https://progressiveindiana.net
https://tabithazeiglerforcongress.com/
SUMMARY:
In this Progressive Indiana Network virtual town hall, HoosLeft host Scott Aaron Rogers speaks with Tabitha Zeigler, a Democratic primary candidate in Indiana’s 8th Congressional District running against incumbent Republican Mark Messmer. Zeigler -- an autism mom, late-diagnosed autistic adult, community organizer, and former postal worker -- covers an expansive range of issues over more than an hour, including the Trump administration’s escalating military conflict with Iran, the Democratic Party’s disconnect from working-class and younger Hoosiers, the RFK Jr.-led assault on autism services and disability rights, the fight for trans rights in a rural district, the corrupting influence of big money and AIPAC in Congress, the need to abolish ICE and reform immigration, her opposition to data centers on Indiana farmland, the housing crisis driven by private equity, and what it would take for an outsider progressive to win in a district rated R+18.
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QUESTIONS:
00:00:23 INTRODUCTION
- Scott introduces the town hall format: viewer questions relayed from YouTube, Facebook Live, and ProgressiveIndiana.net.
- Tabitha Zeigler introduces herself: autism mom of three, late-diagnosed autistic adult, community organizer, and self-described rabble-rouser.
- She explains her path to running: frustration with the federal government’s treatment of the autism community drove her to launch a podcast and eventually seek office.
- She argues that if medical professionals won’t be trusted, the next best thing is sending actual autistic people to Congress.
00:03:00 THE IRAN WAR AND DEMOCRATIC COMPLICITY
- Scott asks Zeigler to respond to Trump’s threats of bombing civilian infrastructure in Iran and his inflammatory social media posts targeting Muslims.
- Zeigler draws on her millennial generation’s lived experience watching the post-9/11 wars unfold -- she was a college freshman when the Twin Towers fell -- and warns this conflict will be long, costly, and bloody.
- She criticizes the administration’s gutted military leadership under Pete Hegseth and argues that a well-prepared military exists to avoid combat, not rush into it.
- Scott follows up on Congress’s abdication of its war powers -- the last formal declaration of war was World War II -- and asks what Democrats should be doing.
- Zeigler frames military service as a working-class issue, noting it’s blue-collar Hoosiers -- plumbers, contractors, tradespeople -- who bear the cost of war while the wealthy profit.
00:10:37 THE INDIANA DEMOCRATIC PARTY PLATFORM
- Viewer Papa Rottzi asks via the web form whether the Indiana Democratic Party’s draft platform reflects what Hoosiers actually want.
- Zeigler says flatly that the party hasn’t listened to Hoosiers in a long time -- particularly younger and working-age voters -- and is led primarily by people who are already retired and financially comfortable.
- Scott presses: if the party is that out of touch, why stay a Democrat?
- Zeigler says she remains in the tent because she’s a progressive and believes in moving left, not toward the center, but warns that if the party keeps drifting toward “Republican lite,” that could change.
00:13:17 RFK JR., MAHA, AND THE ATTACK ON AUTISM SERVICES
- Scott asks Zeigler to explain what the Trump administration and RFK Jr.’s MAHA agenda are actually doing to the autism community.
- Zeigler walks through Indiana’s First Steps program (which ends at age three), the difficulty of getting diagnoses and ABA therapy in rural areas, and the cascading effects of losing providers.
- She calls RFK’s approach -- blaming mothers for their children’s autism through vaccine fearmongering -- criminal, adding that mothers of autistic children are already under enormous stress and guilt without being told they caused it.
- She raises Indiana’s history of institutionalization, noting the state ended the practice in 1997 after widespread abuse, and warns that current legislative language around “institutionalization” is a step back toward eugenics.
- She frames the broader attack on disability services as classic fascist scapegoating: autistic families, immigrants, trans people -- always an “other” to blame.
00:20:47 TRANS RIGHTS, GAVIN NEWSOM, AND HOLDING THE LINE
- Scott asks Zeigler to respond to Gavin Newsom’s call for Democrats to be more “culturally normal” -- widely seen as throwing trans people under the bus.
- Zeigler dismisses Newsom’s position as easy political cowardice: it’s simple for a straight white man with no skin in the game to sacrifice a minority community.
- She invokes the Niemoller poem (”First they came...”) and argues Democrats who abandon trans people are setting themselves up to be next.
- She discloses personally: one of her children, age six, has been expressing a female identity for several years, and she is preparing herself for that possibility with full support.
- She calls people who won’t stand up for the trans community right now “cowards” and says it violates the core tenets of most faiths.
00:25:22 TRANS GIRLS IN SPORTS (FROM CHRIS RECTOR)
- Scott notes that the question comes from Chris Rector, identified as one of Zeigler’s opponents in the primary -- another progressive outsider and friend.
- Rector asks about Zeigler’s stance on transgender girls participating in female high school sports.
- Zeigler says she’s not a trans woman and would like to hear more directly from those who are, but her position is clear: if someone tells you they’re female, let them compete with other females.
- She uses an example of a trans man in her social circle who served in the military and met the full physical demands of his position as a man.
00:27:49 ACCOUNTABILITY IN OFFICE (FROM JOEY IN TERRE HAUTE)
- Viewer Joey asks how Zeigler plans to remain accountable to constituents and what that accountability looks like in practice.
- Zeigler says she wants people to be able to call her -- contrasting that with the experience of disabled constituents who had to physically travel to Washington in wheelchairs just to get a politician’s attention.
- She describes attending a town hall hosted by incumbent Mark Messmer and submitting multiple autism-related questions -- none of which were asked.
- She invites constituents to hold her feet to the fire if she gets it wrong, saying she’s going as their voice, not her own agenda.
00:31:33 WHAT DEMOCRATS NEED TO DO FOR YOUNG VOTERS (FROM Cameron Grubbs)
- Cameron Grubbs, running for Delaware County Clerk in Muncie, asks what Democrats should be doing to better engage younger voters.
- Zeigler says young people today don’t have a shot -- private equity is buying up their homes, their college degrees aren’t leading to careers, they can’t afford families, and Social Security may not exist for them.
- She argues it’s hypocritical to ask young people to vote blue when the party isn’t offering solutions to the material conditions destroying their futures.
00:34:55 PRESCRIPTION DRUG PRICES (FROM Hoosier Lemon)
- Viewer Hoosier Lemon asks whether Zeigler would support legislation allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices.
- Zeigler gives an unambiguous yes and shares a personal story: her son with autism and ADHD was forced through four generic substitutions before his insurer would approve the doctor’s original prescription, ultimately going without medication for two months.
- She says pharmaceutical companies have more influence on politicians than constituents do, and calls the system obscene.
00:38:13 MEDICARE FOR ALL, FREE COLLEGE, PUBLIC HOUSING
- Scott follows up: Zeigler is on record supporting Medicare for All -- what’s her vision for what government should actually provide?
- Zeigler ties it back to war spending, arguing that a country spending a billion dollars a day on bombing campaigns has no credibility telling peo…
