I live in Monroe County, Indiana, with my husband, one adult daughter and two young sons. I hold a full-time job as a small business owner. I also serve as executive director of the Indiana Rural Summit. The Indiana Rural Summit supports candidates, community leaders, and volunteers to give rural and small-town Hoosiers a voice, a choice, and a vote.

My top voting issue is access to healthcare. Protecting Medicaid and the ACA Healthcare Marketplace are my near-term priorities. Actively supporting candidates who will work toward universal healthcare for all is my long-term priority.

My story begins in 2010.

C-SPAN coverage on a lazy summer afternoon.

In Summer 2010, I was half asleep on my couch. C-SPAN was on the TV. Instead of falling asleep, I was drawn to what should have been the most boring discussion on earth: a discussion between insurance brokers. They were talking about the incoming Affordable Care Act (ACA).

The C-SPAN coverage was memorable because:

1. They were actively discussing implementing a significant shift in how healthcare would be managed in the United States.

2. Americans could see behind-the-curtain at the compromises President Obama made with the Republicans to get the ACA through the finish line.

I watched as an Obama administration rep referred to a grid listing different aspects of public healthcare across the X axis and different presidential administrations across the Y axis. Checkmarks were placed next to each line item that had support from previous presidential administrations. In prior presidencies, each administration had proposed some form of healthcare but all had omitted one thing or the other. Numerous presidents since Harry Truman in 1945 have put forth policy ideas to get some form of nationalized healthcare to the American people. Obama was getting it done.

The most notable demand from Republicans was an expanded risk pool to protect insurance companies. The only way to achieve an expanded risk pool was to require everyone eligible for the ACA’s Healthcare Marketplace to participate in it. If citizens did not have access to an employer-provided plan or carry private health insurance, they were eligible. Eligible citizens who opted out of coverage (e.g. choosing to stay uninsured) would have to pay this tax.

Over the course of seven years, Republicans flip flopped on their demands. In 2010, Republicans demanded expansion of the risk pool to protect insurance providers. That led to the mandate / tax for opting out of participation. In 2017, Republicans said the mandate was unfair and demanded it be rescinded. The real goal seems obvious: Republicans preferred to torpedo the ACA and leave people uninsured rather than have Democrats own a landmark piece of legislation. It survives today, but it is on life support.

The ACA has been a godsend for millions.

Most people forget the ACA’s fundamental achievement: the removal of a preexisting conditions clause from health insurance policies purchased through it. Before the ACA, if you did not have an employer-provided healthcare policy and purchased a private plan, pre-existing conditions were excluded from your healthcare coverage. When you applied for the private plan, you had to list your medical history. This history requirement could go back as far as 10 years prior to your application date. Application questions were confusing and designed to eliminate coverages.

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The ACA could have saved my sister.

I had an older sister (placed in adoption) that I didn’t find until we were adults. When we met, she was undergoing treatment for breast cancer.

I learned that when she first suspected she had breast cancer, she delayed seeking a formal diagnosis. Instead she started looking for a job that provided health insurance. She and her husband ran a small business; they couldn’t afford private healthcare insurance. There was no ACA back then to create a Healthcare Marketplace that self-employed people could access.

The job hunt took time. The employer who hired her had a health insurance plan that did not become active until two months after an employee’s start date. (By law, employers can delay coverage for up to 90 days after an employee’s start date.)

So not only was there the delay of finding a job with benefits, but then a further delay to gain coverage and access healthcare. When she finally was able to see a doctor, her cancer had spread beyond her breast. She didn’t survive.

I had known my sister less than a year before our healthcare system killed her.

My family’s story is not unique.

We live in the wealthiest country in the world. Yet our government will not provide all citizens with healthcare. Instead it expects access to insurance to be tied to employment. Yet, under Indiana and federal law, employers do not have to offer healthcare if they employ fewer than 50 people.

Sixty-eight percent (68%) of Indiana employers fall beneath this threshold. Some offer insurance. Many do not. And if you are a part-time employee, many health insurers won’t cover you on a workplace plan. Most insurers (not employers) require an employee to be employed at least 30 hours/week to be eligible for a workplace health plan.

In 2024, my husband and I had recently become self-employed. We used the ACA Healthcare Marketplace to get health insurance coverage. Our monthly premium was $600/month.

Fast forward to 2026: loss of subsidies and cuts to Medicaid

Last summer, Congress voted to remove subsidies that the Biden administration put into place during the pandemic to help people like my family afford health insurance. Even WITH those subsidies, our premium was set to double to $1,200. But with the removal of them, the cheapest policy we could get would increase to $3,200/mo. To get THAT premium, our coverage had to drop from an 80/20 plan to a 50/50 plan with a deductible that would double what we’d originally had.

We became a statistic, joining hundreds of thousands of Hoosiers who can’t afford Healthcare Marketplace coverage but whose incomes are too high to make them eligible for Medicaid. The Republican administration is doing its best to gut the ACA. Cutting those subsidies was one step in that process. High premium costs mean fewer people on ACA plans. Fewer customers means fewer providers are staying in the marketplace.

Legislative decisions are 1) forcing more people off Medicaid, 2) forcing people off the Healthcare Marketplace, and 3) preventing self-employed people, part-time employees, or employees of small companies whose employers don’t offer healthcare from ever using the Marketplace at all.

Our legislators seem convinced that citizens have a third option for healthcare insurance. I need someone to show me that third option.

Congress: I want healthcare for ALL.

If we can spend trillions on a war for which America has no budget, we can figure out how to provide healthcare for all citizens. Enroute to getting there, we have immediate actions we can take in Indiana and at the federal level.

Indiana legislators: Reduce administrative costs on Medicaid; restore benefits to those in need

In the last budget session, Indiana’s House Ways & Means Committee heard testimony from many Hoosiers asking for more scrutiny over the for-profit companies managing the administration of Medicaid. But legislators did nothing. These are the same legislators who championed DOGE and called for an end to “waste, fraud, and abuse.” It’s past time Indiana audits these third party administrative services. These services make their money by “churn” of claims. The more times companies have to touch paperwork and processing, the more they get paid.

At the same time that Indiana’s lawmakers ignored calls for increased scrutiny of third-party administrators, they passed 2026 legislation that doubled the cost of administering Medicaid. The law now requires Medicaid recipients to 1) undergo twice-a-year Medicaid eligibility redetermination instead of once-per-year recertifications and 2) comply with new work requirements.

Legislators are betting the savings from pushing people off of Medicaid rolls will exceed the doubled cost of administering Medicaid. For sure, some denials will occur because people who met eligibility standards in 2025 don’t meet them now. But more denials will happen because those who remain eligible simply give up. Hundreds of thousands of Hoosiers will remain eligible under the new requirements, but the AI agents will end up “winning” when people simply cannot manage the multiple rounds of documentation submissions that FSSA demands..

Indiana needs to keep families eligible for benefits and reduce the burden on them, not increase it. This new layer of administrative burden will tip many more thousands of Hoosiers over the edge to become uninsured. That does not serve Hoosiers. It harms them.

Federal legislators: Protect coverage of pre-existing conditions in Marketplace plans.

The second immediate action I want to see is a re-affirmation that pre-existing conditions will never be excluded from the ACA. Federal legislation addressing healthcare must reject any clawing back of pre-existing conditions. It’s the next logical “take-back” the Republicans will go for in their efforts to gut the ACA. This major benefit must be protected.

So far away…and yet so close

We’ve never been further away from affordable healthcare and yet also closer to universal healthcare. This movement toward universal healthcare is not because the for-profit healthcare industry has “seen the light.” It’s because more and more families are becoming like mine: priced out of insurance and access to healthcare.

As citizens, we are demanding change. It’s time for those we elect to listen.

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1. Employer requirements to offer health insurance: https://faqs.in.gov/hc/en-us/articles/115005067867-What-are-the-basic-requirements-for-providing-health-insurance-to-my-employees

2. Percentage of Indiana employers who employ fewer than 50 people: https://meps.ahrq.gov/data_stats/summ_tables/insr/state/series_2/2024/ic24_iia_f.pdf

3. Access to healthcare / doctors quitting because of burnout over administrative requirements of current insurance system: https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2026-07-14/why-are-family-doctors-leaving-the-workforce-retirement-burnout-creating-a-u-s-primary-care-brain-drain

4. Lack of maternal healthcare/women’s healthcare in Indiana: https://www.in.gov/dA/f1fce96570/OB-One-Pager-Final.pdf?language_id=1

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My name is Nouhad Melki. I am a 27-year-old Lebanese-American; I was born in Beirut but grew up in rural Virginia before moving to Indiana. My lifelong admiration for American history led me to study government when I attended Anderson University, in Anderson, Indiana. There, I finished my bachelor’s degree in political science, national security, and history. Concerned by the growing distress in our democracy, I entered the 2026 primary race for an Indiana Statehouse seat. Though I was unsuccessful, I am still active in promoting democracy.

I grew up Republican.

I was raised with conservative-Christian values. In my lifelong obsession with history, I admired famous Republican figures like Abraham Lincoln, Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush. I was also fascinated by many non-Republicans, like George Washington, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, JFK, LBJ, and Barack Obama. Ultimately, my admiration inspired me to study government and history in college. There, I finished my bachelor’s degree in political science, national security, and history. While in college, I got to practice the theory of my major: I was an elected member of Student Senate, and I got to spend time interning in D.C. for the National Grange, where I advocated for farmers and rural America. My advocacy in D.C. supported the passage of the 2018 Agricultural Renewal Act, often called the Farm Bill.

I’m not a single-issue voter.

The purpose of this piece is to describe “the one issue” I am basing my vote on this November. I choose democracy. All our challenges – and ways to resolve them – rest on our democratic foundations.

What is democracy? And what do I mean by it? Apart from being a system of government, democracy is a body of values that cherish freedom, equality, justice, and opportunity. This is top-of-mind for me when considering any political issues.

Among many issues troubling America today, immigration has been particularly traumatic. And the story I’m sharing here is when it hit home.

A friend gets an email.

In Fall 2025, my neighbor was anxious about an email she received from Anderson University where she was attending school. Like many of the friends I went to school with, she was an international student. She went through many hoops and paid a high price for a visa granting her the right to come to America to attend university. Here’s a portion of the email she received.

The email indicated that she had to register with the Department of Homeland Security per Executive Order. Here are additional excerpts:

When my friend clicked the link within the email, it took her to the USCIS website, where it says:

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What does this story have to do with democracy?

We have questions we need to ask ourselves as Hoosiers and Americans who believe we live in a free country:

• Why are we so afraid of a soccer girl who came to an Indiana Christian college for a business degree?

• Why is this fear so great that we have to “register” her under an executive order titled, “Protecting the American People Against Invasion”?

• How many of us see the parallels to earlier times in our history where we also targeted immigrants and people of color?

This is about more than immigration; it’s about overreach.

I contend that a freedom-loving people won’t tolerate the kind of government overreach targeting immigrants and international students. Subsequent to seeing my friend’s email, I appeared on a local radio show and shared her story. A self-identified Republican candidate for local office called in to the program. His comment was this:

“If she had nothing to hide, then she should have had no problem registering.”

I’d like that caller — and all readers — to consider this hypothetical scenario for comparison sake.

Let’s imagine a scenario involving a Democratic president

One of this president’s campaign promises was to carry out “mass confiscation” of illegal guns in the U.S. She promised the largest mass confiscation of illegal firearms in U.S. history.

On Day One in office, this president issues an Executive Order titled, Protecting the American People Against Gun Violence. This order directs the Department of Homeland Security to ensure that all gun owners comply with their duty to register with the government as gun owners and to specify the number and type of firearms they own.

DHS executes the order and all these things are part of “execution” of the order:

• An army of masked federal agents deploy to every corner of the country, combs through every neighborhood, and starts conducting SWAT-like operations in local communities, street by street, house by house.

• When public outrage emerges, the president, along with staunch Democrats, reiterate, “If you are law-abiding, you have nothing to fear. Just comply with registration requirements.”

• The movement results in people being arrested and detained without warrants. Car windows are smashed as DHS officers attempt to detain those suspected to have illegal firearms. These arrests are carried out as people go to work, school, or the grocery.

• Owners who possess legal firearms get caught up in the process and are detained. Detainees are taken from their home cities and shipped all over the country to await hearings. They are housed in spaces lacking adequate sanitation, food, water, and medical care. Some people die from lack of medical care while awaiting court hearings, which take weeks to months.

• When Americans protest overreach, agents shoot and kill some citizens by “mistake.” In one instance, someone trying to help a protestor is shot 10 times in the back, dying in the street. In another, a woman is shot three times in the head through the windshield of her car as she attempts to get out of DHS’s way. Neither death is investigated. No one is charged in their killings.

I do not believe the radio show caller, or any American, would see such a situation as supporting democracy. Most Americans and I agree on this: we are a free people. A free people should never tolerate such government overreach.

Overreach has a major impact on our local economies.

Many of the international students I know have left the U.S. or plan to do so immediately upon graduation. While this is what the administration wants; it is not what is best for our local economies.

When I started at Anderson University in 2017, the International Student Association had over 60 members. As of Spring 2026 the International Student Association has 15 members. Financially, the loss of 45 students is a loss of $1.7million/year to Anderson University in tuition dollars alone. ($37,500/year per international student). But the hits are worse than this. When students leave, a city’s businesses also experience economic hits.

In Anderson, it has meant 45 few students:

• Eating at local restaurants everyday.

• Paying rent to an Anderson landlord who already cannot afford the mortgage.

• Purchasing a car from a local dealer to get them through school.

• Investing in local shops, convenience stores, and gas stations.

The Anderson economy is struggling; it cannot afford these economic losses.

All of the losses I named can be traced to hostile immigration policy with the most hostile policies starting in January 2025. By design, this climate of fear is repulsing immigrants and chasing away international students across Indiana and America, to the economic detriment of local businesses and communities. The estimated economic contribution of a student to a local community in direct spending is about $10,250/year. Those 45 students who left Anderson meant $1.8M less in economic impact to local businesses over four years’ time. In college communities with much larger international populations, the impact is exponentially bigger.

Would I be alive today if today’s climate existed in the 1990s?

The climate was very different in the 1990s when my mother met my international father in college. My life would not be possible without the opportunity for someone like my father to come to a Christian college where he would meet my American mother. Now I am trying to imagine all the marriages and lives that will not result from love being found between couples like my parents.

In a country whose population growth is in decline, this is not good. It is no secret that birthrates in America have been steadily declining over the last few decades: less births, less marriages, and now, less immigration. Add these losses to the list at a macro-economic level.

What I want to see in Indiana and America

A healthy democracy centers its politics around neighborly love. A free people are bound to one another through such neighborly love. My politics are always guided by this virtue. It is why I was repulsed from the Republican Party in 2016—because the Republican Party permitted people with hateful rhetoric to obtain power—and I have since struggled to support what the GOP has offered. Once a noble party of conservative values, the GOP chose hatefulness to enact its agenda, out of political expedience.

This November, I will be voting to counter what has been a decade of hate governing our politics, such as the hate that took the form of Executive Order 14159 to target my friends in the international student community.

Someday, I hope there will be something to vote for rather than just against. I am afraid this is the struggle many voters face. There is little to vote for – just against.

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Nouhad Melki is a 27-year-old Lebanese-American living in Anderson, Indiana. He attended Anderson University as a fourth-generation legacy student. Because of his interest in American government, he studied political science, national security, and history, before graduating in 2021 with a bachelor’s degree. He ran in the 2026 primary race for the Indiana Statehouse, focused on challenges such as affordability, healthcare, immigration, data centers, and redistricting.

1. How much do students spend at college: https://www.sofi.com/learn/content/how-much-does-college-student-spend-month/

I graduated from New Palestine High School in Hancock County, Indiana. The school’s mascot was (and still is) the Dragons. Classmates all told me the same story: our mascot stemmed from Indiana’s past as the #1 location of the KKK. Per Wikipedia:

The Klan officially disbanded in Indiana in 1925, largely as a result of the shocking crime committed by D.C Stephenson, Indiana’s “grand dragon” of the KKK. Stephenson was charged and convicted of the brutal rape and murder of Madge Oberholtzer. The crime sickened Hoosiers enough that they dropped out of the Klan in droves, leaving only a couple thousand die-hard white supremacists still calling themselves Klansmen.

White Christian Nationalism IS today’s KKK

Flash forward politically to 2026. We have a super conservative Indiana Republican supermajority supporting Christian nationalism’s Project 2025 blueprint. We have Micah Beckwith, an outspoken white Christian Nationalist as our Lt. Governor. We have two Indiana House representatives - Chris Jeter (House District 88, which includes portions of Hamilton and Hancock counties) and Zach Payne (House District 66, which includes portions of Scott, Jefferson, and Clark Counties in southern Indiana) openly endorsing a white supremacist organization called Save Heritage Indiana, along with Micah Beckwith.

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This same organization is hosting an event featuring anti-immigrant leader/ex-ICE officer Greg Bovino in Hamilton County, IN in August. Micah Beckwith is a featured speaker at this event. Here’s a small tidbit of what this organization is about: “We exist to save Indiana’s heritage by reversing mass migration.” Their website elaborates, blaming immigrants for these things:

• Indiana’s poor economy and lack of good paying jobs.

• Loss of farmland.

• Loss of Indiana’s “way of life” though they are vague about what this means other than reminiscing about kids playing basketball outside of a barn with a hoop mounted on it.

Their assertion that immigrants are the problem for this list of woes is a red herring. It disguises their white supremacist underbelly that simply hates immigrants, period. The first two items on their list correlate directly to Indiana’s economic, tax, and social policies. The third is a fabrication and a nostalgia for a mythical yesteryear; it is a COMMON belief among many white people who harbor racist or anti-female, anti-LGBTQ people that life was better 50 or 100 years ago. This reflects a narrow white and largely male perspective about who it may have been better for. It certainly was NOT better for women, for people with disabilities, for people of color. or people who identify as LGBTQ.

My top issue in November is breaking Indiana’s supermajority

I cast my first vote in 1984’s presidential election and viewed myself as Republican. I have voted mostly Democrat since 2008, though I think of myself as an independent who leans Democrat rather than truly embracing Democrats as a party. I turned to Democratic candidates in the 2000s because the Tea Party movement and the overt white Christian Nationalism movement do not align with my values as a Hoosier or an American.

When Indiana became a supermajority in the early 2000s, it enabled white Christian Nationalism to go from a rumble to a roar in our Statehouse. In Indiana elections, voting Republican now equals a vote to maintain one-party rule. The supermajority Republicans gained in both legislative houses more than two decades ago has enabled Republicans to deeply gerrymander districts to suppress votes they don’t want. It created a political environment in Indiana where more than a third of legislators started running unopposed in general elections, leading Hoosiers to ask, “Why bother voting?”

This single party system has made it easy for Indiana’s legislators to stop grappling with issues affecting the majority of Hoosiers. This list includes:

• Economic growth

• Affordable housing

• Adequately funded public education

• Accessible and affordable healthcare

• Accessible and affordable childcare

• Protection for our air and our water from pollutants caused by industry failing to protect those precious natural resources

Instead, legislators focus on fringe issues that few Hoosiers deem as their top ones: bathroom laws targeted at transgender individuals, placement of 10 commandments in schools, expansion of private voucher programs to support religious schools, and elimination or reduction in environmental protections to name four).

Our problems ARE economic ones, not immigrant ones

Save Heritage Indiana gets one thing right: Indiana’s economy is not robust and Hoosier incomes aren’t enough to meet many families’ basic needs. However, this modern-day KKK want Hoosiers to blame “mass migration” and immigrants for any and all economic woes citizens are experiencing. The KKK made identical claims in the 1920s. This false claim is more than a harmful disservice to the many immigrants who have contributed to our economy. It masks the reality that hunting down and deporting immigrants won’t solve Indiana’s economic problems. It will just cost Hoosiers — and all Americans—a lot of dollars and opportunity.

Hoosiers ARE massively struggling with affordability across numerous fronts: housing, healthcare, childcare, food, and transportation. These pain points disproportionately affect our youngest citizens. Far too many young Hoosiers can’t make enough money to leave mom and dad’s home. Far too many are under-educated and limited to low-wage jobs that don’t come close to paying the bills required to live independently Indiana’s minimum wage of $7.25/hour hasn’t been raised since 2009. While few jobs actually start at $7.25, this low minimum enables employers to exceed it and STILL not come close to offering a living wage in exchange for full-time work.

Indiana’s United Way has coined the term ALICE to describe this phenomena: Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. A massive gap exists between the pay workers receive by working at places such as an Amazon warehouse, a FedEx shipping facility, or a factory and what someone needs to live independently. That amount is $20.50/hour in Indiana. Organizations like Save Heritage Indiana want you to believe immigrants caused this wage gap. They did not. Crappy economic policy, coupled with an inability to see a vision for Hoosiers beyond warehouses, logistics, and data centers has.

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Look at what Indiana is actually doing

As someone who has gotten very focused on politics in the past two years’ time - and made several trips to Indiana’s Statehouse to protest horrible bills and offer testimony against them, it was eye-opening when I started studying the hundreds of bills legislators craft each session.

Far-right Republicans (and there are many) are pushing an agenda based in Washington and not Indiana. That agenda is commonly known as Project 2025; several Indiana legislative bills feature language lifted directly from it. These bills are rooted in religious and anti-immigrant beliefs, along with a belief that Indiana’s economy hinges on support of mega corporations and billionaires rather than small businesses. This last item is despite the fact that small businesses (500 or fewer employees) ARE the major employers of Hoosiers and Americans overall, not Fortune 500 companies.

The bills I saw go through Indiana’s legislature all take up legislative time, which is fixed and limited. These bills included ones that:

• Focused on limiting transgender individuals’ ability to use pubic bathrooms

• Required public schools to provide religious instruction or display artifacts of Christian religion (partial success)

• Stripped public funding away from public schools (succeeded)

• Funneled public funding away from public schools bills to private vouchers that benefit private, religious schools (succeeded).

• Further restricted reproductive healthcare in spite of Indiana already having one of the most draconian anti-abortion laws in the country (failed but it will be back in 2027).

• Eroded environmental protections for our water (succeeded).

Data centers the primary answer from local politicians

Further, this supermajority’s single, best answer to economic growth in Indiana is one most Hoosiers vehemently oppose: data centers. Governor Braun has made it a goal for Indiana to be THE destination for data centers. Nothing has eroded the nostalgic view that Save Heritage Indiana raves about more than the loss of thousands of acres of farmland to steel and concrete behemoths. These data centers bring a handful of jobs (most temporary) and leave a bushel basket of woes: significantly higher utility bills, water quality issues, noise issues, and pollution issues.

Our problems connect to policy and legislation, not immigrants.

Immigrants are the ONLY reason Indiana’s population has experienced growth in the past 20 years’ time. Economic studies showcase the benefits immigrants bring to local communities - even when those immigrants are undocumented. Without immigration, Indiana’s population would be shrinking, which shrinks our tax base and ability to fund infrastructure such as schools, roads, parks, and more. Immigrants - even undocumented ones - pay taxes into our state and federal coffers. They pay social security taxes and taxes for Medicare: two social programs they cannot draw from as noncitizens. The loss of immigrants —and their tax dollars — is a massive hit on America’s grossly underfunded Social Security program.

So what do I want to see in November?

I want to see a blue wave that forces Indiana’s legislature - and the U.S Congress - to focus on bipartisan solutions to real problems. I do not want a Republican-dominated legislature that focuses on cultural issues (aka made-up problems) and force us into a theocracy (a government whose laws, policies, and elected officials all follow a single religion’s beliefs). I want our political leaders to stop blaming immigrants, Muslims, and LGBTQ people for our woes and start taking responsibility for bad policy and legislation. I want them to focus on smart policies that can help move our economy forward include and create a much wider middle-class such as:

• Universal healthcare - or at least far more affordable and accessible healthcare - so we don’t throw Hoosiers into bankruptcy because of medical debt, which is the #1 reason Hoosiers have to declare bankruptcy.

• Creative solutions to crafting more affordable housing, such as partnerships with organizations focused on designing and building homes and crafting development specifically designed for first-time buyers. I’m not talking about places people can rent. I want ideas and policies that encourage developers how to craft affordable housing that people can OWN and build equity in.

• Deep investment in apprenticeship programs that help train or retrain students/workers displaced by AI or electing to not pursue a college degree.

• Far less bureaucracy associated within Indiana’s Family Social Services Administration. This agency has been grossly mismanaged and poorly run for decades. Indiana has been penny-wise and long-term poor in its legislation of social service programs, rendering the entire agency ineffective.

• Stronger incentives for - and support of - Indiana’s small businesses. Small businesses employ the vast majority of Hoosiers, yet legislators persistently court the big players such as Amazon and Meta. We need to foster entrepreneurs in Indiana, not Amazon or Meta.

• A moratorium on data centers. These centers do NOT have a sufficient track record on improving any locale’s economy or generating meaningful work for significant numbers of people. Yet local entities persist in giving out tax breaks and risking their community’s water supply, home values, water quality, and noise pollution to grant them land on which to build. This focus also ignores the value of our farmland AS farmland; this acreage cannot be converted back to farmland after large swathes of it are gobbled up for data center usage.

Hoosiers don’t need another KKK; we want and need to move forward

We all have a part to play in helping Indiana move forward rather than going backward to a time of hate, fear, and tremendous mistrust of neighbor. The 1920s and 1930s were a time where neighbors eyed neighbors with distrust because of fear of the Klan. Organizations like Save Heritage Indiana and politicians like Braun, Beckwith, Jeter, and Payne want to return us to a time of fear. Those of us vested in a vision of Indiana as a place where our children and grandchildren can thrive want something different.

That is why I will vote in November. It’s why I hope my neighbors will do so as well. I want to break Indiana’s supermajority so my community and my state can move forward instead of backwards.

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Sources referenced in writing this article. Each of these is a worthy read on its own.

1. Rise of the KKK in Indiana: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Klan#:~:text=The%20Indiana%20Klan%20was%20the,formed%20in%20Georgia%20in%201915.

2. Influx of immigrants into U.S. in late 19th and early 20th century: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12159645/

3. Christian Nationalism in Indiana’s legislature: https://indianacitizen.org/growth-spurt-hoosiers-identifying-as-christian-nationalists-increasing-ahead-of-primary-election/

4. Mississippi facts: https://sr.ithaka.org/publications/strengthening-mississippis-economic-future-through-postsecondary-investment/

5. Data centers’ impact on local communities: https://www.wri.org/insights/us-data-center-growth-impacts

6. Governor Braun support of data centers: https://iedc.in.gov/events/news/details/2026/02/11/gov.-braun-breaks-ground-on-10b-meta-data-center-campus-at-leap-district

7. Financial hardship in Indiana: https://iuw.org/alice-2025/

8. Minimum wage needed to live independently in Indiana: https://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/18105

9. Economic benefits immigration has brought to Indiana: https://rupri.org/wp-content/uploads/ImmigrationEffects-20190513.pdf

Several years ago, a mother sat in my office with tears in her eyes. She had been offered a better job with higher pay, but she wasn’t celebrating. She was worried. The raise would help her family, but it might also jeopardize the childcare assistance that enabled her to work in the first place.

I have heard versions of her story countless times.

When Hoosiers talk about affordability, the conversation often centers on housing costs, groceries, gas prices, and utility bills. Those concerns are real, but another affordability issue affects thousands of Indiana families every day: childcare. For many working parents, childcare is not optional. It is what allows them to go to work, pursue education, accept promotions, or simply provide for their families.

Yet quality childcare has become increasingly difficult to find and afford.

This issue is personal to me. I serve as senior pastor of Purpose of Life Ministries in Indianapolis; I’m also the founder of Purpose of Life Academy, an early childhood education center that serves children and families from diverse backgrounds. For years, I have sat across the table from parents who are trying to make impossible choices.

• I have met mothers who work full-time but still struggle to pay for childcare.

• I have met grandparents raising grandchildren on fixed incomes.

• I have met families who earn too much to qualify for assistance but not enough to comfortably afford quality care.

• I have met parents who turn down job opportunities because they cannot find a safe and affordable place for their children.

Politicians ignore a huge factor in economic development

When politicians discuss workforce development, they often focus on training programs, attracting businesses, and creating jobs. Those efforts are important, but there is a simple truth we cannot ignore: parents cannot participate fully in the workforce without access to affordable childcare.

The childcare crisis is not simply a family issue. It is an economic issue. It is a workforce issue. It is an educational issue. During my recent campaign for political office, childcare repeatedly came up in conversations with working families. Whether I was speaking with parents in urban neighborhoods, suburban communities, or rural towns, the concern was the same: quality childcare is increasingly difficult to afford and to find. The issue transcends geography, race, and political affiliation because it touches nearly every working family.

Affordable, quality childcare is essential infrastructure

Research consistently shows that children who receive quality early childhood education enter school better prepared to learn and are more likely to succeed academically. Investments made during the earliest years often produce benefits that last a lifetime. Yet many childcare providers across Indiana operate on extremely thin margins while trying to maintain quality standards, recruit qualified staff, and keep tuition affordable for families. The result is a system under tremendous strain.

Indiana has an opportunity to lead, but doing so will require statewide leaders to view childcare as critical infrastructure. Just as roads help people get to work, childcare helps people stay employed. Just as schools prepare students for the future, early childhood education prepares children for success before they ever enter kindergarten.

What I hope voters consider this November

As voters consider candidates for statewide office this year, I hope they will ask what plans exist to strengthen Indiana’s childcare system.

• First, Indiana should increase support for childcare assistance programs so that more working families can qualify and maintain eligibility as their incomes grow.

• Secondly, the state should invest in recruiting and retaining childcare professionals. Early childhood educators perform some of the most important work in our communities, yet many struggle with wages that do not reflect the value of their contributions.

• Third, Indiana should expand incentives that help providers improve quality while remaining financially sustainable. Families deserve safe, nurturing, and educational environments, and providers need resources to deliver them.

• Finally, state leaders should engage childcare providers directly when developing policy. Those of us working with children and families every day understand the challenges and opportunities that statistics alone cannot capture.

The future of Indiana depends on strong families, thriving communities, and a prepared workforce. Childcare sits at the intersection of all three. If we are serious about affordability, we must be serious about childcare. Supporting families today is one of the best investments we can make in Indiana’s future.

As a pastor, I believe every child is a gift from God. As an educator, I know every child deserves the opportunity to learn and thrive. As a Hoosier, I believe our state will be judged not simply by the businesses we attract or the roads we build, but by how well we support the children and families who call Indiana home. If we are serious about affordability, workforce development, and Indiana’s future, we must be serious about childcare.

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Reverend Greene lives in Marion County He has served as pastor of Purpose of Life Church in Indianapolis for more than 30 years. He has been married to his wife, Glenda, for 40+ years. They have two children and seven grandchildren.

This is part of a weekly series of articles on the issues that are most affecting Hoosiers as we approach the midterm elections. We are featuring Hoosiers across urban and rural areas as well as young, middle-aged, and senior age groups.

Want to share your voice? Send us a message!

Despite earning a degree in political science from Purdue University in 2023 and real experience working in politics, I fear that I will never be able to find a position that offers a living wage in my chosen career path.

The barriers to finding a job for young people today are numerous. Young people across the country struggle with the same thing, regardless of background, finding a position that pays them enough to live the middle class life. Politicians need to understand this issue and address it if they ever hope to win our vote.

The playbook for success has changed.

Though the job market for young people is inhospitable even with a college degree, I don’t blame all the adults who raised and taught me to seek a college degree. They advised me based on a formula that had worked for decades: more education = job security and higher wages. Even as the rate of societal and political change increased, we were told to follow this formula:

1)Graduate high school.

2) Get a college degree.

3) Get a job right out of college.

4) Rent for a few years and then buy a home (hopefully with a partner) and settle into the middle-class lifestyle.

That was the guidebook parents gave us. The promise? If we followed those directions and stuck to a formula that had worked for decades, we, too, could obtain the same standard of living or even better.

However, the pace of technological change has run far ahead of political change, and the old formula for success doesn’t apply. Achieving success now feels akin to building a plane while you’re flying it. For young people, this means uncertainty and unpredictability are the norm. Predicting what financial situation you will be in even just a year from now can be impossible.

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My reality was brutal.

Three years ago while finishing up my degree, I began my job search. I applied to dozens of government and NGO jobs, but I never received an offer. I figured I just needed some work experience. I volunteered for a small city council race, which led to a job as a campaign manager for two 2024 state House races. Given my early job search woes, I thought I had won the lottery. Here was the experience I needed.

What I quickly found, though, was something many other young people struggle with post-graduation: a degree AND work experience no longer guarantee job offers or financial security. I resumed my job search as the campaign role ended, but my newly-gained experience wasn’t enough—even for entry level positions that didn’t require a college degree.

No matter where I applied, I was either rejected or never heard back.

I needed a job — any job.

Soon, the realities of life took over. I had bills to pay. The pressure intensified, and my focus shifted from finding a job in my desired field to finding anything that let me pay my bills. Over the next year, I took positions in everything from set building to bartending to food service to constituent outreach to census taking. Each job was grueling in its own way; none offering the pay I needed to cover rent and the most basic necessities. None required me to use the skills I paid for at college.

All the while, I continued applying for job after job to find one whose salary reflected the fact that I had a college degree. Pay wasn’t my only concern either. I needed a job to have healthcare insurance so I would have access to a doctor. I sought anything that would get me the pay and healthcare I need, in a direction I wanted to go.

Finally, almost three years after graduating, I found a full-time position as a personal banker at a local bank. It is a position I am grateful for, yet it still feels like a life vest in an ocean. It’s holding me up, but it’s still not something I feel secure in or that uses my skillset. Given my experience with job searches, I worry the longer I’m outside the field I want to work in, the less likely I will achieve that goal.

My experience mirrors those of many Gen Z grads.

I spoke with my friends about this piece; many of them shared worse or equivalent experiences. Job hunting has become its own exhausting full-time job. After spending years studying for our degrees of choice, we find ourselves struggling to find a job even in retail.

This is not for lack of trying.

Most of my fellow age mates spend months, a year, or even a few years, applying to hundreds of jobs through online job boards. We’ve all received the same two well-meaning suggestions from older generations on how to improve our chances of success.

Like the political landscape though, what worked 10 years ago is no longer the path to success.

These two pieces of advice are out-of-date:

Apply in-person. The old formula prescribed that a company may be more responsive or respect you more for physically going to their office to apply. Today’s reality is that most organizations and recruiters don’t accept in-person applications anymore. They haven’t for a long time. I was told a number of times —after putting on my best suit, printing my resume and walking into a building—that I should apply online. In-person resumes are not accepted.

Go to recruiting events. Upon arrival, you quickly see that each company and recruiter is being bombarded with hundreds of elevator pitches and resumes. You also quickly discover that jobs are reduced to a list of requirement. These two factors mean recruiting events mostly yield disappointment.

A friend of mine, a veteran with a mechanical engineering degree, shared a common job fair story. He made the rounds of the booths. At one booth, he strongly connected with the recruiter over their shared hobbies and how those skills apply to his experience within the field. However, his GPA was lower than their target; this immediately eliminated him. The in-person connection was irrelevant as was the shared background.

Bottom-line: Metrics now determines hiring, regardless of the story connected to the person applying for the job. Despite having an engineering degree, my friend still had to apply for over 100 jobs before getting an offer from one.

Online is no better.

Today, to find a job you have to complete an online application process. Many of these applications take hours to complete. Most companIes require job applicants to set up an online account before even starting the application process. Once you are set up, you are asked to enter all the information found on your resume into their form fields. After you do that, you must then still attach your resume, along with a cover letter attach and, possibly, other additional documents they require. Diligence tells you that you should spend time customizing your resume and cover letter to the specific position you are applying for, which requires still more time.

None of these actions ensure human eyes will ever see your application. AI is part of the reason, but it’s not the whole reason.

Ghost jobs are prolific.

Ghost jobs are job postings put out by legitimate companies (and the U.S. government) for various reasons: 1) to gauge the labor market, 2) to collect data, and/or 3) to show company growth without actually hiring.

An estimated 30% of online job postings are ghost jobs. The monthly jobs report shared out by our government includes these nonexistent jobs. For every 10 applications a job seeker fills out, 3 of them may be for bogus jobs. Applicants waste countless hours and energy feeding data to a machine to apply for jobs that aren’t real.

Still other positions advertised online are flat-out scams. These scams play out even through “reputable” websites like LinkedIn. In one instance, I unwittingly walked into a job interview for a multi-level marketing firm. On a different occasion, I had an interview with an AI agent that told me I needed to accept a large check to pay for new equipment I would need to perform the job before a job could begin.

AI favors employers, not job searchers.

Even if you identify a legitimate position for which you’re qualified, most job applications are now run through an AI filter, not a human. Your measure as a worker and someone people can work with is second to your ability to optimize your resume to match the exact qualifications and wording that AI is looking for.

This automation of resume screening eliminates entry-level people from consideration for most jobs. It favors those with established careers. Worse, regardless of AI’s actually ability to do a position, many employers are preemptively eliminating entry-level jobs because AI can replace the human.

College graduates who expected or hoped to start a career instead find themselves stocking shelves or waiting tables. Of the Gen Z young professionals who do find a job in their field, many will tell you, “Graduating was difficult. Job hunting was harder.”

Better government policy can help.

The jobs industry changed almost overnight because of AI, yet our government’s agencies and political figures remains calcified. They are stuck in their endless back and forth between Red and Blue without either party producing change that helps young people.

This discrepancy between what politicians promise and what they ended up actually delivering make civic participation challenging. Why should I bother with politics that haven’t changed and won’t change when I need to focus on finding some kind of job? Why bother engaging when all that’s ever on offer are politicians triple my age talking about issues that won’t help me find work or address the issues I care about?

Want youth to vote? Then address their needs.

I’ve worked in and around local politics for years. I cannot name a time when I’ve heard a politician talk about the issue of ghost jobs or the lack of incentives for businesses to hire people for entry level positions.

Yet these two issues are huge for young people. They directly impact our ability to afford life’s basics: rent, utilities, and food. They stand directly in the way of our hopes for home ownership and a potential family.

The problem is NOT “youthful impatience.”

As the cost of living for every age group goes up, the anchors holding young people back from engaging more in the economy and society as a whole accumulate. Just like older Americans being priced out of their own homes, young people struggle to afford necessities — as well as to pay back student loans.

As long as young people are unable to find work that allows them to leave behind these anchors, the economy as a whole becomes more vulnerable and reliant on debt or a few goods and services. Low wages for the youth also ensure that there is a higher tax burden on older individuals for healthcare programs and social security. These are two social programs that only work when a large young, active base of support exists.

Share your plans for removing barriers.

If you want me – and my peers - to vote for you, talk about how you will take down barriers for young people to have their voices represented in politics. Talk about the needs of the youth who are just now starting a career and not just the needs of our parents and grandparents. It isn’t an either or. Speak to the issues young people of all ideologies care about: finding good jobs, apartments that don’t cost half their paycheck each month, and homes that they can afford. Explain how you will improve these things; it will do more to bring out the youth than posting a quirky TikTok.

Youth don’t have hope.

When I talk to people my age about the future, regardless of their income level or politics, we all have a gallows humor about what’s to come. Many of us already contribute to 401Ks and brokerages outside of our work. Many are planning for home ownership or maybe children, but all these plans feel more like a reflex. We see that AI’s progress threatens the very idea of working to live; we are aware of climate change’s ever looming threat.

Our planning for homes and children is what we were taught what to do, not what any of us believe is possible.

There is no single issue that will drive young people out to vote, but helping us find good jobs is a good start.

In my experience we are especially diverse in our views and stances in ways that make applying Republican or Democratic labels unworkable. We’re one of the most informed generations; we are very aware of what politics looks like and how it impacts us today. To earn our vote, you need to help us be hopeful for the future.

Many of those my age desperately crave a hopeful vision of the future. It’s why candidates like Mamdani and AOC have succeeded. More than policy, they give young Americans a reason to hope again.

Our local politicians can do the same.

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Please share your thoughts. We want to hear from you.

Hoosiers, and Americans, are struggling, and they are worrying.

A lot.

As a collective, we are feeling anxious, uneasy, and pessimistic. We are worried about ourselves, our kids, and our grandkids. We sit in 23rd place on the “happiness index” well below Israel (#8), Mexico (#12), Ksovo (#16), and Czechnia (#20).

We are in turmoil politically and the “make America great again” slogan is just that, a slogan, with no signs of greatness in evidence to most of us. We’re watching with wary eyes as paint peels from one of our beloved monuments, a tarp flaps in the wind as it covers the Kennedy Center, and a president tries to tell us the war with Iran is a positive thing, right along with those tariffs that were going to jump start our economy.

We’re backsliding.

We are seeing huge backslides in human rights, democracy, and the freedoms enshrined into our Constitution. While 35% of America remains steadfast in their support of Donald J. Trump, a whopping 65% are less convinced.

Locally, the numbers are worse. Governor Mike Braun has been languishing with a 25% approval rating the entire year to date. Constituents have quickly realized Braun is not aligned with or listening to the voices of Hoosier constituents.

But the discontent doesn’t stop there. Americans have come to distrust both political parties and pretty much everything that includes the word “politics” in a sentence.

Concerns cluster into six major areas

Locally and nationally concerns follow similar lines. The issues below have come up repeatedly in the past weeks and months as I’ve scanned newspapers and social media from around the state—from South Bend to Indianapolis to Evansville. My spouse and I talk about this stuff far too much. I’ve heard my friends, my neighbors, my siblings, my kids, and fellow volunteers all talking about them. Individually, each one is an emotional load. Collectively, it’s as though someone tied cement around our emotional feet and tossed us over a bridge.

1. Affordability

This category encompasses just about everything we need to spend money on: food, gas, housing, childcare, healthcare, education, and more. As with past election cycles throughout history, “It’s the economy, stupid,” remains the mantra. Americans were promised an economy that was MORE affordable and less inflationary that they had experienced in prior four years; the reality is the opposite.

2. Data centers

The animosity most local Indiana residents feel about these centers invading their communities is high, high, high. It DOES feel like an invasion since local voices are ignored by state legislators as well as city and town councils who steamroll projects through despite strong objections from residents. Local residents see these centers as wrecking balls of their communities and harbingers of massive utility price increases. AI wasn’t even mentioned prior to the 2024 elections; now it’s dominating conversations and news cycles.

3. Education

The local impact of huge state funding cuts coupled with the expansion of the private school voucher program has caused havoc across school districts in every Indiana county. Referendums are planned for the November ballot in most communities across the state as the property tax cuts given at the state level mean local communities have to make up massive shortfalls in income used to fund schools.

4. Healthcare access and support for public health, in general

Way too many Hoosiers lack access to a doctor OR a hospital in the county in which they reside. Residents in a third of Indiana’s counties have minimal to no access to healthcare that meets their needs (pregnant women, anyone????). Doctors AND hospitals are disappearing from our rural communities. At the same time, vaccines are being made optional and public health is being gutted, leaving Hoosiers feeling very, very vulnerable.

5. Immigration and detection actions

ICE’s presence in Indiana and the large volume of arrests and detentions continues to be a source of protest activity and citizen concern. Your neighbor’s family can be intact today and destroyed tomorrow, not because your neighbor committed a criminal act but because they violated an administrative law and overstayed a visa or showed up, as prescribed, for an asylum hearing only to be detained by ICE for following the law.

6. Fears for our democracy

Since inauguration day 2025, the Trump administration has been sued a whopping 750 times (through June 19, 2026). The Supreme Court has taken action in 31 of these cases with six cases pending. These lawsuits are a direct counter to executive orders that often go against our Constitution (e.g. efforts to end birthright citizenship as one example). It’s led to tremendous fears about the future of our Constitution, the neutrality of our judicial system, and a increasing risk of total authoritarian takeover of our country by oligarchs (e.g. billionaires who pay for contracts and other government favors).

We are disconnecting from each other

The response of some citizens - particularly those 25 and under - has been to isolate and retreat. Still others have honed their sign-making skills and shown up at protests. But few of us are sitting down with one another in our local neighborhoods and communities to listen to each others’ stories - not opinions, but STORIES. Real things that happened to real people as a consequence of a law or policy - or the lack of a law or policy.

Stories can reconnect us.

The opportunity to read or listen to someone’s first-hand experience or perspective on an issue is a powerful means for bridging divides and fostering understanding rather than animosity. Instead of reading about “the Democrats” or “the Republicans,” it’s time we heard individual stories about real-time impacts of political action or inaction.

• What happens to the local resident in New Carslisle, IN whose electric bill is about to go up 200% courtesy of Amazon’s new data center?

• What is the experience of a Purdue graduate living in Westfield who graduates into a job market dominated by AI bots who will screen any application he submits and reject it before any human looks at it?

• How does a local pastor help the parishioner whose working as hard as she can, but still cannot make enough to afford childcare…but who also cannot afford to NOT work either?

• What happens to a middle-class family of four in Monroe County when the ACA subsidy disappears?

These stories, along with a lot more, highlight the actual impact of legislation and policy on actual families.

Stories make policy personal.

They makes a legislator’s “yea” or “nay” vote personal. They help the disenfranchised reconsider the impact they have when they opt not to vote. They help clarify for the uncertain the importance of casting a vote, particularly at the local level. They help those deeply entrenched in how they’ve historically voted consider whether they are voting from habit versus voting on genuine understanding of how their vote might impact others in their community.

So we’re seeking out and publishing stories from real people sharing real impacts.

We are inviting residents across Indiana to share their stories. From June 30th through Election Day, we will feature a different Hoosier voice each week, publishing either on Tuesdays or Wednesdays.

Each author is being asked to share a story of a top voting issue for them, how their personal experience shaped their view, and what they want to see from those elected to represent them.

We’re starting out with these four big categories of issues. We’re wide open to including a few more, depending on what we hear from readers.

Affordability. Data Centers. Public education. Healthcare.

If you see another issue as pivotal to hear stories about, let us know. If you have your own story to share, let us know that too. We’re happy to help you get your story told. Please leave a comment! We want to open a dialog and create connections.

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invited Sierra Rainey to craft an original poem in honor of this Friday’s Juneteenth celebration. Her poem is below. You can listen to her read it as well as read the copy yourself below.

When we were first declared human enough
to be called Citizen, I imagine how our souls 
exhaled past our heartsick bones through the
pores of our unlit skin and how, then, we knew 
what it was to be embraced by light—forever holding
it inside of us and finally we felt it pouring out onto us.
 
Our men were told that they could be Men,
as all boys are groomed to become, with sovereign 
voices that decide all things for a lineage, a social order,
a country. And we women had no choice but to
bank our hopes in them, bartering for civil tolerance
since human love was too much to ask—
 
and still
 
We learned how shackles could be reconstructed
into new systems of inequity—oppression humanized
by a man’s name. Our thirst segregated from other
thirsts. Our hunger treated as excess. Our seats forgotten
at the table. Our bodies hung like Spanish moss. Our skin
could never be as dark as the world built around it.
 
But even in this world, light does reside. I imagine
the luminescence of heads held high and feet marching
forward, how promise mottles the darkness when a man
declares, “I have a dream,” and his words effuse
sacred truth. I imagine the sunlit spine of the woman
who sat down in a bus seat and made a nation stand up.
 
Somewhere along this timeline, we realized that we were
not waiting for the light, and the light has never waited
for us. How it happened, I cannot imagine it, but 
someday, our souls exhaled past our heartsick bones
through the pores of our unlit skin, and suddenly,
there was the light pouring out from us. 
 
And in this light, we watch and see our
boys become men, our women make 
their own choices, and our human love
reconstruct a world in which every voice
inside every hope-filled body is
sovereign.
 
Imagine that.

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Sierra Rainey is a poet who resides in Indianapolis, Indiana. She grew up in Chicago and came to Indiana to attend Notre Dame University. Lucky for us, she opted to stay after graduation and now resides in Indianapolis, Indiana. Her day job is working as an instructional designer. Her calling and her gift are her ability to write incredible poetry. Sierra previously wrote and performed a poem for Voices For Democracy’s September 2025 Democracy Festival held in Carmel, Indiana and for the NoKings II protest held in October 2025.

I am a Christian though I no longer belong to a church. I pray daily. I don’t interpret the Bible literally, but I do draw tremendous guidance from it. I view Matthew 25 as the simple, yet incredibly difficult path, that Jesus laid out for those wanting to follow his way of life. His parables offer tremendous guidance as well - the Good Samaritan being top of mind now as I watch this administration persecute immigrants. The beatitudes he preached also offer guidance - blessed are the merciful, the humble (e.g. poor in spirit) to name two that I see nowhere in the current political climate. I remind myself constantly of the fruits of the Spirit referenced in Galatians and I work hard to cultivate them, though often not succeeding: love, patience, peace, gentleness, kindness, faithfulness, and self-control.

Yes, I know my bible, which enables me to see how much of it Christian Nationals ignore because it doesn’t fit their narrative of what a Christian is and why America need to be a Christian nation.

I grew up with religious rigor

I attended a parochial school, which provided daily religious instruction and Mass attendance, three prayer times each day (morning, noon, and dismissal), Mass attendance 5 days/week, and “confession” with a priest once a month. My siblings and I also attended church every Sunday and every Holy Day of Obligation. As a teen, I was heavily involved in Youth for Christ, which started me on a daily Bible-reading habit that persisted for three decades before I shifted away to explore other spiritual books.

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Life experiences exposed me to different viewpoints

My faith matters to me, though my adherence to the Catholic religion stopped about a decade ago. Eventually, I began to struggle with teachings I couldn’t reconcile with what I learned and experienced as I navigated adulthood and womanhood. I went from heavily involved in a parish through my mid-40s to being completely unchurched by my mid-50s. My “why” for this echoes that of many others I know who have left the church: I could no longer ignore my intense discomfort of church teachings about women, homosexuality, sexuality, in general, and the church’s entire focus - which seemed to be on retaining control rather than on living out Matthew 25.

Eventually, I came to see my religion’s doctrine as deeply flawed, my culture as one of many ways to live rather than optimal culture, and my religion as one of many pathways that guide people to God, not the only pathway.

From a handful to every Hoosier and American

In hindsight, it is so easy to recognize that the education I received as a chid was a form of indoctrination. Of course it was, just as any child going to a private Baptist, Lutheran, Jewish, or Muslim school is also indoctrinated in THEIR version of religion. This is the entire point of a religious school. Until recent years, it has also been solely a parent’s choice regarding what they want their child to learn with the government not part of that parent’s choice and not funding choices that involved religious instruction, given our Constitution’s mandate that church and state are to be separate.

That’s changed, though. Christian education is rapidly becoming the government’s preference for Indiana and America’s children. This preference is leading us to a long-term goal of having every American child indoctrinated in a highly specific way: into a belief in a perverted form of Christianity that conflates patriotism and religion as one and the same.

That belief infuses Christian Nationalism, and it is the core part of the Seven Mountains Mandate. The people guiding Indiana - and America - toward this mandate are a handful of extremely wealthy and powerful people working to convince Americans that religion is about patriotism and power, not love and compassion.

Those exerting outsized influence include:

• Billionaires who provide funding: Koch family, DeVos family, Tim Dunn, Farris Wilkes. These individuals make direct political contributions, but more powerfully, they all have foundations and spin-off lobbying groups, including ones that are very active in Indiana. Example: Americans for Prosperity Action is a Koch-backed super PAC. It routinely spends heavily on Indiana state-level and gubernatorial races. This super PAC backed Governor Mike Braun’s campaign in 2024.

• Evangelical Pastors who attach themselves to wealth and cultivate influence: nationally, Doug Wilson and Lance Wallnau are major examples. Locally, Micah Beckwith in Indiana is a visible, vocal example. He is an avowed Christian Nationalist who routinely makes the news by calling out groups he deems to be demonic, most recently calling out the Westfield High School band in Westfield, IN and all Muslims everywhere as well as posting a Letter to the Editor in the Indianapolis Business Journal citing the belief that Hoosiers want a Christian-based focus.

• Thinly-disguised political organizations created to support the Christian Nationalist view: Turning Point USA, Heritage Foundation, and Moms for Liberty to name just three. Turning Point USA and Moms for Liberty are both very active in Indiana. The Heritage Foundation is a national “think tank” arm that pumps out policy statements designed to guide Republican-initiated legislation. Its Project 2025 blueprint has been foundational in many Indiana legislative bills and recent laws.

So how does this connect to Seven Mountains Mandate?

These people and organizations have pushed beliefs associated with Dominionism as part of the Christian Nationalist movement. Dominionism drives the “seven mountains mandate.”

Dr. Matthew Boedy, a professor at the University of Northern Georgia, is the author of the book, The Seven Mountains Mandate: Exposing the Christian Nationalist Plan to Christianize America and Destroy Democracy. He is one of the earliest professors to be placed on the Charlie Kirk/TurningPoint USA “professor watch list.” This list features professors that Turning Point USA members cites for spreading “radical leftist propaganda” on college campuses.

Boedy’s crime?

Writing an op-ed in the local paper against allowing guns on college campuses. When Boedy made it onto that watch list in 2016, he began to follow Turning Point USA closely. Eventually, he gained significant expertise in Christian Nationalism and in the seven mountains mandate. I asked Dr Boedy to explain what it is.

Boedy’s description of the seven mountains mandate.

The seven mountains mandate is a particular strategy of Christian Nationalism and that ideology is a larger spectrum of beliefs, actions, and, of course, influencers. Christian Nationalism wants to christianize America. And advocates want to do this through our culture. This is why they engage in culture wars, why they argue politics is downstream from culture, and of course why religion is not mere salvific for the individual, but also for the nation. In a word, they are worldview warriors and that worldview is what they push.

The seven mountains mandate is a call to retake our culture for Jesus. The culture encompasses seven areas or mountains: media, education, government, religion, the family, arts and entertainment, and business.

[The goal is for true Christians] to retake these areas from demonic or godless or anti-Christian forces.

Advocates want to install that worldview as law, principle, policy, and rule for all areas of our culture. That is a Christian nation to them.

What’s the big deal about the Seven Mountains Mandate?

The mountains targeted in the mandate are the foundational blocks of American democracy and culture. The Christian Nationalist movement is coming close to the top of many of them. Diligent work over the past 40+ years has led to these results:

Mountain 1 - Religion

Per the Seven Mountains Mandate, Christianity is the ONLY acceptable religion The goal is for it to become the official national religion and for American’s laws and policies to align with its teachings. This belief ripples across all the other mountains, most profoundly affecting the mountains of education, government, and family as described below. Patriotism = Christianity and vice versa.

One implication of this comes out in immigration policy. Immigrants from non-Christian (and non-white) countries are not welcome or wanted. Per the mandate, their presence needs to be minimized or eliminated as much as possible. This mandate has a direct connection to current U.S. immigration policy.

Mountain 2 - Education

Education needs to be Christianized.

Christian Nationalists’ steps toward this involved decades of careful work getting local legislatures filled with Republicans who embrace Christian Nationalist views. This aim was achieved by providing out-of-state funding of races as well as extensive leadership training courtesy of the far-right’s Leadership Institute. Mike Pence is one of many Indiana political figures and thousands of Republicans across the nation who have graduated from the Leadership Institute.

This investment has paid off as Republicans across the nation have succeeded in expanding private school voucher programs for schools across the country, including in Indiana. These vouchers take your tax dollars away from K - 12 public schools and flow it into private Christian-based schools via vouchers.

These same legislators are also pushing for religious content in public schools. Legislators have succeeded in passing bills requiring the 10 commandments to be displayed in school classrooms in Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, and Arkansas. Indiana’s own version of this bill failed in 2026, but will surely be back in 2027 to try again. One bill that DID pass in Indiana requires teachers to promote marriage as optimal before people begin sexual activity.

Mountain 3 - Government

This mandate calls for America’s government to be remade into a distinctly Christian one guided by Christian laws and policies. A host of local and national elected and appointed officials claim fervent Christian nationalism. Locally, Lt. Governor Micah Beckwith is a vocal Christian nationalist, along with State Representative Joanna King. Dozens of other state representatives and senators have authored or supported bills that directly align with Christian Nationalist beliefs.

King, along with 21 other state representatives, introduced House Resolution 53, which called on the Indiana House of Representatives to adhere to the biblical teachings of God, and “… and to acknowledge the need for divine providence, choosing to humbly submit its ways to the Lord, Jesus Christ.” The resolution did not pass, but it had a lot of support.

The toppling of Roe v Wade nationally spawned many state-level anti-abortion laws. Indiana’s anti-abortion law was introduced in 2022 by Senator Liz Brown in a special session after Roe v Wade was overturned. Nationally, we have Pete Hegseth (Secretary of Defense) and Mike Johnson (Speaker of the House) as prominent Christian Nationalists.

Mountain 4 - Media

Christian Nationalism controls the airwaves across America. Salem Media Group, a blatantly Christian nationalist entity, owns 117 radio stations and syndicates its Christian conservative talk shows to more than 2,500 radio affiliates across America. It OWNS the airwaves in America’s rural and southern states.

Christian Nationalist stations feed listeners a steady diet of talk shows hosted by people such as Nick Fuentes, Matt Walsh, Ben Shapiro and more whose deeply conservative, anti-women, anti-immigrant rhetoric fills the airwaves. On the flip side - NPR and Voice of America have both been defunded without Congressional approval.

Mountain 5 - The family

Family is defined narrowly to fit a narrow Christian viewpoint: husband, wife, and their biological or adopted children. It includes redefining and narrowing a woman’s role to primarily being wifehood and motherhood and calls for women to “submit to their husbands” per a single verse in the Bible. The “trad wife” movement was discussed and explained in a previous post. Promoting this view in Indiana, Governor Mike Braun released an executive order on June 1st, 2026 proclaiming June the month of the nuclear family. In his executive order he specifically calls out a husband, wife, and their biological or adopted children as the optimal family structure. Notably left out are unmarried parents, same-sex couples, and opposite-sex couples who rely on donor conception to create their families. Single-parent families are also omitted from the definition of the ideal family. This executive order is not unique to Braun; he is following the lead of Republican governors in several other states. Pride groups see it as a blatant attempt to erase Pride Month, which is also June.

Legislatively, the SAVE Act is being pushed by the Trump administration as a means to suppress the votes of women. LGBTQ is being targeted with laws promoted to discriminate against and criminalize transgender individuals.

Mountain 6 - Arts and entertainment

This is the culture war America has been witnessing for years. TurningPoint USA has consistently used media to launch attacks on those whose views differ from theirs - specifically those labeled as being “on the left.” Transgenderism in sports has been targeted in a major way with state governments across the country, making the issue of transgender athletes a major focus, despite there being no major wave of transgender athletes in any sport and transgender issues NOT being on any voter’s list of top concerns. Hollywood has been in the crosshairs at the federal level with its entertainers constantly derided as “left-wing lunatics.”

Trump instigated sweeping cuts of the arts at the national level, defunding both the National Endowment of the Arts and the National Council on the Humanities, triggering ripple effects across all the states. In Indiana, the Humanities Council is down to a shoe-string budget and has had made major cuts to simply continue to exist. to cut numerous programs.

And even Braun’s “nuclear family” proclamation is part of the culture war.

Mountain 7 - Business

Christians are to be the “kings” of industry, per the Seven Mountains Mandate. In real time, we see billionaires Tim Dunne and Farris Wilkes using their massive wealth to pump vast sums of money into elections across Texas and across the country to influence elections. We see other billionaires and CEOs donating huge sums of money in exchange for political favors and contracts. This list includes Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and others you likely haven’t heard of such as Kelsey Warren (fossil fuel company) and Greg Brockman (co-founder Open AI).

This brings us to November 2026

The upcoming November elections will not instantly reverse decades of effort on the part of Christian Nationalists to redefine America and crumble its democracy.

However, who we vote for and WHETHER we vote will indicate if we plan to cede Indiana’s - and America’s - cultural, educational, and political institutions to a single religion and worldview without a fight.

Christian Nationalism is poised to place its flag atop almost every one of our institutions Their ultimate success or failure depends on voters and candidates. Voters must have the will to cast votes that push against this view of America. Candidates must offer an alternate vision of how America can be better for the 90% of Americans who do not have great wealth. Being against something is not sufficient. Voters want to know what we are moving TOWARDS, which should be a government that serves its citizens rather than a government that takes from its citizens to serve its wealthiest, most powerful influencers.

Other Voices4Democracy posts on Christian Nationalism:

• Hoosiers face major impacts from rise of Christian Nationalism

• On motherhood, power, and who decides

• The silence of Christian Nationalism on Matthew 25:35-45

• Bad Faith. Bad Politics. Bad for Hoosiers.

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Notes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_theology

https://www.propublica.org/article/tim-dunn-farris-wilks-texas-christian-nationalism-elections-voting

https://forward.com/culture/672745/christian-nationalist-guide-influence-trump-election/

The Seven Mountains Mandate - https://www.wjkbooks.com/productauthor/matthew-boedy/

https://arnoltcenter.org/work/religious-roots-christian-nationalist-ideals-sprouting-in-indiana-legislation/

Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Network of the Radical Right: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/shadow-network-9781635573190/

Meet the billionaire donors behind Trump’s Midterm Superweapon (by Forbes)

https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/the-trump-administration-is-threatening-libraries-museums-and-other

https://indianacapitalchronicle.com/briefs/indiana-governor-declares-pride-month-nuclear-family-month/

Let’s begin with a story you likely never heard.

In May 1865, one month after the Confederacy surrendered, a group of freed Black men and women gathered In Charleston, South Carolina.

They gathered on the grounds of a former horse racing track that Confederate forces had turned into a prison camp. They had just spent two weeks reburying Union soldiers who died there in squalor and unmarked graves.

After completing this solemn work, this group held a ceremony. They decorated the graves with flowers.

They sang hymns.

They marched.

That was one of the first Memorial Days. It was not organized by generals or politicians, but instead by people who had just been freed from enslavement. The 14th Amendment, which would give them status as citizens, had not been written yet.

Think a moment. Let this sink in.

These were people who understood in their hearts what it meant to die in service to an idea that didn’t yet fully include them.

Three years later, in 1868, Major General John A. Logan formally proclaimed May 30th as Decoration Day, a nationwide observance for Union soldiers who had fallen in the Civil War. The date was chosen specifically because it was not the anniversary of any battle.

And the timing?

As Logan himself put it the day was chosen so that “The choicest flowers of springtime would be available across the country.” The timing symbolized the new life that springs from winter’s ground; life persists despite the past.

A century of wars followed, and the holiday grew to honor the fallen of each war and to be renamed Memorial Day. In 1971, Congress moved it to the last Monday in May and created the three-day weekend we know today. A year later, Time Magazine wrote that the holiday had become what it remains now for too many of us:

But it’s far more than a long weekend

Memorial Day is intended as a day of remembrance; it is a day of grief, not of celebration. It is intended as a day for all Americans to honor, mourn, and remember those who never came home from service to our country. The flag flies at half-staff until noon — that is not tradition for its own sake. That is the nation pausing and bowing its head.

Most importantly, Memorial Day began as an act of remembrance by people who had no political power: people who understood that death in service to this country deserves acknowledgment, regardless of whether the nation had fully honored them while they lived.

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Expanding our view of Memorial Day for 2026

That idea — that we owe the dead the dignity of being named and remembered — is what I think we should recognize today, along with this uncomfortable truth of 2026:

These individuals, whose names most Americans do not know, have families who grieve their absence. This year, let’s remember these U.S. residents and citizens, as well as our service men, on this day. Their deaths are a sobering reminder that the actions of our country have real impact on human beings. Deliberate national decisions affect both those who sacrificed through honorable service and those on the receiving end of policy gone awry.

Let’s say their names

These people were real. They had families. They had histories. They had futures cut short. They deserve to be named on this day.

Soldiers and airmen fallen in the 2026 Iran War

In the 40 days following the start of hostilities in late February 2026, at least 13 American service members were killed and more than 380 wounded. These are the confirmed fallen:

March 1, 2026 — Port of Shuaiba, Kuwait (103rd Expeditionary Sustainment Command):

• Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Marzan — Age 54, Signal Corps

• Sergeant First Class Nicole Amor — Age 39, Ordnance Corps

• Sergeant First Class Noah Tietjens — Age 42, Ordnance Corps

• Sergeant Declan Coady — Age 20, Signal Corps

• Major Jeffrey O’Brien — Age 45, Signal Corps

• Captain Cody Khork — Age 35, Adjutant General’s Corps

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March 8, 2026 — Saudi Arabia (died of wounds from the March 1 attack):

• Sergeant Benjamin Pennington — Age 26, Quartermaster Corps, 1st Space Brigade

March 12, 2026 — Western Iraq (KC-135 Stratotanker crew):

• Major John “Alex” Klinner — Age 33, 99th Air Refueling Squadron

• Captain Ariana Savino — Age 31, 99th Air Refueling Squadron

• Technical Sergeant Ashley Pruitt — Age 34, 99th Air Refueling Squadron

• Captain Seth Koval — Age 38, 166th Air Refueling Squadron

• Captain Curtis Angst — Age 34, 166th Air Refueling Squadron

• Technical Sergeant Tyler Simmons — Age 28, 121st Air Refueling Wing

Non-combat death:

• Major Sorffly Davius — Age 46, 42nd Infantry Division — died March 6, Camp Buehring, Kuwait. Cause undetermined.

You will not read most of these names in a Memorial Day commemoration this weekend. Some are Reserve soldiers and National Guard aviators — real people who answered a call and paid the ultimate price. They should not be forgotten, regardless of the veracity of the conflict.

The Forgotten: killed by federal agents during immigration enforcement

Now, let’s go somewhere uncomfortable. There are several other deaths tied to the actions of our government this year that no one will read at any ceremony. We name these people not to make a legal argument about any particular case, and not to assign blame without full investigation. We name them because they have died, and we owe the dead the dignity of acknowledgment when we often remember only a few names because of their background, heritage or duration of media cycle.

• Keith Porter Jr. — Age 43, U.S. citizen, Black, father of two — shot by an off-duty ICE agent outside his Los Angeles apartment on December 31, 2025.

• Ruben Ray Martinez — Age 23, U.S. citizen — fatally shot by an ICE agent in South Padre Island, Texas, March 2025, while not following orders to exit his car. He was celebrating his birthday. His mother said he worked at an Amazon warehouse in San Antonio. ICE’s connection to the shooting was withheld from the public for nearly a year.

• Renée Nicole Good — Age 37, U.S. citizen, mother of three young children — shot and killed by an ICE agent during a large enforcement operation in Minneapolis on January 7, 2026.

• Alex Jeffrey Pretti — Age 37, U.S. citizen, ICU nurse employed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs — shot multiple times and killed by two Customs and Border Protection officers in Minneapolis on January 24, 2026. He was filming agents with his phone and stepped between an officer and a woman who ICE officers had shoved to the ground. After the shooting, officers did not perform CPR or give any medical aid. Physicians at the scene who tried to help were delayed or stopped.

• Silverio Villegas González — Father, cook — shot by ICE agents in a Chicago suburb, September 2025, reportedly while trying to flee.

• Isaías Sánchez Barboza — Age 31, Mexican citizen — killed by a Border Patrol agent in Rio Grande City, Texas, December 2025.

The Forgotten: Deaths in ICE detention custody — 2025 and 2026

In 2025, at least 31 people died in ICE detention, which is the highest number of deaths reported in more than 20 years. Through mid-April, at least 17 more have died, which equals about one death per week. Many of the deaths involved delayed or denied medical care. Several were suicides. At least one has been ruled a homicide.

A contributing factor: ICE halted payments to third-party medical care contractors in October 2025 and did not resume them for months. Some providers, unable to get paid, stopped providing services to detainees. People in civil — not criminal — detention were denied medical care because of an administrative payment failure.

These are some of the named dead of 2026:

• Geraldo Lunas Campos — Age 55, Cuba — died January 3, Camp East Montana, El Paso, TX. A witness told the Washington Post that guards choked him as he repeatedly said he could not breathe. Local authorities ruled it a homicide.

• Luis Gustavo Núñez Cáceres — Age 42, Honduras — died January 5, Conroe, TX. Heart failure.

• Luis Beltran Yanez-Cruz — Age 68, Honduras — died January 6, Calexico, CA. Reported chest pains; died after transfer to hospital.

• Parady La — Age 46, Cambodia — died January 9, Philadelphia, PA. Cardiac arrest and multiple organ failure.

• Victor Manuel Díaz — Age 36, Nicaragua — died January 14, Camp East Montana — the second death at that facility in January alone, the third since December 2025.

• Heber Sánchez Domínguez — Age 34, Mexico — died January 14, Lovejoy, GA. Found hanging in his cell.

• Lorth Sim — Age 59, Cambodia — died February 16, Bunker Hill, IN. Found unresponsive in his cell.

• Emanuel Cleeford Damas — Age 56, Haiti — died March 2, Scottsdale, AZ. Reported shortness of breath; died after transfer to a hospital.

• Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal — Age 41, Afghanistan — died March 14, Dallas, TX. He had served in Afghanistan’s military alongside U.S. forces for over a decade, entered the U.S. under humanitarian parole in 2021, and applied for asylum. He died less than 24 hours after being detained, with no known underlying health conditions.

• Royer Pérez Jiménez — Age 19, Mexico — died March 16, Moore Haven, FL. Presumed suicide; found unresponsive.

• Tuan Van Bui — Age 55, Vietnam — died April 1, Bunker Hill, IN.

• Aled Damien Carbonell-Betancourt — Age 27, Cuba — died in Miami. Presumed suicide; cause under investigation.

From 2025 — a partial roll of those who died in detention:

Genry Ruiz Guillén, Serawit Gezahegn Dejene, Maksym Chernyak (Ukraine), Juan Alexis Tineo-Martínez, Brayan Rayo-Garzón, Marie Ange Blaise (Haiti), Nhon Ngoc Nguyen, Abelardo Avelleneda-Delgado, Jesus Molina-Veya, Johnny Noviello (Canada), Isidro Pérez, Tien Xuan Phan (Vietnam), Chaofeng Ge, Lorenzo Antonio Batrez Vargas, Ismael Ayala Uribe, Santos Reyes-Banegas, Randall Gamboa Esquivel (Costa Rica), Oscar Duarte Rascón, Gabriel García-Avilés, Kai Yin Wong (China), Leo Cruz-Silva, Hasan Ali Moh’D Saleh (Jordan), Norlan Guzmán-Fuentes and Miguel Ángel García-Hernández — both killed by a sniper who opened fire on the ICE field office in Dallas, Huabing Xie, Nenko Stanev Gantchev (Bulgaria), Delvin Francisco Rodríguez, Fouad Saeed Abdulkadir (Eritrea), Jean Wilson Brutus (Haiti), Shiraz Fatehali Sachwani (Pakistan), Pete Sumalo Montejo (Philippines), Francisco Gaspar-Andrés.

Regrettably this is not a complete list.

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Memorial Day asks us not to forget

The freed people of Charleston in 1865 didn’t wait for permission to hold a memorial. They didn’t wait until the government told them these lives mattered. They showed up with flowers and shovels and songs, and they said: These people died. We recognize their sacrifice, and we will not let that go by without acknowledgment.

Not every death listed in this article reflects the same level of government fault. But all of them deserve the dignity of acknowledgement. Some were soldiers who answered their country’s call. Some were people who came to this country seeking safety and found a detention system with substandard, inhumane conditions that could not keep them alive. Some were American citizens who died at the hands of federal agents.

All of them leave behind families. All of them deserved better.

Read these names. Say them out loud if you can. Geraldo Lunas Campos. Nicole Amor. Alex Pretti. Renée Good. Mohammad Nazeer Paktiawal — a man who fought alongside our forces in Afghanistan, came here seeking asylum, and died in ICE custody less than 24 hours after he was detained.

These names are not a political statement. They are a moral obligation. And the tradition of Memorial Day — the one that started with freed people in a former prison yard in Charleston — demands nothing less.

We are stronger when we face hard truths than when we paper them over with flags and barbecues, or worse, when we try to forget or erase them. The men and women on these lists deserve a country equal to their sacrifice.

Today, let’s remember them all.

This letter to the editor was published in yesterday’s editions of Current, the local newspaper serving Hamilton County.

Editor,

The May 5 Current article featuring the voices of Carmel residents in support of the local ICE office states that “law-abiding immigrants” have no reason to be afraid of ICE. I disagree. My first-person experience working with immigrants is why.

Few Hoosiers understand the history the U.S. has had with immigration policy. I did not when I started a Carmel-based nonprofit a few years ago called From Strangers to Neighbors, which works to resettle refugees.

I learned the U.S. has had racist quotas that consistently favored white European immigrants over those coming from Black and brown countries and Christian immigrants over others.

Few Americans realize that Barack Obama’s administration deported more than 2 million immigrants and that President George W. Bush devised the “catch and release” approach: undocumented immigrants who were caught were arrested, fingerprinted, assigned a court appearance, and then released. Few showed up for the court date.

Most recognize that President Joe Biden overcorrected for President Donald Trump’s harsh immigration policies, but few recognize that he swung back and was regaining border control at the end of his term. Fewer still recognize that a 2024 bipartisan bill, which would have improved immigration policy, was voted down by Republicans at the direction of then-candidate Trump.

Few Americans understand America’s complex immigration policy, but most understand and recognize injustice.

Carmel residents object to:

• Masked, armed men using violence and abuse as part of the detainment process.

• Children used as bait to gain access to a suspected undocumented parent.

• People detained in overcrowded, under-resourced facilities lacking adequate food, water and access to healthcare.

• “Mistaken” detainment of immigrants who have legal status. After these individuals spend days to months in detention, ICE officials release them with no apology and no economic compensation.

• The administration’s capricious changing of what constitutes legal status. Someone who was legal a year ago is deemed not legal today.

ICE’s actions go far beyond the tactics most residents see as appropriate and fair. That is what citizens object to.

Mr. and Mrs. Brown, along with Ms. Pyle and Mr. Ford (local residents cited in the original Current article that I was responding to via this letter) seem certain ICE is a solid federal agency acting lawfully and morally. The reality is far different.

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Rev. Greene shares perspective here.

There is something deeply revealing about what people choose to quote from the Bible and what they refuse to mention.

In this moment of rising white Christian nationalism across America and here in Indiana, we hear constant appeals to “biblical values,” “Christian America,” and “religious freedom.” Certain verses are repeatedly used to justify harsh public policy, exclusion, nationalism, and fear.

Yet one of the clearest teachings of Jesus is strangely absent from the conversation:

Matthew 25 is not vague theology. It is not symbolic abstraction. It is Jesus plainly defining what faithfulness looks like.

Feed the hungry.

Welcome the stranger.

Care for the sick.

Visit the imprisoned.

Clothe the naked.

And perhaps most importantly, Jesus identifies Himself with the vulnerable:

“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40 NIV).

That is why the silence around Matthew 25 is so loud.

For Black Christians, this conversation is not theoretical. We have lived through generations where Christianity was used both as a tool of liberation and as a weapon of oppression.

Our ancestors were enslaved while enslavers quoted Scripture. Segregationists sat in churches on Sunday while denying Black people dignity on Monday. During the Civil Rights Movement, many of the loudest defenders of “Christian America” opposed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., opposed voting rights, opposed integration, and opposed justice itself.

The Black church survived because it held tightly to the Jesus of Matthew 25.

A Jesus who stands with the oppressed.

A Jesus who hears the cries of the poor.

A Jesus who welcomes the stranger.

A Jesus who lifts the burdened rather than protecting the powerful.

That is why many Black Christians recognize white Christian nationalism so clearly. We have seen this spirit before. It wraps prejudice in patriotism and injustice in religious language. It speaks of “law and order” while ignoring inequity. It demands biblical obedience from the marginalized while excusing cruelty from the powerful.

But the Gospel preached in the Black church has always declared that faith without justice is empty.

Our spirituals, our prayers, our preaching, and our marching all flowed from the belief that God stands with those whom society pushes aside. Matthew 25 was not simply something we read; it was something we lived.

White Christian nationalism attempts to merge Christianity with political power, nationalism, racial hierarchy, and cultural control. But Jesus never commanded His followers to seize power over others. He commanded us to serve others.

That is the Gospel.

The danger of Christian nationalism is not simply political. It is spiritual. It creates a version of Christianity that honors flags more than faithfulness, power more than compassion, and fear more than love.

When that happens, the church stops looking like Jesus.

Matthew 25 reminds us that following Jesus is not proven by slogans, party affiliation, or cultural dominance. It is proven by how we treat “the least of these.”

The church does not need more nationalism dressed up as faith. We need more Jesus!

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Rev. David W. Greene, Sr. is a pastor, community organizer, and public advocate in Indianapolis. As President of the Concerned Clergy of Indianapolis, he brings faith and accountability to conversations on justice, education, and democracy.

There are two competing visions of womanhood moving through American culture right now.

One vision sees womanhood as self-directed, with motherhood as one meaningful expression of identity among many possible paths. The other vision sees motherhood and domestic roles as central to a woman’s purpose, with family and social structures organized around that expectation.

One vision of womanhood is expansive.
One vision of womanhood is prescriptive.

Both visions speak in the language of family, care, and purpose.

But the competing visions diverge on one core question:

And perhaps more importantly: What happens when that decision begins shifting away from the individual?

A Role, Already Written

Within the more prescriptive vision of womanhood associated with white Christian nationalism, women are often understood relationally, particularly within the family.

Wifehood and motherhood are expected.

In some white Christian nationalist circles, motherhood is also tied to concerns about declining birth rates and anxieties surrounding cultural continuity.

Marriage follows a similar structure: the husband leads, the wife supports.

Advocates of hierarchical gender roles rarely present the white Christian nationalist framework as oppressive. Instead, traditional gender roles are often described as purposeful, ordered, and stabilizing.

In a culture marked by economic anxiety, political polarization, and social fragmentation, clearly defined gender roles can feel reassuring.

The promise of clearly defined gender roles is part of the appeal.

How Traditionalism Reaches Younger Women

The modern resurgence of traditional gender roles is not just pushed through theology or political theory. Social media has accelerated the spread of the more prescriptive vision of womanhood far beyond churches or isolated communities. Traditional gender roles are being romanticized through aesthetics….

Soft lighting.

Homemade bread.

Children in coordinated linen outfits.

Clean kitchens and carefully curated routines presented as calm, intentional, and emotionally grounded.

The trad wife aesthetic does not argue; instead, it invites.

The power of social media influencers

A growing group of “trad wife” influencers are building large audiences around “traditional” values of motherhood and domestic life. But the influencers are not simply sharing their lives. The influencers are building brands: affiliate links, sponsorships, and monetized platforms. Domestic life, presented in an idealized and carefully curated way, has become a profitable niche.

For younger women navigating instability or uncertainty, trad wife content can feel grounding. Trad wife content offers structure, clarity, and a sense that someone has already written the script for what a meaningful life should look like. What begins as lifestyle inspiration can slowly evolve into expectation, especially when one vision is presented as more fulfilling, more feminine, or more morally centered than alternate visions.

Social media algorithms do more than amplify content. They normalize patterns.

When audiences repeatedly encounter social media messages about marriage, motherhood, submission, and domestic life, the messages begin to feel culturally central rather than niche.

The algorithm does more than amplify aesthetics. The algorithm amplifies ideology.

When Cultural Messaging Becomes Institutional

The more prescriptive vision of womanhood promoted through trad wife culture does not always remain online or aesthetic.

In some cases, traditional gender roles become institutional.

Institutions like Hyles-Anderson College in Indiana are frequently referenced in discussions about traditionalist gender roles. The college offers coursework centered on “Marriage and Motherhood,” combining theological instruction with domestic training focused on cooking, child-rearing, home management, and family life.

Supporters describe the programs as faith-based preparation for family-centered living.

Critics argue the programs narrow women’s educational and professional pathways by elevating domestic roles above broader opportunities for independence or career development.

Either way, the underlying vision of womanhood is no longer implied.

The vision of womanhood is structured.

When Hierarchical Gender Roles Are Stated Explicitly

At times, advocates of hierarchical gender roles articulate the beliefs directly.

Rev. Doug Wilson is a Christian Nationalist who leads a congregation in Moscow, Idaho. He also leads the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, a collection of 150 congregations around the country. In The Natural Use of the Woman, he describes women’s roles in explicitly hierarchical terms, framing women’s purpose primarily in relation to men, marriage, and family structure.

“The woman was created for the man.”

“She was created to help the missionary.”

“She is being useful, and is well used.”

Supporters describe the hierarchical gender roles as biblical order.

Critics argue the hierarchical gender roles reduce women’s autonomy by defining women’s value through usefulness and service within patriarchal systems.

The tension between autonomy and hierarchy sits at the center of the broader debate over competing visions of womanhood in America.

Why Reproductive Policy Is Connected

The relationship between cultural messaging and public policy becomes more concrete when reproductive access enters the conversation.

The prescriptive vision of womanhood associated with white Christian nationalism does not separate reproductive policy from questions of gender roles, labor, family structure, or power. Instead, reproductive policy, gender roles, labor, and family structure function together. Limiting access to contraception or abortion increases the likelihood of pregnancy. Increased caregiving responsibilities can affect educational attainment, workforce participation, economic independence, and dependence within the household.

Within the white Christian nationalist framework, reproductive policy matches the cultural expectations surrounding women’s roles and reinforces traditional gender expectations.

Access Is Increasingly Conditional

Recent legal battles surrounding mifepristone, one of two drugs used to terminate pregnancies or help a woman avoid a surgical procedure after a miscarriage, reveal how unstable reproductive access has become.

Restrictions were imposed. Then paused. Then challenged again.

When the Supreme Court temporarily restored access after a lower court ruling, the decision did not resolve the broader issue.

The legal battle surrounding mifepristone exposed a broader reality about reproductive healthcare access in the United States:

• Access to reproductive healthcare is no longer stable.

• Access to reproductive healthcare is conditional.

Language Often Comes Before Policy

Shifts in the language we use often precede cultural shifts.

Public figures and commentators increasingly describe motherhood as “biological destiny” while framing declining birth rates as a societal threat rather than a demographic trend. Instead of analyzing economic conditions that might be pushing this demographic trend, those favoring a narrow vision of womanhood frame the trend as evidence of a need to return to a patriarchy-based society.

Placed side by side, cultural messaging about “biological destiny” and declining birth rates begins to form a recognizable ideological pattern.

Language establishes direction.
Policy follows.

From the Household to the Ballot Box

The prescriptive vision of womanhood associated with white Christian nationalism extends beyond family life and into civic participation.

Some proponents have discussed systems in which political representation — in other words, the right to vote—is tied to the “head of household,” typically defined as male. Other policies, such as the SAVE Act, introduce documentation requirements that critics argue may disproportionately burden women whose legal documents changed through marriage or divorce.

On paper, the proposals may appear neutral. In practice, voter documentation requirements can create significant barriers to participation. And friction, particularly in voting access, tends to reduce participation.

More Than a Cultural Trend

What makes the current cultural moment significant is not simply the return of traditional gender roles. Women have long debated marriage, motherhood, work, and identity.

What distinguishes the current cultural moment is the growing convergence of media, religion, policy, and political organizing around the white Christian nationalist framework. This is intentional; it ties direction to Project 2025’s goal of attaining control over the 7 mountains of society. Three of these mountains – family, religion, and government — all work together to redefine womanhood as being primarily about motherhood and wifehood.

Within strands of white Christian nationalism, the family is not viewed as private alone. Instead, the family is viewed as political. Within the white Christian nationalist framework, gender roles are not treated as personal values, but as social structures tied to authority, citizenship, and cultural preservation.

That is why debates over motherhood increasingly intersect with conversations about reproductive healthcare, education, economic independence, and voting rights. Within the white Christian nationalist framework, redefining women’s roles is not incidental; it is strategic

Major cultural shifts rarely arrive all at once. More often, cultural shifts settle in gradually through language, aesthetics, expectations, and policy until what once felt fringe begins to feel familiar.

The central question is no longer whether competing visions of womanhood exist in America. The question is which vision of womanhood is becoming normalized through culture, institutions, and policy, and whether Americans recognize the shift while it is still unfolding.

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This first article sets the stage. Subsequent articles will dive deeper into specific elements and beliefs that drive white Christian nationalism.

Most Hoosiers don’t go around with signs that say, “Hi. I’m a Christian nationalist.”

Neither do most Americans.

That’s because few Americans or Hoosiers consciously think of themselves AS Christian nationalists. Yet the responses people make on surveys designed to assess beliefs tell a different story. (1) The survey is simple. It asks five questions. Those five questions help researchers classify someone as a Christian nationalist:

• Adherent

• Sympathizer

• Skeptic

• Rejector

To be an adherent you have to strongly agree with all four statements. To be a rejector you have to strongly disagree with all statements.

So what’s a Christian nationalist?

Public Religion Research Institute (PPRI) uses these five questions to identify someone as a Christian nationalist adherent, sympathizer, skeptic, or rejector. Respondents are asked to indicate whether they completely agree, mostly agree, mostly disagree, or completely disagree to each one. (2)

1. The U.S. government should declare America a Christian nation.

2. U.S. laws should be based on Christian values.

3. If the U.S. moves away from our Christian foundations, we will not have a country anymore.

4. Being Christian is an important part of being truly American.

5. God has called Christians to exercise dominion over all areas of American society

If someone strongly agrees with all four statements, then they are labeled an “adherent” to Christian nationalism. The Republic party has largely embraced Christian nationalism. Voting Republican at this point in America’s history is, in essence, a vote in support of laws and policies rooted in Christian nationalist beliefs.

The white phenomenon

There is a critical difference between Christian nationalism and WHITE Christian nationalism. White Christian nationalism fuses the element of racism into its definition.

Many Americans—particularly in communities of color—are at least sympathizers to Christian nationalism. America is, after all, a largely Christian nation. More Americans identify as Christian than any other religion even though that view is changing. (2) Many Hispanics voted for Trump. Many Black Americans also fervently support the five statements that mark someone as a Christian nationalist. Some of them, too, supported Trump.

But there is Christian nationalism and there is white Christian nationalism. And white Christian nationalism has a very dark underbelly. It doesn’t scream racist. Instead it targets immigration. It abolishes DEO. It overturns the Voting Rights Act.

White Christian nationalism fuses 3 beliefs

Let’s focus on white America. The map here, which comes from a Public Religion Research Institute, shows how much of white America leans toward Christian nationalism. Many, many white evangelical churches promote the version of Christian nationalism that is white Christian nationalism. This is the version that wants a white, male patriarchy running and immigrants staying out of it.

Robert Jones, the executive director of PRRI notes in the February 2026 report:

Christian nationalism is at a zenith of its power right now — controlling the Speaker of the House, the Department of Defense, the DOJ, ICE, and the vice presidency. It’s not abstract — it’s an operating principle in all of those positions.

The role of Project 2025

Project 2025 is the roadmap for turning American into a white Christian nationalist country. Its first draft was penned in 2007; white Christian nationalist organizations have been working toward 2025 - and the opportunity to transform America into their version of “great”— for decades.

The 2024 vote tipped everything. The Trump administration —led by Deputy Chief of Staff Steven Miller and Russell Vought, Director of the U.S. Budget Office — began implementing it on Day 1. The 900-page document gave them a detailed plan to follow: how to transform American government and institutions based on white Christian nationalist views.

The executive orders Trump pushed out his first day in office? Straight from Project 25.

Many of the bills pushed in Indiana’s legislative sessions? Rooted in Project 2025.

Project 2025 gives direction on how to change every major institution in America. The plan goes beyond transforming government. It also outlines how to transform the American family, religion, arts and entertainment, news media, and business/technology.

And far too many Republicans—eager to hold onto political power—are embracing the plan. After all, it’s been 40 years in the making. (3)

Christian nationalism in Indiana’s Statehouse

In Indiana, we have Lt. Governor Micah Beckwith repeatedly promoting his own Christian nationalism. He also pushes its political agenda. We have a state legislature controlled by a Republican supermajority. The actions of most of those legislators indicate they are Christian nationalist sympathizers.

Here’s a few examples (4):

• Rep. Joanna King — author of HR 53 (“submit to Jesus Christ”)

• Rep. J.D. Prescott — authored Ten Commandments in schools bill (HB 1231).

• Rep. Bruce Borders — authored gender identity and drag show restriction bills

• Rep. Lorissa Sweet — authored personhood bill (HB 1334)

• Sen. Gary Byrne — co-authored anti-DEI bill SB 289

• Sen. Tyler Johnson — co-authored SB 289 and SB 236 (abortion-inducing drug ban)

• Sen. Liz Brown — co-authored immigration enforcement and chaplains-in-schools bills. In 2022, she co-authored the abortion restriction bill that became law.

Long-standing members of the Republican Party may look to what’s happening now and say, “That’s not my party. My party is a party of fiscal conservatism, not this.” These members need to realize that the party that once was is no more. Voting for Republicans today equals voting for Christian nationalism at a minimum, and very likely voting for WHITE Christian nationalism adherents. And yes, this is a massive problem in rural parts of Indiana and other states where races are uncontested.)

What about opting not to vote?

Staying home from the polls hurts America. It doesn’t help it.Those leading the white Christian nationalist movement want FEWER voters, not more. As Project 25 architect Paul Weyrich once said:

Now many of our Christians have what I call the ‘goo-goo syndrome.’ Good government. They want everybody to vote. I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people. They never have been from the beginning of our country, and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.” (5)

We are in a fight for the future direction of our country. This fight has a defined timeline: it’s not a mythical point in the future. The two time points:

• Midterms elections 2026.

• General elections 2028.

Both parties are failing us

There is no cavalry coming from either party to save us from the take-down of American democracy. There is no individual who can stop the stripping away of rights from women, immigrants, people of color, the disabled, and LGBTQ individuals. We’ve been ambushed by a well-executed roadmap that existed long before some of us were born.

So what’s the call to action?

Become part of the collective US—everyday citizens who are reaching beyond party lines. We are students, teachers, doctors, laborers, service delivery folks, retirees, and office workers. We are neighbors who don’t like what’s happening in and to our communities. We come from Republican, Democratic, and independent backgrounds. We see the failure of the two parties, but we are pragmatists. Despite its flaws and failings, Democratic Party candidates’ success in 2026 and 2028 offers the best chance of turning the tide on Christian nationalism’s overreach into government, communities, and individuals’ lives.

Your call to action, dear readers, is to VOTE and to encourage others to vote. It’s to sign up and raise your hand to volunteer.

In times of great distress and stress, America’s citizens —not its politicians—have risen up, organized, and prevailed. The invitation extends now to you: will you rise up, join the organizers, and be part of America’s forward progress and its promise? At a minimum, will you vote to give America an opportunity to shift back toward democracy?

Article Sources

1. How many Americans are Christian Nationalist, really? Sojourner Magazine, February 20, 2025

2. Modeling the Future of Religion in American, Pew Research, September 13, 2022

3. Mapping Christian Nationalism across all 50 states. Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) Report issued February 2026.

4. Shadow Network, Ann Nelson, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019. Book info can be found here.

5. Christians identifying as Christian Nationalists increasing ahead of primary elections, Indiana Citizen, April 2, 2026.

6. Indiana General Assembly

7. Comments made by Paul Weyrich during a speech delivered at National Affairs Briefing Conference, Dallas, TX, August 21, 1980.

Other general sources on Christian Nationalism’s rise

1. Bad Faith, documentary about the rise of Christian nationalism in America.

2. Public Religion Research Institute. Link goes to research specific to Christian nationalism.

Historically, May Day has a few meanings. In many countries it’s a national holiday, commemorating the struggles of workers to gain basic rights to fair wages and safe work conditions. In others, it’s a celebration of the coming of summer with May Day flagpoles, ribbons, and flowers coupling with picnic-style celebrations.

Perhaps signifying my current state of mind, I put the two words together to form “mayday,” which means something yet again - a distress call. My inner brain created the audible, “Mayday. Mayday. Mayday,” which is a universal distress call in the air, on the water, and in catastrophic emergencies on land.

Whether you want to treat it as a day of worker solidarity or view it as a distress call, the local and national chapters of Indivisible invite all Americans to recognize it. We are encouraged to do three things:

• Pause your spending: Avoid spending money you don’t need to spend - particularly with national retailers (Think Amazon, Walmart, CVS, Meijer, Kroger, etc.) If you must spend, keep it local or small.

• Protest in solidarity with workers and those being marginalized: Don’t go to work. Don’t go to work.

• Participate in community. Do what you can from where you are. This might be donating to mutual aid groups. It might mean showing up at a community event near you. It might mean making phone calls.

In essence, it’s a nationwide call for American citizens to do what they can from where they are.

We are in dire times. We’re at war with Iran - a war we started - that has triggered a global energy crisis of massive proportions. Our economy is cratering. Immigrants are under attack and being placed in concentration-style prisons. Voters are on edge wondering if they will get to vote and if their vote will be counted. Families are feeling stressed from the high cost of simply surviving - at least those in the bottom 90% are feeling it. We are seeing government corruption at all time new levels, largely because of the billionaire dollars funding campaigns and corporations offering bribes in exchange for business deals.

What Indivisible Is Advocating

Indivisible lists these three demands on its websites:

• Tax the rich so our families, not their fortunes, come first.

• No ICE. No war. No private army serving unchecked federal power.

• Expand democracy, not corporate power. Hands off our votes.

Will May Day accomplish these?

Not by itself.

But cumulatively with the hundreds to thousands of actions that have occurred since January 2025 - our actions make a difference. A community’s active involvement in democracy:

1. Cultivates communitiy and invites people to be part of it.

2. Shines a light on injustice, corruption, and Constitutional overreach.

3. Educates community members re: those injustices, corrupt acts, and Constitutional overreach.

4. Provides people with ways to respond and use their voice.

5. Creates change over the long haul. It took 40 years for the Christian Nationalist faction to bring Project 2025 into reality; it’s going to take longer than a few months for us to create meaningful change away from it.

Hamilton County Democracy Coalition

Locally, Hamilton County Democracy Coalition (HCDC), is providing resources and a megaphone for local grassroots groups, including three Indivisible chapters, to promote their events and actions. HCDC is inviting local Hoosiers to do these three things:

☎️ “Flood the Phones”

HCDC encourages Hoosier voters to use the 5 Calls app to contact legislators. You can either go to the 5 Calls website or download the app to your phone. Enter your address, and the app will pull up your legislators and issues for you to contact them about. Here’s a screen shot of the process. I’ve done it many times. I no longer need a script as 1) I’ve gained confidence in my own understanding of the issue and 2) I realize that 90% of the time I will get sent to voice mail - though not always, so be prepared to talk to a legislative aid.

🤲🏻 Help our neighbors with basic needs

The “Help Our Neighbors” toiletries and hygiene drive is focused on gathering dollars to help with the things a food pantry typically doesn’t provide: soap, shampoo, laundry detergent, and tooth paste. These essential care items are expensive. Your donation helps provide these items to local families in need. Donations will be delivered to Alhuda Mosque in Fishers as well as Family Promise. Funds will be distributed May 1st.

DONATE

✊Rally together in solidarity with workers.

Join other Hoosiers at a 6 p.m. rally downtown sponsored by the AFL-CIO. This event will be from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM EDT at Monument Circle in Indianapolis. The event features local union speakers, including Teamsters Local 135, focusing on worker rights, living wages, and labor solidarity.

🎇 Democracy grows when local communities activate. Please help us by subscribing and sharing. Every “restack” and “comment” help us grow our subscriber base, which helps us expand reach across Indiana.

Subscribe now

I spoke at the Monday, April 20th, City Council meeting. I was one of 10 residents who offered public comments. Mine, along with those of eight others, were in opposition of ICE’s presence here. I appreciated the opportunity to share my views, largely shaped by my role as the leader of a local nonprofit called From Strangers to Neighbors, that works with immigrants who originally arrived here as refugees: people with legal status to be here. I see the fear, even as residents in support of ICE claim there is nothing to fear as long as people are “legal.” (I will write a separate post about that concept and all the misperceptions American citizens who are native-born have about legal status and pathways to citizenship.)

While all speakers spoke eloquently, the person whose testimony who touched me the most, came from Sara Draper, an immigrant herself. Sara graciously agreed to share these words as a Substack article in support of Voices4Democracy. below.

My name is Sara Draper. I am a 19 year resident of Carmel, 26 years a Hoosier and a proud naturalized US citizen since 2013. I am British by birth, and Hoosier by choice.

Like me, 13% of Carmel residents are foreign-born. That’s more than1 in 8 people in our city. Indeed, two of our nine city councilors have foreign-born spouses. Carmel is a diverse community, which continues to celebrate the many vibrant cultures among us. For example, Japan Springfest is coming up next weekend and Eid fest is not far behind.

Leaders must stand up for immigrants

These outward displays of respect to the many cultures within this place, are worth little if the leaders in this place do not stand up for those cultures in difficult times.

Hundreds of people attended the recent non-partisan No Ice town hall in Carmel, showing how strongly our community feels about the presence of an ICE office within our city . Councilwoman Dr Anita Joshi gave an amazing speech at the event, two other Councilors attended for part of the town hall and one sent a statement. I was disappointed that five councilors and our mayor did not take the opportunity to attend (or send a statement) and listen to our community. It’s rare that elected leaders are given an opportunity to hear from constituents like this, and rarer still on such a hot button issue.

Even as a legal immigrant who followed all the rules on my journey to naturalization, I am scared by ICE. I have seen U.S. citizens standing up for immigrants killed in the streets by rogue agents; I’ve seen U.S. citizens detained for no valid reason. Our current administration declared open season on immigrants, and we all know it.

I have the utmost faith in our outstanding police department, I am, in fact, the Board Secretary of the Carmel Citizens Police Alliance. But our police department cannot protect us from masked federal agents intent on trampling on our constitutional rights, especially after the passage of SEA 76 in the statehouse this past session.

Legal status doesn’t make me feel safe

I have immense privilege. I’m white, a native English speaker and affluent.

And I am terrified.

I saw an unmarked van with government plates parked by my car the other day, and my instant thought was that ICE were here for me. There are countless immigrants without my privilege living in fear that they will be racially profiled and illegally detained. Carmel is a city that boasts of our high quality of life. For those of us who did not have the good fortune to be born here, the presence of ICE in our hometown reduces our quality of life substantially.

It is easy for our elected leaders to say that only agents in suits and polo shirts will be in the ICE office in Carmel. For all of us who feel at risk, even those of us like me who immigrated legally, ICE is ICE. A clear and present danger. Which provokes fear.

Other cities offer Carmel a model

Other cities like Hammond and East Chicago have passed council resolutions stating their opposition to an ICE presence in their cities. Carmel has a list of FAQs on the city website. This is better than nothing but not enough to calm the very real fears of residents.

I would ask the City Council to stand up for the more than 1 in 8 of us who are immigrants in Carmel, and pass a resolution stating that our city will not tolerate any attacks on the constitutional rights of Carmel residents and will insist that any ICE activities within Carmel are legal and follow due process. This statement would show the immigrants of Carmel that our elected leaders have our backs and will protect our constitutional rights.

Right now, I feel alone and scared—in a city known as one of the safest communities in the nation. Our City Council and Mayor publicly standing up for our constitutional rights would go some way to make immigrants feel safe again.

Sara Draper is a dual US/UK citizen, who lives in Carmel, Indiana with her husband, daughter and crazy cat. Sara is a community advocate and volunteer, who ran for elected office in 2023, and remains involved in local politics and sits on the Board of two central Indiana non-profits.

And yet.

These councils determine the character and quality of a city or town through the things they fund and refuse to fund, the projects they take on and refuse to take on, the agenda items they include in their meetings and those they don’t include. Residents’ presence at - or absence from - these meetings serve as an indicator of what residents want and value.

And right now Carmel’s City Council is refusing to take on a significant moral and character issue: speaking out against ICE’s presence in Carmel, Indiana’s community and making it clear that Carmel residents and city government does not want ICE’s presence in any form.

April 20th meeting needs your presence.

If you are a Carmel, Indiana resident, the City Council meeting on April 20th should be the date when you decide to do something you’ve likely never done before: attend a City Council meeting.

ICE is spreading its tentacles widely across America, and those tentacles have reached into Carmel. ICE has opened an administrative office in Carmel. Its purpose is not clear. The City Council members and mayor state that there is no action they can take. They note that ICE is here and, from a legal standpoint, they have a right to be here as we have no laws or zoning regulations that prohibit their presence. They also reassure residents that it is not a detention center - as though that is the only concern residents have about ICE’s presence.

But allowing any type of ICE presence into a city without official comment opposing that presence speaks just as loudly - if not more so - than saying nothing, which is largely what the city’s mayor and most council members want to do.

ICE mission remains the same.

It’s important for residents to realize that ICE’s mission is unchanged even if national news about its actions has been far less prevalent. The Iran war has provided a massive media diversion away from ICE’s mandate and efforts to remove as many immigrants as possible from America. But those efforts are continuing - just far more quietly and without publicity. Kristy Noem and Greg Bovino, with their theatrics and antagonistic media posts, are gone. Quieter personalities are now in charge, and they are building detention centers and infrastructure on a massive scale. The detention centers are widely viewed as concentration-style camps with rampant reports of lack of due process, lack of food, lack of healthcare, and severe overcrowding. ICE continues to dopatrols across cities and communities. It continues to unlawfully detain and deport people. It continues to break apart families and terrorize local communities.

Common Cause Indiana, along with Indivisible Carmel, is encouraging residents to show up and speak up on Monday, April 20th. The meeting begins at 6 p.m. Below is the full text of Common Cause’s email to attendees of the recent Town Hall on the ICE issue. It includes directions on how to show up and speak up.

Since our town hall on March 30th, we have continued to ask for transparency and answers from the Mayor and City Council regarding the administrative ICE office that has now moved into Carmel. City council members and the Mayor released an FAQ with questions that we gathered at the town hall; however, several questions were left unanswered, and several answers just aren’t sufficient.

While we thank the city council and mayor for their efforts to make this issue less opaque, more transparency is needed. Carmel residents are still being left in the dark, and decisions are being made without input from community members. During the town hall, we heard overwhelmingly, ICE is not welcome here!That is why it’s important for people to continue to speak out and ask questions.

We are encouraging folks to attend the next city council meeting on April 20th, 2026, from 6-7PM and make public comments asking the Carmel city council to stand up to ICE.

RSVP Here

If you are nervous about giving public testimony, we have included talking points to help guide your testimony and some tips about what public testimony looks like during city council meetings at the end of this email.

Carmel is a beautiful and diverse community and as so many people made clear at our town hall, “Carmel is no place for ICE, it is a place for community.”

Thank you for your continued efforts to put community over division. With strength in numbers and voices, we can hold elected officials accountable and make sure they are representing the values of their constituents.

In common cause,

Layla Ortas, Organizer
and the team at Common Cause Indiana

Talking points provided by Common Cause

• Review the FAQ yourself and determine if the answers are enough for you.

• Thank the city council for the FAQ webpage but note that questions remain for many community members and the FAQ provided insufficient information.

• Request that the city council formally take a stand against ICE in their community by passing a resolution.

How to offer public testimony

• If you are planning on testifying, please arrive 15 minutes early to sign up through the Blue Card Process.

• Each speaker gets 3 minutes to speak.

• It is important to note that this is not a back and forth conversation with city council members.

• Layla Ortas of Common Cause will be there to help you get signed up.

As you read the poem, imagine you are standing on the grounds of Federal Hill Commons park in Hamilton County, Indiana, where No Kings participants stood listening to Lady Liberty encouraging them to stand up, show up, and speak up for liberty.

Look up over there
to your left, 
through the trees, 
and across the White River
there is a courthouse 
that has kept watch 
over Hamilton County 
since 1879. 

The clock tower stands
as a sentinel
above this community.
Beneath it, there is 
a second-floor courtroom. 
Hold it in your mind as I speak.

And here, just to your left. 
The Declaration of Independence. 
The United States Constitution. 
And the Bill of Rights. 

The life-size 
"Charters of Freedom" 
— agreements drafted 
by men who had lived 
under the rule of a king —
are displayed here 
not merely as decoration, 
but as a reminder that 
on this land,
in this country, 
in this state, 
in this county, 
and in this city, 
there are no kings.

That is why this park, 
in this county seat, 
on this day, 
is exactly the right place to be.

I am Liberty.
I was not born of those charters. 
I am much older. 
I have appeared — 
and disappeared — 
across human history: 
strengthened 
in moments of courage, 
driven underground 
in times of great cruelty.

I appear before you, 
among you, 
alongside you 
today as a suffragist. 

I wear a sash 
in the colors of this nation, 
with my name upon it, 
that you may recognize me. 
On my hat rests a red cardinal 
for the state you call home.

And the words printed on this blouse,
honor the ratification of the
Nineteenth Amendment
— the moment, in 1920,
when many, but not all,
American women
secured the right to vote.

I take this form
so that you might remember 
the heroes of liberty — 
women, like Clara Kenyon,
who in this county
wrote letters under cover names,
organized conventions,
and refused to be quiet. 

Women who understood, 
long before they had 
the right to vote, 
that it was a right 
worth laboring for 
— and who, 
through that labor, 
bore their own liberty 
and sowed the seeds
of liberty for all women 
here today.

These heroes of liberty
understood 
that the right to vote 
is the foundation of liberty.

They understood 
that liberty must be actively preserved.
It does not preserve itself.

That is what it means to live
in a country that has no kings.

Here in Hamilton County,
liberty was being actively preserved
long before 1920. 
One hundred years 
before women's suffrage,
Through nearby woods 
and across this river, 
enslaved and courageous 
men, women, and children 
fled the tyranny of would-be kings 
who believed some humans 
existed only to serve others.

They had no vote. 
No voice in the governance 
of their own lives.
No pathway to liberty 
that the law would recognize. 
Their only power 
was their presence — 
the physical, courageous act 
of running toward liberty 
in the face of danger.

For those who moved 
through the dark, 
it meant one step, 
one night, 
one river crossing at a time. 

For those in this county, 
like Asa Bales, 
who opened their 
cellars and their barns,
it meant risking 
their own liberty 
for the sake 
of others pursuing it.

These heroes of liberty understood
that no man should rule 
over another.

They understood
that liberty must be actively preserved.
It does not preserve itself.

That is what it means to live
in a country that has no kings.

Look again at that clocktower.
One hundred years ago,
the second floor courtroom beneath it
stood witness to a courageous act —
the testimony of Madge Oberholtzer,
who in her final days
named her attacker
and refused to let her silence
be his shield.

Her attacker was a man 
in a position of power who claimed 
“He was the law in Indiana.”
A would-be king
of an Invisible Empire
hidden behind robes, hoods, and grand titles —
who planted prejudice
and harvested hatred.

But, in that courtroom 
just there across the river,
a jury of his peers found him guilty. 
The would-be king was sentenced to prison
And the empire’s grip
on this county and this state, 
loosened. 

You see, this hero of liberty
would not be stopped
by a would-be king.
She understood that 
no man is the law —
no man is above the law.

She understood that 
liberty must be actively preserved.
It does not preserve itself.

That is what it means to live
in a country that has no kings.

Look around you.

This is the ground
where women labored liberty 
into the world.

This is the ground 
where the enslaved ran
– and were aided –
toward freedom.

This is the ground
where one woman's voice
unmasked an evil empire.

And today, you stand on it,
together.

These heroes of liberty
were not extraordinary people
who lived without fear.

They were ordinary people
who acted in spite of that fear —
with whatever they had.

Their lionhearted labor.
Their persistent presence.
Their valiant voices.

Look around you.
You are today’s 
heroes of liberty.

Because you understand
what they understood.

You understand
that liberty must be actively preserved.

You understand
that liberty does not preserve itself.

So stand up for it.
Show up for it.
Speak up for it.

And when the time comes —
vote for it.
On May 5th.
And again in November.
And every election thereafter.

And when you do,
make your vote say —

In this city there are
no kings!
In this county there are
no kings!
In this state there are
no kings!
And in this country there are 
no kings!

This article is part of a two-week series called “Why the midterms matter.” The authors in this series all spoke at the Noblesville, IN No Kings rally on March 28th. They each offer their own viewpoint on why the midterms matter in Indiana and nationally.

Everyday, through my work as an assistant at an immigration law firm in Indianapolis, I see the stress and turmoil immigrants in our community face because of archaic immigration policies. These policies include

• Termination of deferred action. (Click here for an explanation of what DACA is.)

• Elimination of humanitarian parole status, making people who did have legal status suddenly NOT have legal status.

• Constantly changing immigration bond policies.

• Masked agents running through Indiana’s streets looking for people to detain.

Fear is the new normal in immigrant communities

Cruelty displayed by the Trump regime has left countless of immigrant communities within Indiana and in our country in a perpetual state of fear. This includes immigrants who are here legally because such “mistaken” detainments happen.

People without legal status risk their freedom every day to provide for their families by going to work, going to doctor’s appointments, or taking their kids to school. These are regular activities that most of us take for granted.

Why can we do that?

Because we can easily apply for and receive a driver’s license, something immigrants who lack legal status cannot do. Can you imagine being ripped from your family and the country you are residing in for the crime of driving without a license?

No you can’t because if you were cited for driving without a license, you would be ticketed and charged a fine, not detained.

Immigrants are detained every day

If you are an immigrant and you lack documentation – or you are in the process of obtaining asylum (a legal process) and your case has not been resolved - you are detained.

In Indiana, it is happening every day.

In my job, I assist those who are detained in ICE facilities in Indiana. Here’s what I see:

• Detainees being deprived of legal rights and human rights. This includes lack of due process and lack of adequate healthcare, food, and water. These conditions permeate ICE detention facilities.

• Overcrowded facilities. This item was probably the most predictable outcome of the Trump regime’s initiative for mass deportations because our jails and prisons were overcrowded even before the mass deportation initiative began.

Our state leadership has had no response to the overcrowding issue, the lack of legal rights being granted, or the lack of human rights being upheld.

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Hoosiers say #ICEOut

ICE continues to act with complete impunity. Although the media no longer highlights their actions with regular coverage, ICE policies and behavior have not changed. ICE remains active.

The overwhelmingly popular sentiment among Americans - including Hoosiers: abolish ICE. We all saw in Minnesota this year that while the stated objective of ICE is immigration enforcement, ICE has also targeted dissenters of this regime, a fact that should terrify us all.

What you can do to help

First, show up. Stand in solidarity with all the immigrants affected by the Trump regime. Attend some of the protests and rallies happening every week. It is one way we can acknowledge that we have far more in common with our neighbors – immigrant or American-born – that we do with the oligarch class who crafted ICE policies.

Second, volunteer. Many groups have formed in recent years to combat cruel and unjust immigration policies. These groups are always seeking more volunteers for the cause. I want to shout out one of these, the Indiana Organizing Project. The Indiana Organizing Project exists for the purpose of ending ICE detention across several facilities in Indiana. I know Stuart Mora, the head of this organization and a local immigration attorney, is looking for more volunteers. His email is at the bottom of this article.

Third, vote for people who will end these inhumane immigration policies. We are stronger when we support each other. Each of us alone will not be enough to combat the cruel policies this regime has inflicted on this country. But together, we have a chance to not only reverse these policies but to live in a world where understanding and compassion informs the laws and policies of this country. Let’s show in these 2026 Midterms that Hamilton County and Indiana as a whole reject the cruelty and corruption of the Trump administration. Let’s show that we want a country that works for and listens to the desires of common people over the oligarch class.

Tómas Wagner is a Zionsville resident. He works as a paralegal at Munoz Legal in Indianapolis. He is a first generation-born American on his mom’s side of the family, who hails from Colombia. His personal experiences have informed his beliefs in immigration rights and justice and led him to pursue a career within immigration law.

For those interested in the Indiana Organizing Project, you can contact Stuart Mora at stuart@indianaorganizing.org. For information on the specific volunteer opportunities, please check out this link.

This article is part of a two-week series called “Why the midterms matter.” The authors in this series all spoke at the Noblesville, IN No Kings rally on March 28th. They each offer their own viewpoint on why the midterms matter in Indiana and nationally.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America.

These are not just words written centuries ago on some paper. They are promises — promises made almost 250 years ago by people who believed in something radical for their time. They are promises made for people who believed that power does not belong in the hands of one man, but instead that power belongs to the people.

Everyday we see those promises tested.

• The rich and powerful escaping accountability for crimes committed against the American People.

• Tranquility shattered as fear replaces trust within communities battered by ICE.

• Liberty tested when those rights promised to every American 250 years ago begin to feel uncertain.

In America, the people are in charge

America’s Constitution does not begin with “I the King.”

It begins with “We the people.”

We the people of the United States not We the Billionaires, not a political party, not a president.

The people.

But if we are in charge, it means we cannot just let democracy run by itself and hope it will be okay. We the people have to defend it. We have to model what past generations of Americans have done in its defense:

• The colonists who fought to free our country from the tyranny of a British king.

• The generation who fought to keep America unified during the Civil War.

• The suffragists who marched for their right to vote.

• The generations who organized and marched so Black and young people could vote.

Every time democracy has been threatened, The American People respond.

• We organize.

• We speak out.

• We vote.

Those who gathered in No Kings protests across Indiana and across America did so for a reason.

• Not to be angry

• Not to show hate

But to remind every American that we the people are in charge.

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The ballot is our power

Protests make noise. Speeches inspire. But it’s the vote that decides who holds power. A protest can start a movement, but a vote can change the country. It can change who writes laws, who protects the Constitution, and who decides the future of our country.

Elections matter. Votes matter.

I am 16 years old. I can use my voice all I want, but I cannot vote. But while I’m not old enough to vote, I am old enough to know what is worth protecting.

Democracy is worth protecting

I love America. I love democracy, and freedom and the right to live in a country built on those promises. My peers and I march, protest, and make as much noise as we can, but we cannot vote to defend the promises of our Constitution.

I am writing this message to every person turning 18 before the midterms this year. Register and vote. Vote for every American not yet old enough to vote. Vote for every person who believes in the American dream, but cannot vote. Vote for yourself. Vote for your loved ones.

Your vote matters.

If that weren’t true those in control of who gets to vote wouldn’t work so hard to keep it from people. They wouldn’t try to discourage people from voting by enacting laws and creating barriers to access to the polls. They wouldn’t spend billions to influence elections.

The minority in power know the truth:

When we the people vote, we the people win.

Not a King.

Not a ruler.

Not a dictator.

The People.

Your job heading into these midterms

1. Register to vote if you are a first-time voter.

2. Check your registration if you’ve voted before to make sure you are STILL registered. (Voters are being purged; you may need to re-register.)

3. Help your friends and family register.

4. Knock on doors and encourage your neighbors and community members to register and to vote.

5. Drive people to poll booths or volunteer to work at a polling location

Do these things because democracy is not something we watch from the sidelines; it’s something we do. Your ballot is not just a piece of paper; it’s your voice and your power. It is your stake in the future of America

As long as Americans keep voting, there will never be a king in the United States.

We don’t crown kings. We count votes.

Jack McNally attends Carmel High School in Hamilton County, Indiana. He comes from a family of activists. His mom is the founder of Moms Demand Action in Indiana. Jack was one of the high school organizers and leaders of Carmel High School’s ICE OUT walkout.

This article is part of a two-week series called “Why the midterms matter.” The authors in this series all spoke at the Noblesville, IN No Kings rally on March 28th. They each offer their own viewpoint on why the midterms matter in Indiana and nationally.

I am 16 years old.

My age means there’s something very important I cannot do yet. I cannot vote.

But even though I can’t vote, the decisions of those who can affect me every single day. They affect the school I attend. They affect my rights and those of my friends and family. They affect access to healthcare I may need. They affect the safety of my community and the opportunities I will have. They affect how I can express myself.

So I’m asking Hoosiers to do something simple, but incredibly important.

If you can vote, please do.

Why? Because right now, our country is facing serious debates about who has rights, who has power, and what kind of future we are building. When I look at what is happening today, I notice something that many historians tell us: history can repeat itself.

Many of the struggles we see now are echoes of struggles people fought decades ago.

For example, the fight for reproductive rights is not new. Decades of activism took place before women earned reproductive freedom in 1973’s Supreme Court decision, Roe v Wade. But in 2022, a different court reversed the decision. This court included three judges appointed by Donald Trump.

Voters – those who voted and those who chose not to vote – affected this outcome when they chose to vote for Trump in 2016 or chose to stay home and not vote at all. (During Trump’s first term of office, he was able to appoint three Supreme Court justices - Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett). The result? 13 states – including Indiana – have almost total abortion bans. Another nine have severe restrictions. Another six make women and their doctors go through significant hurdles. Those outcomes are what a minority of people wanted - not the majority.

Rights gained can be lost

For many Americans, that moment felt like history moving backward: —a hard-won right in place for almost 50 years suddenly disappeared. History reminds us that rights are not permanent. They can expand, but if citizens stop participating in democracy, they can also disappear.

We see this same pattern in the long fight for racial equality. Black Americans, in particular, fought first for freedom from slavery and achieved it in 1865. They then began a battle for equal rights and treatment under the law that continues today. The fight led to passage of the 1965 Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. With this legislation, many believed America had overcome racism. America passed laws, broke down barriers, and made meaningful progress to ending discrimination practices.

Decades of progress erased in a day

But with the stroke of a pen, Trump reversed decades of progress. DEI was outlawed by executive order. Immigration policies and enforcement actions carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, aka ICE, have been at the center of intense national debate. Their use of racial profiling and violence toward Black and brown people has created fear and distrust in our country – including in Hamilton County,.

Immigration policy determines whether families like mine stay together, whether immigrant workers feel safe in their communities, and whether immigrant children grow up without fear that someone they love could disappear overnight.

The struggles may look different today, but the historical fight for fairness and equal opportunity for all people continues.

History has lots of lessons. Will we pay attention?

History also reminds us how hard people fought for the right to vote. Women did not gain the right to vote in the United States until 1920. Decades of activism were required before the 19^th amendment of the Constitution was ratified. As Roe v Wade shows, a right gained can be lost.

Black Americans’ right to vote was suppressed until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 helped end the laws that suppressed and restricted Black voters’ access to the polls and ballots. In 2026, we are on the precipice of the entire Voting Rights Act being gutted. A right gained can be lost.

Generations of Americans have marched, protested, and risked their lives so that more voices could be included in a true democracy.

Voter turnout critical to democracy

And yet, in Indiana – and even in Hamilton County, voter turnout—especially in midterm elections—is low. In a community full of hardworking people and beautiful growing cities like Carmel, Fishers, and Noblesville, many people choose not to vote.

Some of these people feel their vote won’t matter. Others say they are too busy. Still others choose not to vote because they are frustrated with politics. But when people stop taking part in democracy – stop voting, stop using their voice, stop using their presence - history teaches us: progress stalls or reverses. Democracy can shift to authoritarianism.

The primaries and midterms matter — in Indiana and across our nation. Your vote not only represents your voice, but it also must represent mine.

Maaike Alejandra Mora is a 16-year old attending Carmel High School in Hamilton County, Indiana. She was a leader in Carmel High School’s anti-ICE protest and has also spoken on behalf of immigrants, and in opposition to ICE, before Carmel’s City Council and as a keynote speaker at a recent Carmel, Indiana Town Hall gathering.