Column: Are Indiana lawmakers dragging our state into the laughing stock Olympics?

Is Indiana in a race to the bottom?

Is its Legislature vying to replace Mississippi, Alabama, and other former Confederate states in a mad dash to outdo each other in enacting grossly undemocratic policies and measures that make it a laughing stock in the sober universe?

Even worse, will it earn the state a place on the medal platform at the backward states Olympics?

More in opinion: Indiana lawmakers are too busy debating narrow causes to address real problems

On issues of health, education, the environment, voting, and guns, Indiana is in a nose dive. Once thought of as conservative but principled, the state is now lower in vaccinations rates than neighboring Illinois, Ohio and even Kentucky. Perhaps it is due to legislators banning vaccine mandates, even by private companies and promoting horse worming medicine to treat COVID? Remember when Indiana politicians decried such interference into private businesses?

Gerrymandering? Check. Voter suppression? Check.

The bill to create license-free gun ownership advanced over objections from law enforcement and rising gun violence. Then there is much hyperventilating to ban critical race theory — not taught anywhere in public schools — nor could anyone demanding its ouster ever define it. It's clearly a headline grabbing, fundraising gambit used to distract from a dearth of problem solving ideas.

Instead, they favor their political base’s desire for white supremacist fairly tales about our history, while crippling their “fragile” (white) children’s critical thinking and ability to compete in the real world.

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This madness defies political allegiances and calls upon all Hoosiers who value sanity over sanctimonious posturing to contact these politicians and demand a reversal of the slide to the bottom — before Indiana grabs the gold.

Audrey T McCluskey is an emerita professor in African American & African Diaspora Studies at Indiana University-Bloomington.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Columnist chastises Indiana lawmakers over undemocratic proposals