Iowa Goes Its Own Direction

By ART CULLEN

Iowa took a turn from the bulk of America in the midterm elections with its continued march to the right. nnVoters put Republicans in full control of the statehouse, again, and draped the congressional delegation in red. Even Storm Lake, which had been voting Democrat, went with the GOP.

Meanwhile, Democrats flipped the Minnesota Legislature and re-elected Democrat Tim Walz governor. Kansas retained a split congressional delegation and returned a Democrat to the governor’s office. Democrats held the US Senate and did astonishingly well in US House races nationally.

What’s the deal with Iowa, which not so long ago embraced Barack Obama?

A fella could write a book about it if anyone were interested, so we must keep it short.

First, Iowa has gone through tectonic economic shifts over the past 40 years through consolidation. Rural areas led the decline, which crept to the little burgs that lost their schools and then the county seats where Dollar General took root, and finally the old blue-collar towns like Clinton and Ottumwa that have taken sustained gut punches every year (Keokuk just lost its hospital). It has led to deep frustration as population, retail trade and manufacturing eroded at a quickening pace. Clearly, government did not provide the answer. In the case of manufacturing and trade, government was the problem — the central thesis of MAGA.

Second, the Iowa Democratic Party is sclerotic and stroking out. It is lost without Tom Harkin and Tom Vilsack, who provided an operating structure. The Democrats cannot organize a successful statewide campaign. The Des Moines money is splitting off from the party to finance its own political operations and further alienate outstate voters. The D.C. Establishment interferes in candidate selection and won’t support rural populists who challenge corporate consolidation.

Which allows Republicans to cut taxes, ban books, distort history in the classroom, revoke certain privacy rights, wage holy war on non-heterosexuals, strip workers’ rights and reduce education funding.

“The Democrats are incompetent and the Republicans are corrupt,” says Storm Lake native Jesse Case, who leads the Iowa Teamsters. “Given the choice between incompetent and corrupt, voters will pick corrupt every time. You cannot sell the Democratic brand in Iowa.”

US Sen. Guy Gillette could not get elected in his hometown of Cherokee today.

Voters believe that Democrats obviously could not protect them from economic decline, but Republicans at least will cut their taxes.

Republicans have the chance to prove their incompetence over the next couple years as $2 billion in tax cuts come home to roost.

We’ve seen this play before.

Kansas elected Sam Brownback governor awhile back and he routed the state budget. The schools fell apart and voters revolted. They elected a lesbian Native kickboxer to Congress, and a Democrat governor (each of whom was just re-elected). A similar thing happened in Wisconsin when Gov. Scott Walker took a cheese cleaver to the schools. Remember native Iowan Scott Walker, anyone?

Gov. Kim Reynolds is on the same track, enabled by a legislature without any guard rails of moderation.

So we are just a few years behind Kansas and Wisconsin in our evolution to center.

Reynolds is bound to pursue funding for private schools out of the hide of public education. Tuition will rise more at the state universities. Community colleges will ask for higher property taxes. The trajectory will not change for Keokuk or Clinton — or Galva and Schaller — and those who are stuck in it eventually will throw the bums out.

Iowa needs two functioning political parties. There are signs of life as younger leaders like JD Scholten emerge. It will be a long road back from the detour right if the left doesn’t figure out what’s going on in Storm Lake — hola! There was no organizing here, despite a big number of Latinos. There wasn’t in 2016, either, or 2020. It is not at all clear that Democrats understand what is eating at these places.

Kansas had to play Hell to figure it out and get back to center. Same with Wisconsin and even Minnesota. Iowa is stubborn that way.

Art Cullen is editor of the Storm Lake Times Pilot in northwest Iowa (stormlake.com). He won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 2017 and is author of the book “Storm Lake: A Chronicle of Change, Resilience, and Hope from America’s Heartland.” Email times@stormlake.com.

From The Progressive Populist, December 15, 2022

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