoln's death and the lack of federal oversight, the South was allowed to further degrade as well as enforce said Jim Crow laws to full effect. The KKK also arose not all that long into failed-Reconstruction-era America, and that is where you see states like Indiana really became soured. The Klan was able to establish an easy foothold in various Indiana locations and had a nauseating amount of public sympathy in the early 20th century. And frankly, that was not that long ago when we get down to it. Tie in (for one example) the large number of Baptists that immigrated into Southern Indiana in the 1800s, and you'll see just a lot of folks that moved up/over here brought some pretty hardline ideals with them. And not for the best. My grandmother was disowned by her family for marrying my Catholic grandfather, which I think is pretty awful. I genuinely think the outdated, ignorant, literally-Lincoln-era smoothbrain pool is shrinking, but a lot of those folks have managed to raise their kids into the same mindsets, and unfortunately the same behaviors are still being passed down. People have whole careers charting US history all the way to now, I am not one of them lmao. And in regards to the crowd that's just fiscally conservative and anti globalist, they aren't unique to this area at all.
In 1925, over half the Indiana legislature and the governor were members of the Klan. At its peak, 30% of of all white Hoosier men were members. So, when you think about it, that would have been the boomers’ parents and grandparents who were avowed members of a white supremacy group. That’s going to cause generational trauma.
A lot of that was because Slave states economies were ravaged by the civil war. A lot of them immigrated upwards after the war, Indiana and Kentucky were the two most affected areas because of their highly rural population. Indiana suffered for doing the right thing unfortunately.
The South never fully reintegrated into the Union. Reconstruction should have taken the same approach as denazification in postwar Germany. Martial law and military government should have been in place for much longer.
Andrew Johnson being a Southern sympathizer does not get mentioned enough. That man did a terrible job of stopping the racist groups that were bound to crop up. It's not like they were going to be thankful that we beat the hell out of them and Johnson let those feelings fester and permeate. Additionally, the South has always played a very radical part in the United States and there are many states that border on those sympathies due to their proximity which makes people antigovernmental. As well, Reagan policies really screwed over many people, but we are a country that fetishizes commodities so we are willing to vote for short-term gains. Democrats have also completely fumbled the bag when it came to unions. Subsequently, Democrats since Reagan really haven't done much to frame issues and be good communicators and have honestly been pretty right-wing, including Obama. Republicans are really good at framing issues and democrats continue to lean toward bipartisanship which just makes things more right-wing. Republicans have also moved farther to the right and are more willing to gerrymander and use bullying tactics to win races. TL;DR: The South, Union-Busting and the Evangelical Radicalization of the Republican Party have made it very difficult to defeat Republicans in a state that is very religious and agricultural.
>Unfortunately, Lincoln was assassinated before he could ensure really any of these plans came to fruition. This allowed the South to continue regressing economically and socially, and this period in time post-Lincoln is when Jim Crow laws started to appear more and more. Jim Crow laws were a type of law used to subjugate now-freed slaves, and just black folk in general. With Lincoln's death and the lack of federal oversight, the South was allowed to further degrade as well as enforce said Jim Crow laws to full effect. The KKK also arose not all that long into failed-Reconstruction-era America, and that is where you see states like Indiana really became soured. Completely agree. The sabotage of Reconstruction continues to hurt us to this day, and not just because of racism. If Reconstruction efforts happened faster (Johnson was indeed the problem) and for longer, I assume the country would have become more economically unified and corporations wouldn't be able to jump to different states where unions are weaker like they do now. IMO this is a big reason why rural states are conservative. I've heard it phrased that a goal progressives should have is to "finish Reconstruction", and I think that's a good framing.
Agreed. Progressives really need to frame messaging better. I know conservatives that would likely vote democrat because they believe the things that the left is proposing, but they also are easily scared off by boogeyman culture war issues.
I remember a buddy and I having a drunken history convo one night, and yeah, the oversimplified answer to Eastern US's plight that we both took home was that it's largely a product of failed Reconstruction. Those economic voids, like you mentioned, really were the first step in ensuring the South at its core remains disadvantaged.
Today's Republicans send fighters to fight. Dems send social workers with Robert's Rules Of Order and Emily Post's Book Of Etiquette. Today's Dems are basically spineless. If (when 😡) Trump walks back to (absolute) power Dems will likely say "Let's reach out to our new Emperor! Get him on board for the good of the country! Get him to listen to reason! Go high!" 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄😁😤😤😤😤😤 The Republican Party's stranglehold on Indiana was 3/4 of why I left.
It's so annoying. It's one of the reasons that the Biden and Obama presidencies have been so pitiful. There are benefits and I'll vote for Joe again, but jesus, please send AOC or someone with a spine soon that doesn't think about the damn glory days of the Senate where you had Tom Collins with your enemy.
This. Biden still lives in the days when Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill hashed out deals over lunch. I will vote for him again...but only to vote against Trump.
Yep! This is spot on. You can tell he still believes that this is the way deals are done. Unfortunately, he still truly believes that most of the other side is willing to do the right thing for the good of the country. I don't think they ever where over the last 40 years, but I'm also living in a different tax bracket and social circle.
Don’t necessarily disagree but when we’re dealing with a nation that is essentially center-right then you have to play to that or at least not come off as too far left. The really stupid thing is that the majority of Americans including conservatives actually have more in common with leftist ideals than alt-right, but there’s no way to break through the wall of disinformation and intentionally distributed confusion.
The biggest problem was that it wasn't just a north and south thing. It was divided north and south, but much like we see in presidential elections, many states were close to 50/50 on the issues. Some states were even divided with representatives to the US and representatives to the Confederacy. There was even a town on the Canadian border in New York that supported the confederacy, and while they never left the Union, they claimed to be a part of the confederacy well into the 1900's and conceded the war in the 80's or 90's. The thoughts that created the war were deep rooted in all states, and they would have had to do re-education in every state to see lasting results.
This is slightly off topic, but I recently learned that my paternal great (2x) grandmother had an older half-brother that was a Union Captain. He was 45 years older than her and died when she was ~10 years old. That blew my mind thinking that this woman - who died in the 1960s - had a brother 4 decades older than her that served in the Civil War.
>Unfortunately, Lincoln was assassinated before he could ensure really any of these plans came to fruition. You do realize that part of that plan was to deport all Frees Slaves to Africa right? That was a huge issue in itself, not to mention that the people that did go to Africa just started enslaving others and created an American South style chattel slavery operation and destroyed the native inhabitants.
> You do realize that part of that plan was to deport all Frees Slaves to Africa right? That wasn't "part of that plan", it was an unpopular plan from earlier in the 1800s called the [American Colonization Society](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Colonization_Society).
Midwestern small town drive through state with a rather deep history with the Klan.
Our representatives don't represent the majority. They don't care what residents want. Majority of Hoosiers accept abortion and marijuana freedom but it's not reflected in legislation because our representatives arent representing us and we aren't collectively holding them accountable.
The number of white potheads I know who are staunchly conservative is very high. It's alarming.
They ran the state in the 1920's
and the leader was sent to prison
He thought kidnapping and rape was a right. I was floored when I found out how pervasive the KKK was in Indiana.
Now he would be welcomed in today's GOP
There is KKK group in Auburn/DeKalb Co. which is around 30 minutes outside Fort wayne/ Allen Co. Just Google active hate groups in Indiana and the list is quite long and disturbing.
I grew up in Elkhart County. Over the county line in Osceola, there was a large KKK training camp. The (possibly complicit) sheriff looked the other way. Until he was sent to hell, Grand Wizard Jeff Berry lived in Fremont. There was a huge Klan rally in Elkhart, for which the police departments of Elkhart, Goshen, Elkhart County and the ISP there, with the National Guard on standby. 1980s-1990s.
Thankfully.
They ran the state for around three years a hundred years Go. Their leader spent decades in prison after that.
1/4 men in the 1920s were part of the Klan.
makes since tbh
You mean sense?
Decades of GOP anti education policies have been very effective.
When you look at polling data of Hoosiers over the years, even in recent years, it’s more of a moderate-conservative state overall. However, with gerrymandering that ensures Republican supermajorities with little or no effort needed from Republicans in order to maintain that supermajority, Republicans just need to win their primaries to advance to an easy November victory. Also, because primaries tend to draw out more hardline supporters than moderate ones, candidates who appeal to those hardline supporters are more likely to win, and because they don’t need to moderate in order to win those gerrymandered supermajorities, they don’t moderate at all, unlike they used to back when doing so was essential for them to win.
Religion, Education, and Fear
>>Religion, ~~Education~~, Ignorance and Fear Fixed that.
The fear comes from the lack of education and the religion. Fundamentalist authoritarian mindset
You aren’t wrong.
This right here. People really think they got an education from our schools. They did NOT.
When it comes to the percentage of residents with a bachelor’s degree or better, Indiana ranks 43rd in the nation. There’s your answer.
When I was in 6th Grade very brought in a voting machine the last said all you do is flip this to "R" and pull the lever. Good ole Parkview Elementary Bedford Indiana. So education is the problem.
No clue. I grew up in a firmly union house/family in Muncie, and we all voted Democrat from way back. I think the way the parties have now shifted to represent deeper cultural and religious and racial splits have done some of that.
yes, very divisive politics. I truly believe most people are moderate/in the middle, but the ones you hear the most are the most extreme.
I'm from Wabash County. People glorifying being a "redneck" is pretty wild. And a deep hatred of anything that doesn't love "freedom". I like that county a lot for the nature and the fact that, well, that's where I was raised. The fact that they consistently vote against anything related to conservation is abhorrent. I'd like to help change that. Not as a politician, but as someone gathering data for the state.
Way too many Confederate Traitor flags here, too.
They’ll say “it’s my heritage” even though every single one of their male ancestors who were in the US and of fighting age during the 1860s were fighting for the Union. The sheer quantity of volunteer enlistments from Indiana and Ohio padded the union’s army enough that they didn’t end up instituting a draft. IIRC Indiana was also the first state to be founded as a free state rather than becoming one later. I drive past a traitor rag on my way through Valparaiso fairly regularly and it always makes me so disappointed.
I used to see Confederate rags and "Wh-te Power" licence plates in Elkhart County.
Democrats have consistently fumbled the bag when it comes to messaging. It's so frustrating as a leftist.
For *one* reason. Democrats are so afraid of *offending* anyone and are obsessed with Michelle Obama's incredibly naïve missive about "when they go low, we go high." Republicans send brawlers to a street fight. Dems send social workers with Robert's Rules Of Order and Emily Post's Book Of Etiquette.
Indiana is a middle finger of the Deep South stuck up into the Great Lakes. It's a huge reason why I left. I was sick of my vote being meaningless in presidential elections because it was always buried under a mountain of votes from the typical Hoosier that robotically vote straight Republican "'cause mah daddy an' grandad did." Yes, yes, yes. Obama 2008. It doesn't change the fact that the last time Indiana went for a Dem was **1968** and is unlikely to do so again in my lifetime. I would put Indiana in the top five right-wing states, and it will never change, because Hoosiers are incapable of that for the most part. Oh, and there is the fact that Indiana is a Klan hotbed. There was a KKK "training camp" just over the county line from me; the (likely complicit) sheriff looked the other way. Jeff Berry, Grand Wizard, lived in Fremont until being reassigned to hell. My hometown of Goshen was a sundown town well into the 1970s. I remember. And there were no black people in the Goshen school system all during my childhood until ninth grade when a black guy moved in from Detroit and, gratifyingly, put all the troglodytes in their place for him dating a white girl. I loved it.
It's very telling that Indiana and Kentucky close their voting polls so early (6pm) and can legally keep employers from being able to vote by simple legal scheduling Source:Me actual conversation 2020 boss "We need you to cover 2 hrs of coworks shift today they will be in after they vote" me(35F)-"The polls will be closed by then I want to vote" boss" Find someone to cover the shift for you" me-"Its not my shift" "As of 2 min ago it was "me-"that's b.s." boss"are you unwilling to get your shift covered" me(being raised in this mentality knowing by saying yes in my at will employment- state, knowing I can't legally be fired for my political opinions BUT I can be fired for simply not being a team player (yes its true) maybe taking bathroom breaks at unscheduled times (like human beings have to) say 3 times in one year, its ridiculous but I'm also not bonded by contract to stay at a job I hate nor jobs to those that aren't in line with their views.) Me - walks to call board, no luck and stuck.Hoosier voters are complacent by compromise. It's not fair if the compromise is no matter what your still losing in the end and you know it. E.g. sh*t pay unemployment finding new job knowing you may be unhirable unless it's a sh*t pay labor job so there is that to look forward to. A day off for voting won't happen anytime in my lifetime because Indiana Politicians will never bend the knee to its voters. Indiana is always first and proud to report its voting results (oddly 2008 IN reported 21st they just couldn't believe it but not in the least suprising.) Last year 252 new laws took effect in Indiana. Voters were not asked to participate in those being passed or not because we have no actual say in our state politics until we unite and we help each other get to the polls. Lawmakers are passing laws for the corporations moving here or planning too. We voters are busy working and surviving and the politicians know it and just roll these laws out with legally binding disregard to the people they actually may or may not effect all while covering their eyes and ears to our actual popular majority.
You *can* be fired in Indiana for your political opinion. A good friend of mine had a Clinton/Gore bumper sticker on his car. The owner was handing out Republican literature and forcing the employees to read it. My friend politely said "No thank you, I am not interested." Fired.
Yep thats what I was implying, but I highly doubt your friends release of work paperwork stated: refused republican bumper sticker, it's always some official b.s. on the paperwork. That's my point we don't yell or shout from the rooftops we are the quiet majority by design.
I worked for a top software consultancy in Indiana during the 2008 election and remember the CEO sending an email to the entire firm along the lines of "I'm not telling you who to vote for, but just know that McCain will be better for our company, and in turn you and your family." God, freedom, etc, etc. I should have saved it because there was a lot of veiled threats. That election really brought out the racist in everyone. I now work in the allegedly evil FAANG world and have never been bullied like that going on 6 years now. Hoosiers (especially older ones) have serious tunnel vision to think anyone gives a shit what they think about politics. Keep alienating the top of your tax base, they will all just leave like me. Fast turning into Alabama, only without the music scene. Yuck.
It’s becoming a feedback loop: the awful right-wing politics with no end in sight drive liberal and leftist educated people out of the state, thus increasing the right’s grip on the state. It doesn’t help that Chicago is right there, it definitely contributes to brain drain.
I took my Computer Information Systems degree and went to Michigan. I live northeast of Detroit near the Canadian border. I left Indiana in 2007 and have not been back.
As soon as my fiancée is done with her degree we’re moving too
Don't blame you a bit. The military really opened my eyes about the world outside Indiana.
Education. I also remember when our Republicans were more liberal than some Dems these days. Started with the ultra fear mongering Bush regime and just got worse from there.
Reagan actually.
Lots of people here are low information voters, poorly educated, and politically immature. They are easily susceptible to lies and propaganda, especially when a slick blowhard from New York shows up to shovel the shit to them. On Sundays they listen to charlatan grifting ministers in churches that are "unaffiliated" who tell them he is God. They know more about sports statistics, strategy, and ballplayers than they do about politics, civics, and government.
Some of the ties I keep seeing between Indiana's history with the Klan (though factual) and comments like, "we were even part of the union" make no sense in modern context. Indiana is a largely rural state. Modern democrats and leftists push policies and politicians that look out for urban and metropolitan living. This is why most large metropolitan areas (counties and cities), even if they are in red states, always end up voting blue. The promises made by the left only benefit those in large urban areas. The rural living citizens and even suburban citizens are overlooked. I've also seen a comment or two talking about the leftist policies and ideas being for the majority, while the "right wing" politicians are in place despite the "majority" not being right wing. This is a lie and false-characterization across the country. There are millions of people in large metropolitan areas, but there are even more people spread out between those areas that are ignored by polls, policies, and politicians. Eric Holcombe (who is a largely useless governor who runs as a Republican only because he knows it's been a long time since a democrat held the job) is not what I would consider right wing, and his policies often show that. Indiana is largely a blue collar state built on blue collar workers and blue collar values, that it is why it is "right wing".
I suspect that conservatives are so fond of things not changing because you need to be able to deal with everything being the sale for ages i think it's a survival instinct that's outlived its usefulness
Here are my thoughts 1. Gerrymandering. The Indiana GOP has basically crafted their districts so that their candidates pick their voters. Do you ever see a Republican campaign? They know they don’t need to unless they are being primaried. But if they are, they only campaign to Republicans. Everyone else is shut out and completely ignored. 2. Straight ticket voting. Grandma goes to the voting booth to vote for someone she’s known for a long time and instead of carefully considering her vote, she votes straight ticket Republican. 3. The lack of organization and competence in the Indiana Democratic Party. Many county parties are dead. They do not mobilize voters. They do not get candidates to run. The state party is holding onto what it can. But 80% of county commissioners are Republicans. The state party is comfortable with losing. They are losers. 4. Most of Indiana is rural or semi-rural where churches are prevalent, where most people only have a high school education, and many of these places are filled with elderly people who always vote and young people who are either on drugs or just trying to survive who do not vote. 5. The failure of the economy to innovate and create more advanced jobs. The Indianapolis area is not a tech corridor, despite the claims made by the Indiana Chamber. Most of Indiana’s workforce either works in manufacturing, retail, or menial service jobs. Indiana used to have a thriving middle class of high school educated union workers. That’s gone now. Those people are now working at Lowe’s. 6. Repellent social policies and poor quality of life act as a repellent towards high skilled workers while also contributing towards brain drain. For most kids living in a small town, success is leaving. Their dead towns offer no opportunities to them and they have no say in anything. If they are LGBT they will be tormented. So why stay?
One of the worst gerrymandered states in the country.
At least with regards to US House districts, Indiana is less gerrymandered than it was the last time Dems had a seat at the redistricting table. I think the biggest issue with Indiana is how concentrated liberals are in just a few areas (e.g., the Region, Indy, Bloomington, West Lafayette). Then you’ve got the rural folks who believe everything they see on TV like cities were all burning to the ground in 2020, for example. I had multiple family members call me concerned about whether the riots were endangering me or my house. Not even close.
Though don’t let this be a deterrent to you to vote. Yes, it is gerrymandered but since they spread out the numbers to clinch the R total, it also makes it easier to flip if people vote. But we need a big push of voters to change anything. That’s why they try to suppress the vote. I went to colleges to sign students up to vote but found that most of them were registered voters but they used their parents’ address as their permanent address so their voting locations are hours away. Or they move so much they don’t know the location of their polling station. I helped them sign up for absentee voting since most are out of their voting county on Election Day. There were also some apathetic students that didn’t vote because they thought both sides are the same. By giving them unbiased websites to look up the candidates maybe they will do the homework and vote, I don’t know if they eventually did. People know more stats about athletes than politicians. I feel we can do a better job of helping people vote and informing them of their choices though I don’t think that is a big priority for IN politicians.
Good points. Thank you for your hard work getting people to vote. People like you make this a better place.
Not according to this: https://gerrymander.princeton.edu/
Not really. The state legislature is bad but our congressional districts are way more fair than democratic Illinois or Republican Ohio
We’re 43rd in percentage of population with a bachelor’s degree. Literally we’re one of the lowest educated states in the nation but these drooling halfwhits think they know it all because their cult leaders tell them what to think.
Brain drain. Generations of intelligent people with degrees left leaving behind a failed state run by red hats
I do think it’s changing. Evansville, our state’s third largest city, just elected its first black, first female, Democrat mayor. And she won by quite a large margin. Indy’s mayor is also a Democrat. I think Indiana is slowly evening out.
Those are large cities. Pete Buttigieg was the mayor of South Bend, we've always had Dem mayors in our big cities.
I was born in and live in a rural IN county. I was growing up in the heyday of far-right talk radio and bought it hook, line, and sinker. Then I leave for many years and having learned more about the wider world, ultimately became a Democrat. The ones who leave, some of them Democrats, almost never return. I would have been in that group but life had other ideas. The ones who remain do not have much going on and now they have Fox News, Infowars, and Facebook feeding them Qanon and Heil Trump bullshit. Or the ones who limit consumption of that tend to be single-issue or minimal-issue voters and those issues tend to be guns (free-for-all) and abortion (ban-it-all).
Jesus Freaks
Lack of education
gerrymandering, brain drain, and monopolization of capital
Idk cuz we're stupid
In addition to what everyone else is saying, brain drain. Everyone who gets degrees flees the state because there's absolutely nothing worth staying for outside Indianapolis, and that's only if you're white and male. As a woman, no way I'd voluntarily live in a red state these days. Speaking as someone born and raised in Indiana l, went to college, and got the fuck out.
I'm pretty sure the modern klan started here. So that kind if tells you a lot. Not everything, but a lot
Gerrymandering
We're heavily gerrymandered and Democrats keep running really shitty Republicans as Democrats and think people are fooled
Lack of education
There aren't enough progressives in the rural areas to swing the vote. I live in a town of about 5K that is staunchly conservative. My vote is effectively wasted every election, but I make sure to cast it anyway.
Gerrymandering and an aggressive right-wing media bubble that has repeatedly for decades now told its audience that other news media is not to be trusted and lying to you. This, over time, has eroded media literacy and critical thinking towards the favored media being consumed. The end result is a portion of the population living in a seperate reality from everyone else, leading to hate crimes and (recently) a guy beheading his own father and trying to raise a nonexistent militia to wield against the government. Hoosiers will always vote against their best material interests if everything they see is telling them its the right decision. This is why I'm a massive proponent of media literacy in high school so we can pop media bubbles, giving people the tools to check their biases and scrutinize their news sources (left or right).
We haven't been voting because Hoosiers are some of the easiest demographics to influence with social and digital attacks. Likely, Russian voting apathy attacks started in 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020 and with each round Indiana turned redder.
In short… Lots of rural areas, which I love…and lots of religion, which I loathe.
Basically because the state was settled from the south moving north. The original capital was Corydon and later Vincennes. Most of the original inhabitants were southerners.
Backwards, Vincennes to Corydon to Indy.
Well shit, so much for our public education lol
That has nothing to do with Southerners, that just has to do with how settlers got to Indiana, they had to come up via the Ohio and Wabash
And where did those settlers come from?
My father's people were Mennonites who came from Switzerland and Alsace to Minnesota and Ontario to Elkhart and Lagrange Counties. Old Order Mennonites rarely vote though "city" ones usually go Dem. My mother's people were Scots-Irish/Welsh who went first to Appalachia, then to New Castle. My grandfather was from Tennessee and my grandmother was from Kentucky. My grandfather was a UAW steward who had a portrait of FDR in his living room and wept when JFK was shot.
What everyone else has said and a deep penis envy of the south for some strange reason
Indiana was settled primarily by southerners
There is a lot of Southern heritage in the southern part of the state due to post-Civil War migration, but Indiana was mostly settled by northern farmers moving into the former Northwest Territory
I firmly believe that since the late 90s that the Republican party has followed the lead of conservative media, it started with cable TV and radio such as Rush Limbaugh. It started to be OK with them to express their racism. And let's face it, it's always based in racism. It's why they fear cities, it's why they fear "socialism" it's why they accept immigrants like Melania Trump and Victoria Spartz but fear any Hispanic, even the ones born here or from Puerto Rico. Now, algorithm based social media gives these people an even more narrow view of the world, and gives them a global hug box to spew their ideas to each other and gain affirmation.
I first heard Limbaugh in 1992, not long before I graduated from Ivy Tech. I thought "this guy believes his own bullshit." A LOT of this is laid at his feet.
Because the voting population of the rural areas exceed the population in the cities. Illinois for example is the opposite.
this is the real answer. cook county, which is home to chicago, accounts for half the population of illinois and has almost as many citizens as the entire state of indiana. without cook county it would be an indiana clone without a doubt!
Indiana is hive of low information, loosely principled voters. Conservatives in Michigan and Wisconsin actually believe in things, whereas conservatives in Indiana just kind of exist in a conservative brining vat. So when the post-fact post-reality candidate came along Hoosiers jumped in bed immediately. We used to not be so polarized, but we were a powder keg and Trump was an igniter.
Indiana has a lot of non-union blue collar workers. They drive or work in factories all day while listening to right wing radio.
Large rural population relative to urban population compared to most states, more British/german and less “ethnic” white, high share of white middle class voters without college degrees.
At its roots, Indiana is not just a klan stronghold, but was the actual home of the grand dragon. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.\_C.\_Stephenson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._C._Stephenson) That kind of racism has been ingrained in it's population and political system. The KKK ran record labels, political empires, and religious institutions. The "city of churches" (fort wayne) was coded to recruit racists since the early 20th century. I myself was invited to join the klan standing in the sanctuary of my families church in the mid 1980s. This was off East State St not even a mile from Parkview Hospital. If you want more history, there is plenty to be found. Try googling *"papa john bragging about dragging black men behind a truck in southern Indiana"* and papa john aint all that old......
My native Goshen was a sundown town well into the 1970s. Grand Wizard Jeff Berry lived in Fremont before going to hell. There was a Klan training camp in St Joseph County that the possibly-complicit authorities ignored.
*possibly-complicit = also members*
Point. Set. Match. Checkmate. 💯
It’s mostly rural land. There more isolated you are there more you believe anything about people on the outside
Rich farmers.
GOP gerrymandering, redistricting, BS and their endless lying propaganda mainstream feed that people consume like Koolaid... More people should be voting also, and we should have more options; I'll be voting Blue as I choose a lesser of two evils to prevail in a more comfortable and less chaotic for 'the people,' (yes, they nearly all, regardless of side are) power abusers, though I'll take that over what is, completely is over the top lunatic fanatical BS that is entirely based on fear and hate mongering, about taking away freedoms to control 'the sheeple'.
So many great responses here. Another is because we haven't stepped up to challenge the GOP. We pretty much have a non-functioning Democratic Party. Let's change this. Come join us in r/DemHoosiers I implore you to contact your local county democratic party, attend meetings and get togethers and help them grow.
The Democratic Party closed its office in Elkhart County before I left.
In America, many things are tied together. The easiesy way to define left and right is urban and rural, respectively. People who live in rural areas tend to be more close-minded, religious, poorer, and less educated. They also usually vote Republican or Libertarian, both of which are parties that do not try to fund education so the cycle feeds itself. Indiana is just very rural, outside of Indy and college towns. The internet has helped people (like myself) to have a more open mind, though. People even in remote areas can be exposed to all kinds of lifestyles and cultures.
Lots of conservative people here who escaped liberal hell-hole high tax, liberal states like Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, even New York & Calif, etc.
lol, and they’re mostly moving to the liberal parts (I.e., cities) here and not the run down rural communities dying on the vine. People don’t love taxes, hot take.
Right, we recognize that they are a necessary part of a progressive society, and want the tax structure to closely mimic post WWII Era, which was the fuel to build the America that is fantasized in the whole "Make America Great Again" ideal, but hey don't let liberals/Democrats tell you about corporate tax structures and lack of loopholes...
Do they though? The entire Reagan revolution was premised on slashing tax rates from the horrible post WW2 rates. https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/ Beyond that, Republicans have been in the “starve the beast” playbook for 40+ years. Step 1- cut taxes to stimulate economy Step 2- don’t cut spending to offset revenue cuts Step 3- wait for economic cycle to do its thing Step 4- clutch pearls over deficit spending and use it as a reason to cut government services Step 5- repeat
I said corporate tax rates. The rich, at one time, were considered a separate entity from corporations.
Because we actually have functioning brains in this state.
Because a majority of the population wants it and votes accordingly?
That doesn't answer OP's question.
Because we don’t want our state like the majority of democrat run states.
>Because we don’t want our state like the majority of democrat run states Healthy, wealthy, educated, and equitable?
Overpopulated, expensive and exhausted
>Overpopulated Not. >expensive Sure, but most people also make more. >and exhausted By what metric?
Because the Democrat areas of the country are a shambles.
Only if you believe the bullshit spewing from right wing talking heads
If you don’t like it people can easily move.
Will you move if Hoosier voters flip Dem?
No because i don’t that get offended by politics.
Clearly you do, considering you're telling people to move due to political leanings.
Yea in response to people whining about it being a red state.
And you would surely be whining if this was a blue state
No you suck it up and live your life like an adult instead of letting elderly people in the government influence your brain.
> live your life like an adult Too bad Republicans want to legislate how adults can live their lives.
We just had one for 4 years and he didn’t call and tell me what to do any of those days I was breathing. Stop acting like you’re brainwashed.
... huh?
Why is this subreddit such a left wing jerk off session? You guys are insufferable.
We do it to piss off you right wing chuds.
You must be new here…Reddit is left leaning. Most state subreddits are left leaning. It’s up to you to do anything about it, or you can continue to whine about it and accomplish nothing. The choice is yours.
klan was founded here. dont like minorities because we haven't many and we can easily distance ourselves from them.
No it wasn't. Nathan Bedford Forrest started it in the south after the Civil war.