Moderation is all we ask. Iowa has been under one-party rule for over a decade. It shows. We have become meaner and poorer. Our schools are weaker. Regulations are spurned as the rivers run toxic and the air smells like a hog’s back end. Enough — of the shaming, the ignorance, keeping others out. Iowa needs to find its way back to center.
It took decades to groom the rut. These midterm elections will not reverse our trajectory. Income tax cuts will not be repealed. Nobody will contest our freedom to farm. Rural schools will struggle. Healthcare access requires investment undone by years of attacks on Medicaid.
Republicans have had their run, starting with Terry Branstad handing off the governorship to Kim Reynolds. The result is structural state budget deficits of $1 billion or more as far as can be projected. We need a change in approach, offered by State Auditor Rob Sand, who is running for governor as a Democrat. Whoever becomes governor will have a slog ahead involving increasing taxes (most likely the sales tax) and cutting spending. Most of the state budget is spent on education. It will be difficult for schools.
Likewise, the Republicans have a singular hold on Washington that demands balance. President Trump is out of control. Granted immunity, he is running a con game of self-enrichment. He is ripping apart the foundation of our freedoms. We need Congress to step up to its constitutional obligation to put a check on the president. Democrats need to control the Senate. Iowa would further benefit from a split congressional delegation, as Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley is hale and hearty. Josh Turek would be a balance across the aisle, as Tom Harkin used to be.
We endorsed Democrats all in hopes of tugging Iowa toward the center from its hard lurch to the right. Iowa has a lot of difficult challenges that require a diversity of opinion and a distribution of power to direct this rig down the center of the road. Ours is naturally a conservative state. We must take care to temper ourselves. Trump has been on a power binge that must come to an end before Lady Liberty takes a tumble. Iowa is spending itself into an illegal deficit that will require everyone to work together to bring things back under control. We must heal the wounds that have been caused by radical wedges.
Iowans constructed an image of themselves as pleasant, hard-working, frugal and literate people with a love for the land and each other. Vote that way on Tuesday. Vote pragmatic. We’ve had enough of one-party government in a two-party system. Vote for limits. Preserve your right to gather, to speak freely and to petition the government for redress. Never give that up. That is what essentially makes America great. Vote for freedom. Vote for Iowa moderation, where everyone has a say and not just the corporate power players.
Josh Turek got a lot of blowback from the LGBTQ constituency and from Republicans for an ad on transgender issues. Turek said he does not support boys playing on a girls’ team, and he does not support Medicaid paying for trans conversion surgeries. Transgender advocates condemned the ad, and Republicans said it misrepresents Turek’s real position.
This is the real Turek. He takes a position with most Iowans. Transgender people in sports are not an issue here. Ethanol is. So is diesel. Turek must think he can attract some slice of independent voters opposed to transgenders in women’s athletics, or he felt he needed to inoculate himself from attack ads. Democrats have little choice but to ignore the ad unless they want Donald Trump to continue his destruction of democracy as we knew it. Turek is needed in the Senate, even if he is wrong about gender-affirming care. Ashley Hinson is no civil rights advocate unless corporations are people.
Turek has also taken positions hostile to undocumented immigrants. He is married to an immigrant from the Dominican Republic. Turek knows that Iowa voters went big for Trump over immigration. He is trying to get elected. Shocker alert: Politicians pander in order to get votes! Hinson wants you to believe that she is simply a wholesome mom whose sons get in food fights. Just a bipartisan trying to get along …She would prefer you not know that she is a toady for Trump. This is how it works, unfortunately. Honesty is not a necessary virtue in this business.
Turek is a pretty conservative Democrat. We have reported that all along. It should not be news to the LGBTQ interest groups. He beat a candidate who was reared by two moms. Democrats did not choose the liberal. They picked the guy in the wheel chair who also declares that we should discriminate against no one. Coming out against boys playing girls basketball will not decide this election. Democrats would crawl over coals to defeat Trump.
Donald Trump has been awful for agriculture. His tariffs have trimmed Iowa soy and pork exports to Asia. Trump’s war on the Middle East is choking us with high fuel and fertilizer prices. Why do farmers keep voting for him? It’s the bailouts, stupid! Trump’s own USDA acknowledges over $30 billion in “ad hoc assistance delivered to farmers” over the past two years. That does not include an announced $8 billion in bailouts related to high fuel prices, details of which are supposed to be announced after the Nov. 3 elections.
Trump did the same thing in his first term when he started trade wars that shut off our soy sales to China. He showered money on agribusiness (not necessarily farmers). A lot of Iowa voters have a stake in agribusiness. Eventually the money runs out, and the marginal producers fall by the wayside. Rural vitality slackens. More acres are directed to larger, stronger hands.
Farmers say they would prefer to take their revenue from the market than a government hand-out, but they have stuck with Trump by-and-large.
The nearly $40 billion in bailouts since 2024 do not include crop insurance, loans, conservation, biofuels subsidies or direct payments for program crops.
If you worry about socialism and big spenders, look no further.
Congress is three years overdue on passing a farm bill, by the way. Congress is controlled by Republicans. They could have passed a farm bill on time if they wanted to but they could not decide the best way to destroy nutrition programs. Instead, we are building an ad hoc welfare state for agriculture that rewards the largest producers. Socialist, really, almost Soviet. That is where we are heading. We are isolating ourselves from the world while propping up unsustainable commodity markets with subsidies. It is a calculus for continuing stress in rural America.
First, our eternal gratitude goes to the Pierce family for their steadfast support of Buena Vista University through the generations, including to the present day with Trustee Mike Pierce of Texas and Rosalie Pierce Rhodes of California. It was just announced that Rosalie is making possible a major renovation of Schaller Memorial Chapel, where she honed her chops onstage as a Beaver music major. Bless her.
Her gift prompts us to reflect that in this age of artificial intelligence and robots, a liberal arts — yes, especially a fine arts — education is elementary to coping with a fast-changing world. Obviously, Rosalie has done alright with her music degree. Someone with a course in art history will be acquainted with socio-economic factors that gave rise to the Renaissance. Jefferson played the violin and studied the stars. That sort of understanding helps one navigate the tricky courses that the world lays out anew each day.
The English or philosophy student who thinks creatively and clearly should be at least as well-prepared for an automated, robotic future as a number cruncher whose days are numbered by technology itself. STEM curriculum isn’t worth that much if you leave the reading and comprehension to Claude.
So here’s to the Pierces, to the landmark chapel with the bell tower, and to a liberal arts education that prepares you for life’s vagaries, enhanced by dizzying technology. Understanding is the currency of the digital future, not bit coin. Thanks to Rosalie Pierce Rhodes for her generosity and for reminding us about the true core of education.
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