Local Opinion: To MAGA, Cruelty is a Feature, Not a Bug.

By Scott Keen
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The GOP has always employed a “stern father” perspective, a “spare the rod, spoil the child” approach,
bordering on spitefulness, blaming the disadvantaged and downtrodden for their lot in life. Charity
does not come easily to them, as their perpetual fight against Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security demonstrates.

MAGA’s Big Beautiful Bill is shameless in the cuts to important programs like SNAP, WIC, USAID,
Medicaid, and the incredibly important—to women—Planned Parenthood.

It does offer up a $200 tax cut on gun silencers and supports more drilling and mining on public lands.
Add another $150 billion in military spending, and don’t forget big tax cuts for the rich, paid for by the
bottom ten percent and taking food out of the mouths of babies.

Baseless, random tariffs are another exercise in cruelty. They are confounding financial markets,
crashing the economy, and driving inflation. Great companies like Cummins can’t attempt to forecast
business results or make plans on an ever-changing playing field. Raw materials and finished goods
will become harder to find and much more expensive. People on the low end of the income spectrum
will feel this self-inflicted cruelty most.

Remember, it was not the American worker who decided to move plants overseas. American industry
decided to maximize profits and lower costs, and the government made policies that accommodated
that. Workers paid once, and now, of course, we must fix the problem on the back of the working
person again.

Deportations are performed in a particularly cruel manner. Deported men were stripped, heads
shaved, and paraded before the public, bent and in chains, like cattle. The administration admits they
don’t really know who all these men are, and mistakes were made, but they handed them to a torture
prison anyway. That’s demented.

Next, dog-shooting, cosplaying Homeland Security Barbie Kristi Noem, dressed in full “girl’s night out
bachelorette party” garb, televised a message standing only feet in front of a prison cell full of semi-
naked men. That’s sick.

Revisions in our state budget reflect the insanity of MAGA. Indiana once had a surplus, but some
Holcomb Republican screwed up and spent $2 billion too much, so the state will again have to fix that
on the backs of working Hoosiers.

Big changes to property taxes are coming, favoring the wealthy, of course, and now local governments
will need to find new sources of revenue for schools and other essential agencies.
For example, the Bartholomew County Solid Waste Management District depends on property taxes
for about half of its revenue. Managing the district is complicated, operating a landfill is expensive, and
money is already tight. Budget discussions for 2026 are underway. Where will that funding come
from? Local Republicans are scratching their heads.

Counties will likely raise local (county) income taxes to cover the void, but the maximum level of a
county tax has been cut from 3.75% to 2.9%. Some counties don’t have much room to cover the loss.
Are other local taxes in the works? How about cuts to essential services? This is more cruel, self-
inflicted pain from the GOP leadership.

Now we learn the Republican Columbus Township Trustee was found to have stolen $1.1 million in
township funds used to provide heat and food to poor people and spent it on personal expenses,
booze, and vacations over six years. That is grossly negligent oversight of their own by Republicans,
and results in additional pain for average citizens.

Meanwhile, our local elected MAGA officials, Senators Young and Banks, my Representative Shreve,
and my local state Representative Lauer, kowtow to the MAGA lunacy, economic chaos, and intended
cruelty. They apparently dislike their constituents.

Why do cruel MAGAs universally contend they are Christians? Why do they promote the Ten
Commandments, supposedly handed to Moses, instead of the Sermon on the Mount—the things Jesus
said about kindness? Like, “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.”
I know Donald Trump is less of a Christian, knows less about religion, and has fewer morals than my
cat. Cruelty, selfishness, and idolatry (of him) are his religion, and our local MAGA officials have
become shameless converts. I never anticipated their abandonment of basic moral principles to
worship a cheap golden idol.

Journalist Chris Hayes wrote a great book (The Sirens’ Call) about the incredible battle for our
attention on social media and elsewhere. He notes that meanness and cruelty, now delivered
continually and anonymously, get more hits than happy stories.
This is what the world has become. Cruelty gets hits.

But get this: legendary Hoosier and humanist Kurt Vonnegut wrote a wonderful novel, God Bless You,
Mr. Rosewater. In it, Eliot Rosewater, mayor of fictional Rosewater, Indiana, gives a routine greeting to
all the babies born in his town. He says:
“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and
crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I
know of, babies—God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”

That seems simple and very Hoosier-like to me. We are all in the same pot. People can tackle hard
things but must demonstrate kindness in the process. Big changes don’t have to hurt the most
vulnerable the most. Politicians don’t have to punch down.

That’s why I am a liberal and a Democrat.
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But cruelty still gets more hits...