We Built It, They Won't Come

 I am not a native Iowan, but unless you are from an indigenous tribe, who is? However, when my wife and I moved here in 1999, we liked the idea of reforming our midwestern roots in a state that was known for having common sense and basic decency. Little did we know that Iowa would become less about "live and let live" and more "it's my way or the highway", especially about guns and women's reproductive rights. While today's version of the GOP wants to make it sound like Democrats are authoritarian Socialists, their party has become the party of Patriarchal Nationalist authoritarians where the rights of immigrants,  most minorities, and many women are trampled for their version of a free America and our state has become a laboratory toward their national goals. 

How can I say this with a woman governor who is likely to be re-elected next year?  Governor Reynolds checks a box, but she is not necessarily pro-all women. What has she really done for women who have families to care for or for women who are in the difficult decision of what to do with a pregnancy that they do not wish to bring to term for a plethora of reasons, including child care and support for single-parented households. She is not pro-anybody when it has come to her handling of the pandemic choosing to put commerce before health and using federal funds meant to support Iowans as a way to make more tax cuts knowing that Uncle Sam has backfilled revenue lost. Her partisanship is glaring as she rubber stamps bill after bill that the party puts on her desk; including making it hard for the blue lives that she says matter from getting shot by a citizen who can now able to tote his or her piece without a permit. 

Our state has become like the fans that support sports teams at all levels, a little too dependent on the kool-aid that they are drinking. Even things that are intentionally non-partisan have to take a turn in that direction, such as when the Republican legislators had the Congressional maps redrawn to favor them and made election tougher to participate in due to legal wrangling under the Golden Dome. 

As my working days are drawing to an end, there is a part of me that does not want to continue to see the political erosion that has occurred in this state. To those who already consider this a flyover zone, we have done nothing to change their mind. I have rethought the whole "If you build it, they will come" idea. What we have built is a state of discord, a field of schemes, and of small-mindedness. That is bad for all of us.