RECONFIGURING A 21ST CENTURY LEFT IN THE UNITED STATES

Harry Targ

Mapping Left/Progressive Forces

The traditional Left         

 Socialist parties

 New youth socialists

Issue Groups                                      

Moral visionaries                  

Building new institutions     

Single issues                          

--anti-racist                           

--feminist      

--labor/workers                         

--environmental

 

Electoral politics

Sanders campaign
Some Clinton activists

Greens

Independent socialists at local levels

Barack Obama’s historic victory in 2008 sent spirits soaring. The first African-American President had been elected. Also he had been an early opponent of the war in Iraq, indicated he supported worker rights to organize unions, and would take on the Wall Street bankers who were behind the dramatic economic crisis that was destroying the economy. Liberal pundits saw Obama’s election as a prelude to the institutionalization of a new New Deal that would reconstitute a reformist state for years to come. And, these pundits argued, the Obama electoral coalition would make the 2008 election a transformative one: liberal Democrats would dominate the federal government and several pivotal states in the East, Midwest, West, Southwest, and in a few Southern states. The eight-year foreign and domestic policy disasters of the Bush years, of necessity, would lead to a new and brighter future.

The years since 2008 did not work out the way the celebrants predicted. First, Wall Street dominance of the political system survived the public outcries to break up the banks, convict the criminal CEOs, and reestablish regulations of banking and finance. 

Second, despite demilitarization of Iraq and Afghanistan, the military/industrial complex and the advocates of humanitarian interventions around the world continued to influence the character of United States foreign policy. From the disastrous policies toward Libya, Syria, Yemen, and the use of drone warfare to avoid “boots on the ground,” to sending more troops into failed trouble-spots such as Afghanistan, the pursuit of U.S. empire prevailed.

Third, while unemployment rates dropped and the auto industry was saved, support for labor organizing continued to decline, real wages remained stagnant, and those workers who returned to employment were earning less in real wages than workers had made thirty or forty years ago.

And finally, almost literally wars on people of color, youth, and women escalated during the Obama years. Incarceration rates continued to rise. Police violence against the citizenry rose. Attacks on women’s health and reproductive services grew stronger. And new federal and state educational policies were adopted (charter schools, vouchers, egregious testing of young people) that weakened the quality of education particularly for poor, Black, and Latino children.  Vicious racism which has been a feature of United States history since the founding of the nation was rekindled by the Tea Party, rightwing media outlets, and major contingents of the Republican Party.  

Bringing the Left/Progressive Forces Together

As 2016 approaches, debates about the causes of the retaliation against the modest gains brought about by the 2008 electoral victory should shift to discussions about how to move ahead. It can be said that broad sectors of the American people—workers, people of color, youth, women—believe that creating a new society is critical and possible. But today people with a passion for fundamental social change have coalesced around a diverse array of strategies, ideas, visions, experiences, and practices. By identifying core components of those who are working for change, we can begin to see how unity out of diversity of thought and action can be achieved.

First, despite efforts of historians to deny it, there has been a vibrant Left tradition in the United States. Wobblies, Communists, Socialists, and Anarchists built the modern labor movement, struggled against racism, advocated for women’s rights, and opposed United States imperialism.  Today the traditional Left, manifested in political parties with historical pedigrees, still meet, advocate, organize, and agitate. In addition, newer generations of left activists have begun to dialogue about rebuilding the traditional Left, with 21^st century characteristics. Older and younger Socialists and Communists are beginning to talk together about what was relevant from the past and what can be learned for the present and the future. Both seek to link radical theory to radical practice. The traditional Left prioritizes viewing and acting to transform basic economic and political institutions, even as it engages in a political system in which discourse emphasizes reform rather than revolution.

A second tradition, the mobilization of issue groups, is deeply embedded in American political history. Groups motivated by opposition to particular outrages--destruction of the environment, police killings of young black men, attacks on reproductive rights, efforts to reduce the rights of citizens to vote, the marginalization and deportation of immigrants—form to address immediate concrete peoples’ concerns. Most issue groups share the sense that there are deep structural causes of the problems they oppose but they believe that immediate action to address their specific problem takes first priority. The issue orientation is part of the narrative about American “democracy.” From James Madison, to Alexis de Tocqueville, to modern political science, citizens are told that things change when citizens organize around lobby groups. Issue groups implicitly, if not explicitly, embrace an interest group model of political life. Sometimes issue group mobilizations seek to blend arguments about interests with moral claims. Throughout American history many issue groups—such as those addressing war or racism—have organized on the basis of moral arguments.  Finally, it should be mentioned that some progressives are engaged in building alternative social institutions, such as cooperatives, to address issues of worker rights, community power, and economic justice. Here the activities seek to circumvent centers of power by working on new grassroots partnerships.

A third political tradition, also with deep roots in the American experience, prioritizes electoral politics. Sometimes progressives have sought to participate in one or both of the two major political parties. At various points in US history, vibrant third parties have formed, despite restrictive electoral laws, to articulate new policies, programs, and visions. Efforts to transform major parties or organizing alternative parties have been features of state and local political life as well. Central to electoral political approaches is the proposition that for most Americans, politics is seen as involving elections. Also, it is clear that the dramatic shift toward reaction in recent years is intimately connected to the election of rightwing politicians at the national, state, and local levels, often as a result of low voter turnout. Sectors of the political class, such as the Koch brothers, have used their enormous financial resources to transform political institutions and public policy. As Reverend William Barber and others have pointed out, contemporary politics is about the struggle between the super-rich and the many.

Having mapped a 21^st century “US Left,” several tentative conclusions about political practice emerge.   

Millions of Americans identify with traditions of reform and/or revolution and that the roots of these have been deeply embedded in American history. Social and economic change has occurred because of the multiplicity of efforts from all of these traditions.

In addition, a significant portion of those who participate in issue groups and progressive electoral politics share the sentiment of the traditional Left that fundamental, systemic, and revolutionary change is needed if social and economic justice is to be achieved.

And perhaps most fundamentally, given the growing power of political reaction, the traditional Left, issue groups, and those working in electoral politics need to find ways to work together and support each other if some kind of humane and environmentally sustainable society is to be created.               

THE REAL BENGHAZI STORY: Reposted

THE PERFECT "SCANDAL": BENGHAZI

Harry Targ,  May 23, 2013

On the night of September 11, 2012, an armed group attacked a diplomatic post in the city of Benghazi in eastern Libya. The next morning a CIA annex was attacked. Out of these two attacks four United States citizens were killed including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens. According to a November, 2012 Wall Street Journal article (quoted by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic, May 13, 2013):

“The U.S. effort in Benghazi was at its heart a CIA operation, according to officials briefed on the intelligence. Of the more than 30 American officials evacuated from Benghazi following the deadly assault, only seven worked for the State Department. Nearly all the rest worked for the CIA, under diplomatic cover, which was a principal purpose of the consulate, these officials said.”

On March 17, 2011, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1973 authorizing humanitarian intervention in Libya. It endorsed “Member States, acting nationally or through regional organizations or arrangements, to take all necessary measures to protect civilians under threat of attack in the country, including Benghazi, while excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory….” Five Security Council members abstained from support of this resolution: Brazil, China, Germany, India, and Russia.

Passage of the resolution was followed by a NATO-led air war on targets in that country. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was established in 1949 as a military alliance to defend Europe from any possible aggression initiated by the Soviet Union. If words mattered, NATO should have dissolved when the Soviet Union collapsed.

The United States, so concerned for the human rights of people in the Persian Gulf and Middle East, including in Libya, was virtually silent as non-violent revolutions overthrew dictatorial regimes in Tunisia and Egypt earlier in 2011. The United States continued to support regimes in Bahrain and Yemen in the face of popular protest and violent response and remained the primary rock-solid supporter of the state of Israel as it continued to expand settlements in the West Bank and blockaded the transfer of goods to Palestinians in Gaza. And, of course, in the face of growing ferment in the Middle East and Persian Gulf for democratization not a word was said by way of criticism of the monarchical system in Saudi Arabia.

So as the Gaddafi regime in Libya fought its last battles, leading ultimately to the capture and assassination of the Libyan dictator, the NATO alliance and the United States praised themselves for their support of movements for democratization in Libya. What seemed obvious to observers except most journalists was the fact that the overthrow of the Libyan regime, for better or worse, could not have occurred without the massive bombing campaign against military and civilian targets throughout Libya carried out by NATO forces.

From the vantage point of the Benghazi crisis of September 11, 2012, humanitarian intervention, which in Benghazi included 23 (of some 30) U.S. representatives who were CIA operatives suggests that the attacks on U.S. targets might have had something to do with the history of U.S interventionism in the country. Great powers, such as the United States, continue to interfere in the political life of small and poor countries. And, the mainstream media continues to provide a humanitarian narrative of imperialism at work.

The post-9/11 Benghazi story is one of Republicans irresponsibly focusing on inter-agency squabbles and so-called contradictory Obama “talking points” after the killings of the four U.S. representatives in Benghazi. They chose not to address the real issue of the United States pattern of interference in the internal affairs of Libya.

And the Obama Administration defends itself by denying its incompetence in the matter, desperately trying to avoid disclosing the real facts in the Benghazi story which might show that the CIA and the Ambassador’s staff were embedded in Benghazi to interfere in the political struggles going on between factions among the Libyan people.

As Alexander Cockburn put it well in reference to the war on Libya in The Nation in June, 2011:

“America’s clients in Bahrain and Riyadh can watch the undignified pantomime with a tranquil heart, welcoming this splendid demonstration that they have nothing to fear from Obama’s fine speeches or Clinton’s references to democratic aspirations, well aware that NATO’s warplanes and helicopters are operating under the usual double standard--with the Western press furnishing all appropriate services.”

If Cockburn were alive today he would have added that the Libyan operation was about U.S. covert interventionism, anger on the part of sectors of the Benghazi citizenship, and not about the United States encouraging “democratic aspirations” of the Libyan people. Neither Republicans nor Democrats want to have a conversation about U.S. interventionism but prefer to debate about a “scandal.” The real “scandal”is the cover-up of what the U.S. was doing in Libya.

THE CUBS AND SOCIALISM (reposted)

I became a Cubs fan 70 years ago and a Socialist 45 years ago. Maybe this year and next are relevant to both so I repost this old essay. "Go Cubs!" "Go Socialism." HT

Friday, April 10, 2009

Harry Targ

In February, 2008 I sent an e-mail to some old high school friends declaring boldly that this was going to be my year: Obama would be elected president, Socialism would come to America, and the Cubs would win the world series. One dear friend responded by saying he hoped my nurse would be able to adjust my medication.

In years prior to my bold declaration, I would tell my students that Socialism would come to America before the Cubs would win the world series. Since they were on an awesome pace throughout the 2008 season I was sure we would achieve Socialism soon because the Cubs were going all the way in 2008. Alas my team was summarily eliminated from post-season competition by pitifully losing every playoff game.

The impact on my psyche was profound. Not only would I not be able to celebrate with those Cub fan survivors of 100 years of solitude but I would have to return to political activism to achieve Socialism because I could not count on the Cubs to get us over the hump. Even my wife, a heretofore Cub fan, said Basta! “60 Years is Enough.” When I asked her a week ago about going to the world series this year to root for the Cubs all she said was she would give me money for a hot dog.

I began writing this column Tuesday morning, just hours after the Cubs with smooth pitching from Carlos Zambrano and an Alfonso Soriano lead off home run defeated the Houston Astros. I even began to fantasize about a long winning streak, even 162 victories. Unfortunately, I did not finish the article before the Cubs lost game two in the tenth inning. There goes the perfect season.

What is behind my pathology. After all Ronald Reagan used to broadcast Cubs games, off of ticker tape reports so he had to make up stories about the game. Right-winger, George Will is one of the most famous Cub fans. And until quite recently the Cubs only played day baseball, thus prohibiting the attendance of most working people.

But there is another element, a kind of spiritual connection between the Cubs, working class Chicago, and all the down and out men and women who have struggled to survive and in the face of economic catastrophe continue to struggle to achieve wellbeing for themselves and their loved ones. Progressive Chicago cultural icons have had a soft spot in their hearts for the Cubs: for example newspaper columnist Mike Royko and folksinger Steve Goodman who wrote a song pleading to be buried in Wrigley Field.

In the end, when Ernie Banks, the Cubs Hall of Fame shortstop, says “wait ‘til next year” he is reflecting that hope and passion for victory that is the essence of all Cubs fans. Activists in the struggle for a new humane, really democratic socialist society also bear down, continue to organize and with full confidence say also “wait ‘til next year.”

INDIANA IN THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE UNITED STATES: Part 3

Harry Targ

Theorizing About Social Movements and Activism

 

Social movement activism has spread like wildfire across the entire globe over the last decade. One group of scholars studied “protest incidents” in over 80 countries from 2006-2013. They found 840 protests in these countries with at least half motivated by demands for economic changes and democratization. A centerpiece of movements from Greece, to Chile, to Spain, to Canada to the United States has been outrage against neoliberal policies (sometimes referred to as “austerity” policies). Fundamentally these policies involve shifting wealth from the vast majority to the tiny minority. In the United States, the Occupy Movement introduced an accurate metaphor for this transformation: the one percent versus the 99 percent. Moral Mondays movements in over a dozen states in the South and Midwest emerged as one large-scale protest against the imposition of austerity and the weakening of democratic institutions.

David Harvey, a political theorist, has posited a “co-revolutionary theory” about social movements. He argues that because there are so many problems in so many different locations in society political activism can and must start anywhere. If one is at a university or elsewhere in the education system struggles over “mental constructs’ matter. If persons are engaged in or near the electoral arena targeting politicians must be done. Work in the corporate sector, the media, government institutions are all sites for the application of political pressure and organizing. What needs to be remembered however is that all the separate struggles are interconnected and that activists need to understand how each struggle relates to every other struggle. Also, victory in one place and time does not mean that the goals of struggle have been achieved. In the end, Harvey argues that the interconnected crises relating to class, race, gender, homophobia, and the environment are intimately connected to the capitalist system.

Further, activists debate the utility of political engagement around elections and legislation compared to mass movement activity. Some progressives have proposed as a solution to this dilemma, developing an “inside/outside” strategy. The inside/outside strategy argues for pursuing electoral work, electing candidates who might act on the people’s behalf, and lobbying to secure legislative victories, even if such efforts cannot solve the panoply of economic, environmental, racial and other problems that are faced. Electoral and legislative work, however, needs to be supplemented by “street heat;” building a mass movement that can be mobilized to publicly demonstrate its outrage and its demands for change. The outside strategy might include creating a large, disciplined organization with resources that can respond to and lead the mass movement of people for change. It is through the outside strategy that politicians can be forced to carry out the will of the people.

Finally, Rev. Barber, through his “fusion politics” approach incorporates all of the above thinking. Fusion politics emphasizes the need for progressive groups to work together in coalitions, in partnerships, in common organizational fronts to bring the energy of all groups together. Ruling classes or power elites do not respond to change unless masses of organizations and people come together to make demands. The 99 percent do not have the material resources- the money, ownership of media outlets, influence over education and police power-to bring about change. All they have potentially are their numbers. And the fusion politics model is about mobilizing masses of people, developing effective and democratic organizations, and applying people power all across the political and economic map.

Indiana Moral Mondays  

Indiana Moral Mondays began as a conversation among activists in 2014. Some participants in the discussions had direct experience with Rev. William Barber and North Carolina’s growing Moral Mondays movement. During early meetings, IMM formed issue committees to begin work on the problems Hoosier citizens faced over access to the polls, the criminal justice system, health care, worker rights, education, and the environment. In addition, IMM decided to organize a large rally at the Statehouse in Indianapolis, with Rev. Barber as the keynote speaker. Also a diverse group of speakers representing the issue areas, the various progressive organizations in the state, youth, people of color, workers, and environmentalists, would be asked to speak as well to signify that our new movement would be based upon fusion politics, diversity, and coalition-building.

Since the September, 2014 mass mobilization issue groups and partner organizations have worked on legislative lobbying, organizing marches and rallies around emerging issues, and discussing how to bring the issues to relevant constituencies around the state. 2015 became a year of debating, organizing, engaging in outreach, and developing plans of work for the coming period, one to three years. IMM is passionate, impatient about the need for change, and yet wise to the fact that organizing for change is a long and arduous process.

As IMM moves into 2016 the following conversations need to be held:

1.How do we organize statewide, particularly given the fact that Indiana is really three states.

2.How do we develop in our literature and public agenda the view that what we are struggling against is a thirty year program of austerity, redistributing the wealth and power from the many to the few. And how can we effectively show that our struggles in Indiana parallel struggles in other states and countries.

3.How can we effectively link our theoretical understanding of history, much like Rev. Barber’s provocative discussion of the three reconstructions, to the concrete campaigns we are engaged in in Indiana.

4.How can we take the general worldview and discuss around the state

 -the threat to voting rights

-racist police practices

-the transformation of a 150 year tradition of public education into for-profit charter schools

-the deregulation of environmental controls at the very same time that plants emit more pollution

-the rationing of health care and the rising cost of medication

-the use of state enticements to bring investors who create low wage jobs that worsen income inequality

-the use of government to destroy the right of workers to form unions of their choosing and to honor the work of those unions to defend worker rights

These are the substantive issues that brought IMM together. Organizationally these substantive issues and the historical/theoretical narrative raised  in Parts 1 and 2 of this series of essays must be  linked to IMM organization and structure. IMM needs to discuss:

-the proportion of work devoted to inside and outside strategies

-statewide efforts at outreach, particularly to communities in “the three states”

-the relative weight and autonomy to be given to the state organization and the various hubs or regional centers

-the connections between IMM and the many organizations who partner with IMM. It may be that IMM could best serve as network coordinator among partner organizations rather than an initiator of programs.

-and finally, the relationship between the varying decision-making bodies, local organizations and issue committees within IMM. 

 Conclusion

The world is in turmoil. Protests all across the globe have some common origins, causes, and solutions. While Hoosier problems have their own characteristics they are not too different from those elsewhere. IMM, in this regard, should see itself as part of the great twenty-first century movement for economic and social justice. The ongoing work of IMM will involve addressing the particular while being cognizant of the general, building coalitions in Indiana of shared responsibility and respect, organizing people power from the state house to the streets, and reconstructing institutions that serve, not oppress the people. The fact that IMM has survived and grown since its formation nearly two years ago is an extraordinary achievement. The next steps have been suggested above.

 This is the third part of an essay on Indiana in the United States political economy and the politics of resistance. The other two essays can also be found at www.heartlandradical.blogspot.com

INDIANA IN THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE UNITED STATES:Part 2

Harry Targ

Indiana Economic Life

The centerpiece of Indiana public policy since 2004 has been corporate and individual tax cuts and reduced budgets for education, health care, and other public services. Indiana has been a trend-setter for the nation as to privatization of the public sector: including transferring educational funds from public to charter schools; establishing a voucher system to encourage parents to send their children to private schools; selling off public roads; privatizing public services; and recruiting controversial corporations such as Duke Power to support research at the state’s flagship research universities. The manufacturing base of the state has shifted from higher paying, and unionized, industrial labor (automobiles, steel, and durable goods) to lower paying non-union assembly work such as at the Amazon distribution center.

The positive narrative about Indiana economic growth presented by the current Governor Mike Pence varies greatly from recently published data. For example, between 2013 and 2014, despite enticements to business, Indiana grew at a 0.4 pace while the nation at large experienced 2.2 percent growth. Indiana’s economy historically has been based on manufacturing and has experienced declines since the 1980s and then some increases in recent years touted by the Governor. However, the newer manufacturing is mostly in low-wage non-unionized sectors.   For example, the Indiana Institute for Working Families reported on data from a study of work and poverty in Marion County, which includes the state’s largest city, Indianapolis.  Four of five of the largest growing industries in the county pay wages at or below family sustainability ($798 per week for a family of three) and individual and household wages declined significantly between 2008 and 2012 (Derek Thomas, “Inequality in Indy - A Rising Problem With Ready Solutions,” August 13, 2014, (www.iiwf.blogspot.com).

Further, Thomas quoted a U.S. Conference of Mayors’ report on wages and income:  “wage inequality grew twice as rapidly in the Indianapolis metro area as in the rest of the nation since the recession.” This is so because new jobs created paid less on average than the jobs that were lost since the recession started.

Thomas pointed out that the mayors’ report had several concrete proposals that could address declining real wages and stimulate job growth. These included “raising the minimum wage, strengthening the Earned Income Tax Credit, public programs to retrain displaced workers,” universal pre-kindergarten, and programs to rebuild the state’s crumbling infrastructure. They may have added that declining real wages also relates to attacks on unions in both the private and public sectors and the dramatic reduction in public sector employment.

Thomas added that Indianapolis (and Indiana) should take these data seriously because in Marion County “poverty is still rising, the minimum wage is less than half of what it takes for a single-mother with an infant to be economically self-sufficient; 47 percent of workers do not have access to a paid sick day from work, and a full 32 percent are at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty guidelines ($29,685 for a family of three).” 

More recently, November 10, 2014, the Indiana Association of United Ways issued a 250 page report on the state called the “Study of Financial Hardship.” The study, parallel to similar studies in five other states and prepared by a research team at Rutgers University, refers to Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed or (ALICE). ALICE refers to households with incomes that are above the poverty rate but below “the basic cost of living.” The startling data revealed that:

-a third of Hoosier households cannot afford adequate housing, food, health care, child care, and transportation.

-more precisely 14 percent of households are below the poverty line and 23 percent above poverty but below the threshold out of ALICE, or earning enough to provide for the basic cost of living.

-570,000 households are within the ALICE status and 353,000 below the poverty line.

-over 21 percent of households in every Indiana county are above poverty but below the capacity to provide for basic sustenance.

Referring to those within the ALICE category of wage earners who struggle to survive but earn less than what it takes to meet basic needs, Kathy Ertel, Board Chairperson of Indiana Association of United Ways said: “ALICE is our child care worker, our retail clerk, the CAN who cares for our grandparents, and our delivery driver” (Roger L. Frick, “Groundbreaking Study Reveals 37% of Hoosier Households Struggle With the Basics,” Indiana Association of United Ways, November 10, 2014, (Roger.Frick@iauw.org).

Assessing the current state of the Indiana economy depends upon where one is located in terms of economic, political, or professional position. Those Indiana men, women, and children who come from the 37 percent of households who earn less, at, or slightly above the poverty line probably have a negative view of their futures. For them, the tax breaks for the rich and the austerity policies for the poor are not positive. 

Indiana Politics

Perhaps the starkest fact to note in reference to the growing economic insecurity in the state of Indiana over time is that in 1970 forty percent of Hoosier workers were in unions, then the state with the third highest union density. Today only 11 percent of workers are in trade unions. The most recent legislative defeats Indiana workers have suffered include passage of a Right to Work law and repeal of the state version of prevailing wage. The Daniels/Pence administrations have used charter schools and vouchers to destroy teachers unions. In addition, in his first day in office in January, 2004, newly elected Governor Mitch Daniels signed an executive order disallowing state employees the right to form unions on their behalf. 

In 2005 the Indiana state government (legislature and governor) passed the first and most extreme voter identification law. Voters were required to secure voter identification photos. Michael Macdonald a University of Florida political scientist estimated that requiring voter IDs reduces voter participation by 4-5 percent, hitting the poor and elderly the hardest. In addition, Indiana law ends voter registration in the state one month before election day (the polar opposite of same day registration). And, polls close at 6 p.m. election day, among the earliest closing times in the country. Finally, requests for absentee ballots require written excuses. 

Republican control of the executive and both legislative branches led to redistricting which further empowered Republicans and weakened not only Democrats but the young and old and the African American community. Nine solidly Republican congressional districts were drawn in 2000.  As to the state legislature, by 2014 of 125 state legislative seats up for election, 69 were uncontested. Most shockingly, 2014 Indiana voter turnout was 28 percent, the lowest state turnout in the country. Indiana government has been controlled by Republicans (the governorship since 2004, and both legislative branches since 2010). 

Traditionally when Democrats were in the Governor’s mansion and/or controlled a branch of the legislature, they too tended to support neoliberal economic policies, but less draconian, and had been more moderate on social policy questions. In recent years, many legislators and the two most recent governors have been friends of or received support from the American Legislative Exchange Council (or ALEC) funded by the Koch brothers. 

With ALEC money, some active Tea Party organizations, the growth of rightwing Republican power, and centrist Democrats, Indiana government has been able to initiate some of the most regressive policies in reference to voting rights, education, taxing, and deregulation in the country. And as the data above suggests, the political economy of Indiana has increased the suffering of the vast majority of working families in the state. Other data suggests that the quality of health care, education, the environment, and transportation have declined as well.

The political picture is made more complicated by the fact that Indiana is really “three states.” The Northwest corridor, including Gary and Hammond, are cities which have experienced extreme deindustrialization, white flight, and vastly increasing poverty. The politically active from the area look to greater Chicago for their political inspiration and organizational involvement. Democratic parties are strong in these areas but voter participation is very low. 

Central Indiana includes a broad swath of territory with small cities and towns and the largest city in the state, Indianapolis. Much of the area is Republican, many counties have significant numbers of families in poverty, and some smaller cities have pockets of relative wealth. Democrats hold some city offices but the area is predominantly Republican.

The southern part of the state, south of Indianapolis, in terms of income, political culture, and history resembles its southern neighbor Kentucky, more than the northern parts of the state. The state of Indiana was the northern home of the twentieth century version of the Ku Klux Klan. In the 1920s, the KKK controlled Indiana state government. That reality, the institutionalized presence of overt racism, must be remembered as an aspect of Hoosier history that may still affect state politics.

Part 3 will address resistance and the development of social movement responses to the changing national and state political economy.