By Michael Leppert
The Indiana Citizen
April 9, 2025
The term “glad handing” appeared in the American vernacular at the beginning of the 20th century, through the phrase, “to give the glad hand,” or extend a welcome. But that type of welcome has generally come with a twist, an intention, or an agenda.
Merriam-Webster defines the term “a warm welcome or greeting often prompted by ulterior reasons.” It makes sense that the practice is most often attributed to politicians who are working a room. Even with ulterior motives, the practice would feature a pleasantness and happy charisma to audiences, much like an effective Instagram account would today. Not all politicians are great at it, even though most used to at least try to be.
Not Sen. Jim Banks, R-Indiana, though. No, no. His communication strategy flips glad handing on its head. He doesn’t want people, voters, you know, Hoosiers, to see him being insincerely polite or jovial. Not even in a moment of weakness. He’s proudest of his public displays of meanness, or what should now be labeled, “mad handing.”
I’m in the words business, so I’m taking my shot at coining a phrase in hopes of making it into a credible dictionary someday.
ABC reported last week about the now infamous and viral video of Banks telling a man on Capitol Hill who identified himself as a recently fired Health and Human Services employee that he “probably deserved it” because “you seem like a clown.” The freshman senator is proudly refusing to apologize and is even promoting the video himself as some sort of achievement.
Why? I went on a search to try to identify the phenomenon and there actually is some science out there that is helpful.
Dr. Mark Travers wrote “When Anger is a Strategy” for Psychology Today in 2022. The article reviewed a study published in the medical journal, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. The sports-based study found that low competitive status is linked with higher aggression. Dr. Macià Buades-Rotger of the University of Barcelona and co-author of the research said, “Put bluntly, losers are more aggressive than winners on average, and that makes sense: If your rival outperforms you, you must resort to aggression to try and stop them.”
Yes, it makes perfect sense and in so many ways. Not just on the playing field of sports, but in the constant jockeying for fame and favor in right-wing politics. In the Banks example from last week, he didn’t have the confidence or courage to defend the haphazard and mass firings that have decimated many vital federal institutions, so he defaulted to aggression. Not by mistake, but by design.
Now, don’t misunderstand our newly coined term. Mad handing will share one feature with glad handing: both practices are equally and intentionally insincere. That’s right, it’s not just that Banks was mean to Mark Schroeder, the recently fired HHS employee, it’s that his meanness was an act. This is important.
Banks, and a litany of other MAGA minions, want to make sure their supporters see the meanness and can rely on it always being there for them. This personal branding strategy must make it difficult to be a good parent, neighbor, or even more simply, a respectable human being. But when it comes to positioning in a cult that values directionless aggression, it is sadly productive.
When Donald Trump took control of the GOP a decade ago, his grievance-based spasms have challenged spin doctors into attempts to organize them into some coherent set of policy platforms. It can’t be done, but the MAGA faithful keeps trying. Outside of the cult, things like the refusal to return a detainee erroneously sent to a notorious El Salvador prison are moves that appear purposefully cruel. Yes, here in the rational universe, it appears the cruelty is often the point.
The benefit of defaulting to smiling and pleasantness to strangers still largely makes sense in American culture. We expect business interactions to be polite. To be neighborly requires that same politeness. We try to instill in our children, students and trainees all those same expectations. Even today we do.
These are features of a civilized society, but not only have they have been carelessly taken for granted, they are under attack by people like Banks. His weird political movement values the opposite of what has always been the aspiration of the America where I was raised: to be good to one another.
Glad handing’s only negative is its shallowness. However, I recall being raised on the strategy that if one can’t say something nice, then one shouldn’t say anything at all. The practice helps keep us civil.
Mad handing by people like Trump and Banks threatens that civility–an American feature that is absolutely worth fighting for.
Michael Leppert is an author, educator and a communication consultant in Indianapolis. He writes about government, politics and culture at MichaelLeppert.com. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.
