More Options for the Working Class
Friends and Constituents,
Three weeks ago, I wrote to you about the self-destruction that Marion County Democratic Party leadership was causing.
Over 100 people were challenged and prevented from running for representative positions within the Democratic Party structure - including the West Point veteran who is currently serving as the President of the Marion County Young Democrats organization, the co-chair of the Progressive Democrats of America chapter in Indianapolis, and many more people who very clearly have chosen to organize as Democrats.
Under Indiana’s two-party system, corrupt party leaders are allowed to pick their own precinct committee people, who in turn choose party leadership. In other words, Indiana law allows party leadership to pick their own voters, and the local Democratic Party is exercising that power (despite Democrats' condemnation of Republicans just earlier this year). The next Marion County Democratic Party leadership election isn’t for three more years - and with the current Chair having chosen to deny progressives the right to vote, we’re unlikely to see significant change.
Perhaps Chair Eldridge will choose to appoint some of the progressives she struck from the ballot. However, appointed precinct committee people (as opposed to elected ones) serve at the pleasure of the Chair. Progressives may be allowed to serve, but only until the Chair - this one or a future one - decides to unappoint them.
This isn’t some far off conspiracy theory. The last chair of the Marion County Democratic Party, Kate Sweeney Bell, purged appointed precinct committee people just prior to her own election. (Bell now occupies the office of County Clerk, where she voted to support Chair Eldridge’s challenges. She laughed about the successful challenges last week at a Lawrence Township Democratic Club meeting.)
I’ve always voted Democrat. I’ve never missed a primary. I chose to run as a Democrat, because I believed that the Democratic Party was our best vehicle for change. But I’ll admit that I am losing faith.
It’s time to decenter the Democratic Party. Instead, we need to center working-class Hoosiers.
I stand with the brave men, women, and nonbinary people who are stepping up to demand a change of course from the looming fascism led by Donald Trump and Mike Braun. That includes the many excellent people who are running as Democrats! In fact, this year we have several excellent Democrats to support across the state. But it also includes those who the Democratic Party is forcing out - as they’ve consistently done for decades.
Because we need to be honest: though the Democratic Party has virtually no power in Indiana, there are institutionalists and “moderates” in leadership in the party who rally their forces to protect their leadership structure, whether that be multiply-alleged sexual abusers like Greg Taylor or corrupt and unpopular leaders like Joe Hogsett.
These existing Democratic Party figures are not working for regular Hoosiers. They are working for their donors - who as I’ve mentioned before, are often the exact same people that fund MAGA.
Mayor Joe Hogsett is not fighting against the hated data centers - he’s supporting them.
He’s not fighting against higher electricity bills through AES - he’s cutting separate deals to accept their rate increases.
He’s not ending homelessness - he’s failing to hit his own goals.
He isn’t helping working people - he’s overseeing increased poverty.
He isn’t strengthening public education - he’s destroying it.
And when Democrats like me speak out against these betrayals, we are bullied and shunned.
Small wonder, then, that most regular Hoosiers really dislike not just the Republican Party that sets our horrific policy in this State, but also the Democratic Party that fails to effectively oppose the Republicans. In fact, the largest group of Hoosier voters refuse to associate with both major parties. This group - the largest section of voters - tends to simply drop out of politics, which leads us to the lowest voter turnout in the state.
A group of people I know is working to change all that.
Do you know how a new political party gets recognition? Do you know why the Libertarian Party can show up so easily on ballots across the state?
All it takes is winning 2% of the vote in the Secretary of State race. That gives a new party ballot access across the state for the next four years.
A brand new party is working to do just that.
This bold new party insists on centering regular, working-class Hoosiers and the policies that the vast majority of us want.
My friend Ben Davis is running an independent, bold campaign fighting for workers’ rights in Statehouse District 13 as a proud representative of this new party.
Author, activist, and professor Tanya Pearson is doing the same thing in State Senate District 26.
And food justice leader Harrison Jacobo is carrying the SPI banner for the Secretary of State position - where he only needs to win 2% of the vote to establish a ballot line that can be used statewide for the next four years.
Working people across the state have been meeting for months to build out a campaign to win a ballot line. I believe the group will be successful! And I believe that leaning into the socialist messaging is the only productive way to counter right-wing smears.
Some of us will continue the fight to reform the Democratic Party.
But many of you on my email list have told me that they can no longer do so in good conscience. For those who can no longer stomach it, please do not drop out of politics entirely.
Get involved in the Socialist Party of Indiana project.
It will take an “inside-outside” strategy in order to put an end to the Uniparty political monopoly in Indiana. As long as Democratic leaders are able to take progressive votes for granted, they have no incentive to change. The Libertarian Party does not often win elections in Indiana, but they still have outsize influence on politics, because they have the ability to discipline Republicans who stray too far from their values - they can run a candidate to offer Democrats a chance to pick up a seat without much effort, which ends up costing the Republican Party money to combat. Strategists within the Republican Party therefore push candidates to make nods towards libertarian values, lowering the chance of a Libertarian candidate entering the race.
And even Libertarians acknowledge that far more Americans are socialists than libertarians.
Zohran Mamdani was polling at 1% in January of 2025. In November, a commanding majority of New Yorkers elected him Mayor.
The world is changing quickly. More and more people every day are insisting on a government that is democratic, accountable to the people, transparent, and working to help improve people’s lives. More and more people every day are seeing that the super-rich are destroying our economy, our political system, and our environment.
More and more people are calling for socialism.
The working class will have access to politics, one way or another. And I stand with the working class, not with any politicians or bureaucrats.
In place of a video I created myself, today I’ll leave you with the video of the Socialist Party of Indiana’s kickoff event from yesterday in Terre Haute, outside the home of Eugene V. Debs:
https://www.youtube.com/live/y_jppVM0s5o?t=1036s
In love and solidarity,
Jesse