The Trump Administration has been consumed of late in the controversy over the president’s dead friend, Jeffrey Epstein, and whether intimate details from Epstein’s law enforcement files should be shared with the public. The MAGA base is anxious. But the lurid truth may not be what does in his political legacy. After all, voters have always understood Trump for who he is.
It’s still the economy, stupid. On that score, Donald Trump is a loser.
Trump was elected on the two Is: Immigration and Inflation. The public is souring with his performance on both. Dan Balz of the Washington Post and former Obama political advisor Dan Pfeiffer each detailed how Trump’s poll numbers have tanked, particularly around immigration. His support on immigration has dropped by around 18 percentage points. Last year, the Gallup Poll found 55% of Americans wanting stricter limits on immigration; now that is at 30%. Eighty percent of those polled think immigration is good.
Trump promised to deport all undocumented immigrants. He was clear about that. When voters were reminded what that actually looks like — separating families, sweeping up the papered along with the paperless, ignoring due process, shipping innocents to dark sites, ordering the National Guard to Los Angeles — they did not like what they saw.
It has been a more ardent replay of Trump’s first term, when voters were disgusted by the way he handled human beings. They were so overloaded with propaganda from the right-wing noise machine that they forgot about the horrors. Voters are also waking up to the fact that immigrants put your ham and eggs on the table.
Fear is the strategy. It is backfiring again.
“The Post’s average of high-quality polls shows a clear deterioration in Trump’s approval rating on immigration. In May, the average showed Americans evenly divided. The average so far in July shows 42 percent saying they approve and 54 percent disapproving,” wrote Balz, the top political reporter in Washington. A recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs survey showed that 38 percent approved of his economic management and 60 percent disapproved, Balz noted.
These are dead weights on the Republican ticket going into 2026 midterm congressional and statehouse elections.
The public came to a misunderstanding that Trump would only go after criminal aliens. Sen. Joni Ernst said so. That is not what Trump campaigned on. He said he would do mass deportation of all immigrants. That’s what he tried to pull off in Los Angeles, and what he will try across the country with virtually a blank check to hire more ICE agents. People in Storm Lake — including White plant managers and downtown retailers — are nervous. Cubans are losing their protected status and could be deported — freedom-loving people loathe the notion. These are our neighbors right here in Storm Lake, Iowa.
When it hits home, politics can change quickly. It is. The Republican overreach in everything from terrorizing immigrants to cutting medical research is creating openings in Iowa that were not there a year ago. The Democrats can still blow it by not standing up for the defenseless — the working class, the elderly, the independent farmer and small business, and isolated rural communities.
Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird last week ended her formal harassment of Winneshiek County Sheriff Dan Marx by dismissing a lawsuit against him for running a sanctuary operation for immigrants. Of course, Decorah is not a sanctuary except for ELCA Lutherans. Like Bird, Marx is a Republican. Unlike Bird, Marx is sensible and pragmatic.
The sheriff in February posted on Facebook that he would not comply with illegal federal detainer orders to indefinitely hold immigrants. Bird sued him in March. It is difficult to win a lawsuit over a sheriff who says he will not participate in an illegal process. Federal authorities are notorious for not fetching detainees from county jails. The expenses accrue to the county. He was not going to be a part of that. He said he would accommodate orders that flowed through the judicial process.
Marx has been sheriff since 2015 and was a deputy before that. He has a lot of support with locals, much more than Bird does. She may have thought her lawsuit would have MAGA appeal that could serve her higher ambitions. If it had merit, she would have proceeded to make a point.
Instead, Bird backed down. The sheriff took down his Facebook post. He continues to say what he always has said: that he will comply with legal federal orders. For her part, a humble Bird said: “Winneshiek County and Sheriff Marx are in compliance with (Iowa law). They have committed to continue to honor ICE detainers and cooperate with federal immigration authorities.” Case closed. A waste of taxpayer money and a distraction to a sheriff chasing actual bad guys.
Cuts to Medicaid approved by Congress will amount to $11 billion in Iowa over the next decade, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Every member of the Iowa congressional delegation, Republicans all, voted for the massive cuts. That includes our own Rep. Randy Feenstra of Hull, the man who would be governor.
This will be yet another body blow to rural hospitals, nursing homes and poor people, most of whom are elderly, seeking care in rural Northwest Iowa.
University of Iowa researcher Tom Gruca found that among the seven rural counties that lost their labor and delivery units in 2018, patients were 24% more likely to receive inadequate prenatal care than their neighbors, according to Iowa Capital Dispatch. Outcomes for Medicaid recipients were even worse — 38% were likely to receive inadequate care.
The Trump Administration also will tighten up Medicare, the main source of revenue for rural health care providers. The University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, which provide the bulk of primary care for the indigent, will lose at least $100 million from cuts to federal grants. Clinical trials are being stopped dead in their tracks.
Rural patients are first to feel the impacts, as they already are the least served. In Iowa, that means primarily the elderly get hurt. Nursing home closures in Newell and Albert City were driven by stingy Medicaid reimbursements. It’s only going to get worse. It is difficult enough to recruit and keep rural physicians. The task will become more difficult when there are fewer places to practice at lower reimbursement rates.
CONGRESS, INCLUDING ALL IOWANS, also voted to cut $9 billion in funding to public broadcasting. Again, the first things to go are rural broadcast outlets that often are the only information provider in remote regions. Forget about independent documentaries. Expect more auto-programmed classical music and a lot more Antiques Roadshow. If Market to Market is not as robust going forward on Friday evenings, blame your Congress critters. It’s on them.
We have a refined taste for Coca Cola. We can’t tell the difference between sugar-cane Coke in a bottle versus corn-syrup Coke in a bottle. On a hot day with a cheeseburger, each tastes like our kind of soft drink. President Trump, who drinks Diet Coke, claims that he convinced Coca Cola to get rid of high-fructose corn syrup and stick with the original cane sugar.
“It’s better,” he said.
The Iowa Corn Growers Association must be tickled. The ag commodity groups have always been with him. The president is now actively working against their interests. You can’t fill the Coke bottles without Brazilian sugar cane.
“President Trump stands for American manufacturing jobs, American farmers, and reducing the trade deficit,” said Corn Refiners Association President John Bode said. “Replacing high-fructose corn syrup with cane sugar would cost thousands of American food manufacturing jobs, depress farm income, and boost imports of foreign sugar, all with no nutritional benefit.”
They should recall that Trump also screwed the ethanol industry by granting waivers to petroleum refiners, and soybean growers with his trade war with China. These people are naive, slow learners.
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here