Letter: Open Letter to Governor Mike Braun

I was going through some things the other day and found an old letter I received from you back in 2016 when you were still a State District 63 Representative. It was a respectful letter, an official form letter in which you said: “When arguments have strong points on both sides, knowing how my district feels is important in my decision making on the House Floor……I would encourage you to continue voicing your opinion by contacting me in the future.”

Back then I saw you as a decent guy who truly wanted to do his part for Indiana, and was willing to listen to his constituents. Even though I strongly disagreed with your stand on building a new highway which I still can find no need for, I saw you as a person who was committed to representing all the residents of the district. At least you were interested in conservation, or so I believed, though your professed views on environmental issues these days are tarnished by your willingness to weaken environmental regulations in Indiana despite the fact that Indiana is near the bottom on environmental quality, along with your unwillingness to confront the other travesties being inflicted at the national level on our public lands—and private lands as well.

When you decided to run for the US Senate on the Trump Agenda in 2018, I was horrified. Your constitutional job as a US Senator was to represent your constituents—all of them–and not the president. From that point to this day, I have had NO representation in this government, either state or national, meaning that I am being taxed without representation. I am far from being alone.

Now that you have been elected Governor, you ran on a promise to focus on local issues in Indiana by saying, “Our problems can’t be solved by the special interests and career politicians in DC, they must be solved right here at home.” However, since then you have focused on upholding many of the same old things that continue to destroy us, and things have gotten worse—for both Indiana and the United States. I watched you throughout the years become increasingly subservient to Donald Trump, and not the people of your district. I am having a difficult time understanding how much you have changed in these past twenty-five years. How can you pledge allegiance to a man who divides us with hatred, lies, and fear? And how can you fail to speak out against the ways he is destroying so much in our country, particularly our values—as well as Indiana–and live with yourself? Yours is NOT a conservative viewpoint, but a radical and reactionary one.

Robert Reich recently said it well: “hatred seems to be the modus operandi of the Trump administration. Hatred takes many forms. It includes spreading fear of immigrants through unsubstantiated name-calling: ‘Migrant criminals.’ ‘Illegal monster.’ ‘Killers.’ ‘Gang members.’ ‘Poisoning our country.’ ‘The largest invasion in the history of our country.’ It includes inciting a riot against our nation’s Capitol and its leaders and then pardoning those who killed and injured Capitol police while destroying national property. And it includes citing physical violence against those who practice free speech. Deportation without due process is an act of hatred.”

Because you and others in Congress refused to sanction Trump for his inaction to call off the rioters who stormed the Capital on January 6, 2021 when he was voted out of office, he has been re-elected, not by a majority, but narrowly by the electoral college, and has now pardoned the traitors who broke into the Capitol, and many other convicted criminals, as well as sowing mayhem with his pronouncements, and few are challenging him.

Hatred is the language of propaganda, and this hate-based leadership in our country is what allows evil to triumph. The Trump Agenda that you appear to espouse–and have been emulating and inflicting on Indiana, including our mutual home in Dubois County–has not led to a better world for any of us. Since Donald Trump was first elected, our language has become much less respectful and far more filled with insults and hate, things that my generation was taught to avoid at all costs. Instead of respectful dialogue leading to better understanding, we are watching a vengeful leader who appears set out to destroy the very things that truly make America great and always have.

These destructive practices include:
Defying and attempting to destroy the constitution
Gutting the educational system
Re-writing history
Dismantling science
Suppressing the media
Attacking the arts
Cutting forests and mining publicly owned lands
Cutting EPA and IDEM regulations

And in Indiana when you were still a State Representative, it meant giving un-elected RDAs (Regional Development Corporations) the power to move ahead with taxpayer funded development without the input of the communities who live there. This includes a massive destructive highway corridor through Southern Indiana which was overwhelmingly opposed for nearly four decades during which at least five studies found no convincing need for. Even the current study has failed to come up with a convincing need.

Sadly, far from making America great again, this multifaceted destruction is severely compromising the fabric of civilization and doing nothing to make our state, our country, or the world safer or better in any way. It is also destroying the democratic way of life which has made the United States a powerful country.

What happened to you over the years? Why are you on board with all this? Cutting agency regulations that protect all of us when Indiana is near the bottom in environmental quality? Taking over IU and politicizing education by limiting it? Weakening our public schools? Focusing on expanding business/economic interests rather than the many who suffer because of that? The list goes on.

Surely you can see that a community is made of lots more than money. In fact, even the poorest of communities survive by recognizing that it is respect, tolerance, kindness, and sharing that make life worth living. These concepts are at the center of all religious systems, and though the current president calls himself a Christian, he doesn’t live or act like one. As Pope Francis pointed out: “Once capital becomes an idol and guides people’s decisions, once greed for money presides over the entire socioeconomic system, it ruins society. It condemns and enslaves men and women, it destroys human fraternity, it sets people against each other.”

You ended your letter of 2016 by encouraging voters to contact you. I have been silent for too long, though during several long dark years I have begun several letters which I didn’t send.

These days I am working with a small group of local individuals who have come together to promote community dialogue by organizing a series of teach-ins which are conversations about the issues of our times. In a world that often feels divided, though we have many differences of opinion, one thing we do agree on is the power of conversation to bring people together. When we listen with compassion and speak with honesty, we begin to build bridges where walls once stood. These community conversations, held on the grounds of the historic Monastery in Ferdinand, have had very successful and enlightening public dialogues on immigration and tariffs, and others are in the planning stages.

I was born at the end of an egregious war in Europe that Americans swore must never happen again. I grew up here and was taught by the sisters from that monastery, along with many other teachers and institutions, that we are all God’s children, and those of us who are given much are expected to give most generously to those who have less. We are obligated to treat everyone with respect and kindness. When everyone has enough, then all the people do better. I have little understanding of those who are currently trying to destroy these common-sense values so that a few can have even more.

The future of both Dubois County and Indiana is primary to all of us. We live and work here, and would like to have a say in our community and the direction of its future. These concerns I have mentioned here are shared by large numbers of individuals, and with this in mind, I invite you to explain why the vast numbers of people in our shared community, as well as many across the state, are being increasingly marginalized by top down policies that directly affect our present lives as well as our futures. Why are so many tolerating a bumbling misleader who has no clear vision of the genuine things which make our country great? Why are so many people, myself included, joining public protests as an attempt to remind us all that our democracy is under siege, and that we are the true patriots for reminding us all of our shared heritage? And how can you refrain from speaking out against this takeover of our country by backing a man whose policies are based on false values?

On behalf of those who live here in relatively rural Southern Indiana, I ask you to explain to those of us who care deeply about our shared community and see a much different approach to solving our many problems than allowing one man to steal all the power why you, our governor, are not challenging him? Why are the age-old values which have held true over millennia, being replaced by the very evils we were all taught to avoid? In addition, I hope you will listen to those of us who feel we no longer have representation in our local, state, and national governments, and then do your constitutional duty to represent all of the people, and stop serving only one who would consider himself king.

Sadly, I have no answers, but I truly believe that if people can come together and talk from the heart and listen deeply to each other, that problem solving becomes far more fair, and indeed, that it’s a better way to live in a complicated, often difficult world.

Sincerely,
Jeanne Melchior
Jasper, Indiana