Back Home Again In Gilead
Indiana is a Laboratory for Authoritarianism
(Many thanks to our H4D colleague Amy Courtney and her great leadership at MADVoters. Her April 15, 2024 essay RedState or Rigged State in MAD Voices contributed significantly to the information in this post.—Thanks Amy)
In Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel, A Handmaid’s Tale, Gilead is the name of the newly founded patriarchal, totalitarian theocratic state that has overthrown the former United States government. It's a dystopian society where women are stripped of their rights and subjected to severe oppression, particularly within the context of a declining birthrate.
Margaret Atwood repeatedly states that she never writes about anything that hasn’t already happened in life. She doesn’t want to write anything that somebody somewhere hasn’t already done. She writes these books as ‘speculative fiction’ with the hope they won’t come true.
Unfortunately, much of what Atwood wrote about in 1984 is becoming truer by the day. Our constitutional form of governance has been taken over by a regime of white Christian nationalist zealots, much like the ‘Sons of Jacob’ in Atwood’s dystopian novel. Our own Lt. Governor said that Kamala Harris had a ‘Jezebel spirit’ and that Democrats’ concern with control was much like witchcraft--references straight out of Gilead.
Did You Know:
In Indiana, our state government has become increasingly extreme in ideology thanks to the partisan gerrymandering that happened in 2011. Following the 2008 election of Barack Obama, the GOP created project REDMAP (Redistricting Majority Project) which provided the strategy for redrawing legislative district lines following the 2010 census. Their mission was to flip as many state legislatures as possible to GOP control by manipulating the drawing of district lines to favor GOP candidates.
The plan was an astounding success, especially in Indiana. The 2011 state legislative redistricting process resulted in Indiana having one of the nation’s most skewed partisan gerrymandered maps. These newly drawn state maps resulted in a 2012 tsunami of Tea Party candidates to be elected into the Indiana Statehouse. The legislative body did not represent the partisan landscape of our state.
Why It Matters:
Each successive year since the 2012 election, GOP legislators have passed laws that are increasingly extreme. Our state has become a laboratory for authoritarianism; passing laws that are unvetted, unpopular and often outside the normal legislative processes. Gubernatorial executive orders, vindictive, anti-democratic lawsuits by our attorney general, and voter suppression tactics by our secretary of state contribute to the erosion of our basic freedoms.
A primary target for stripping rights and freedoms is women. Far-right extremists have been relentless in their attack on women’s reproductive freedoms and have worked tirelessly to repeal Roe v. Wade thus forcing women (including pubescent girls) into forced births, regardless of rape or incest.
Indiana has been chipping away at this since 2012, field testing fetal personhood laws, continual relentless restrictions on access to abortion clinics and tying the hands of physicians and hospitals who provide reproductive counseling and health care to women and minors. Each year the legislature passes freedom stripping laws knowing they will be challenged in court. That is the strategy. If an extreme law fails to pass judicial muster, they just ‘tweak’ the language and try it again the next session.
In 2022, when the Supreme Court passed the Dobbs decision overturning a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion, Indiana was first in the nation to pass a total abortion ban. To further restrict women’s reproductive privacy and self-agency, Attorney General Todd Rokita has demanded the Indiana Department of Health to release the medical records of women who had a “Termination of Pregnancy”, i.e. a miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy.
The 2025 legislative session presented Hoosiers a litany of freedom stripping legislation. Here are a few of the most worrisome:
In a last minute, behind closed doors move with no public testimony, Republican legislators made a late night change hours before the legislative session ended. At the bottom of the 220 page budget bill they inserted a policy provision that gives Governor Braun sole appointing power over Indiana University’s board of trustees. The new language gives the governor appointing and replacing power over all trustees. This move jeopardizes academic freedom, subjects tenured faculty to productivity quotas and possible curricular oversight, and dissolves the decision making power of faculty governance organizations. It is a state takeover of our institutions of higher learning—a death knell to democracy.
The new budget bill also allows eligibility for school vouchers to be expanded to all Indiana families, regardless of wealth of income. This diverts public school tax dollars to private and religious affiliated schools, which will significantly under-fund public schools. The voucher program was originally framed as ‘school choice for low income families’, which was just the opening gambit. The goal is to cripple public education thus opening the door to privatization.
Corinne Straight explains the community harm of universal vouchers.
Senate Enrolled Act 289 limits diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in schools, state government and health professional licensing. In chamber testimony opposing this bill, a democratic senator compared the bill to the “Three-Fifth’s Compromise” that dehumanized those enslaved and was a move by the 1787 Constitutional Convention to preserve and protect the institution of slavery. Lt. Governor Beckwith defended the bill saying that the Three-Fifths Compromise was a great move and actually helped to end slavery. This is dangerous revisionist history!
Senate Enrolled Act 10 bans student ID’s issued by state universities to be used for voter registration and polling stations as proof of identity. The relentless attack on voting rights continues.
What You Can Do:
Citizen beware! This is not a drill. Indiana is governed by anti-democratic sympathizes and white Christian nationalists, we are a blooming theocracy. Welcome to Indiana’s version of Gilead.
Stay Connected, Informed and Engaged:
Elections matter—let’s be sure we vote the extremists out of office.
Mobilize is a great resource for finding public protests near you. Rallies and protests are an important vehicle for building electoral and political power.
Continue to use 5 Calls or the U.S. Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121 to help you make strategic calls to legislators. The most urgent issue is to oppose the SAVE Act.
The.Ink is starting a book club for democracy loving readers. Join the book club or start your own. The Handmaid's Tale or George Orwell’s 1984 would be a great place to start. Healthy democracies depend on informed citizens.
Stay informed but do not ‘doom scroll’, it is bad for democracy.
We are all in this together!
The H4D team
Those of us living here are aware of how bad it is - but why is it ignored nationally? We hear about Texas and Florida but never Indiana - I feel like we live on an island that nobody talks about.
I hate to say run, but if appropriate then move to Illinois.