America at 250
Our vision for the future
Well, at 250 years old, we’re in a pickle, aren’t we? The fascist MAGA insanity continues every day. Our President is insane, and our Indiana MAGA leadership is still supporting him to hold onto their power. However: 70% of the people in this country are fed up with it. In Indiana, it’s probably 55%, but it’s still a majority. And majorities can win if people act together
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This article launches a series from Fishers Resists on a better vision of our future, both in Indiana and in the USA. There are plenty of people talking about all the crazy stuff that’s happening. It’s time we talked about where we want to go after MAGA is put out to pasture.
The leadership team of Fishers Resists has been spending time this summer discerning about this. What are we about? What do we want? How are we going to accomplish it? This series will share some of our thoughts in detail. We welcome your participation and feedback in the comments. We have a strong social media presence, and we want to use it to engage in dialogue with our members and community about the future.
Our first message is that we can succeed together. Even in Indiana. One of our first articles on Substack talked about the fact that Indiana is not really a red state. It is a diverse state with many people who hate the MAGA agenda. Despair and frustration from twenty years of Republican gerrymandering and suppression have led many people to abandon our political system. We need to bring them back with some hope for the future. That’s how we win. It’s not our goal to convince MAGA supporters to change their minds. That’s on them.
Imagine this future: Indiana has a strong Democratic party, with bold leaders who call MAGA injustices what they are. Every election in every district, from school board to Governor, has well-qualified, experienced Democratic candidates who are committed to equal rights for every Hoosier. Elections are free and fair in districts that create a level playing field across the state. Our legislature and statewide offices provide every Hoosier with representation, rather than just an extremist minority.
Culture-war attacks on our schools, forcing our teachers into right-wing strait jackets, are a thing of the past. Public schools serving poor and rural communities have the extra resources they need to help their students achieve parity with their wealthy white peers in the suburbs. Racist policies are replaced with ones that respect the dignity of our black and brown neighbors. Medicaid and other public assistance programs are well funded and administered fairly, rather than being sacked to fund MAGA pet projects for their corporate donors. Federal and State law enforcement follow the law themselves and respect the constitutional rights of all US residents.
We want our nation, and Indiana, to be stronger democracies than they were before MAGA. We don’t want to just go back to some imagined past. We want to move forward, to continue the advancements of the civil rights movement and other efforts that have expanded justice and equality in recent decades. We believe that our current state and federal constitutions and legal frameworks must be reformed in major ways. Their current state has permitted this MAGA takeover, this formation of one-party rule, this perversion of our laws to favor a tiny group of wealthy white men. It is time for major changes to build guardrails into our political system to ensure that these outcomes are extremely difficult for authoritarians and oligarchs. We need to inoculate our politics against dictatorship and corruption.
It’s past time we talked about this future. As much as we hate it, MAGA propaganda affects us, too. It’s part of US culture. Propaganda is designed to sound true and make us think we are crazy if we disagree. We’ve had enough gaslighting. We need to remind ourselves that there are options for us to choose, that we don’t have to accept what MAGA is selling, and to stay grounded in the reality of the people around us. MAGA victory is not inevitable. And in Fishers Resists, we intend to fight it to our last breath. Think of it as a birthday present to America. Come join us – follow, subscribe and volunteer. It will make you feel better.
By Phil