Yes, Things Suck But...

 Things do suck and they probably will continue to do so. Now, what are we going to do about it when people are telling you the real problems aren't the ones you face daily? For instance, when ads on TV tell you that left- or right-wing agendas are going to ruin "our democracy" what do you even do with that information? Our democracy is already ruined by those gatekeepers of government who depend on corporate interests to be elected and re-elected, to be recommended to judgeships, and to be named to important decision-making commissions. It is ruined by underfunding or undermining government protections of people and the environment. It is ruined by nationalism over globalism. So yes, things do suck, but not for the reasons that campaign ads that we are being drowned in say they do. Because mostly, they don't have much to do with the things we worry about on a daily basis.

A big reason that they suck is we no longer vote solely for issues that affect us, but for the perception that one party or person is the only true protector of our way of life. We are consumer tribalists. That is we are predisposed to thinking that one party or person is cool and the other is not. We are being sold imagery (homespun images of farms, flannel, and family or shady images of scary-looking people with bleak voice-overs telling us how they threaten our existence) and framed issues with talking points that are focus-grouped in a way that soon enough we repeat them aloud as if they were our own ideas.

When people say we are sheeple, they may not be wrong (though they may also be sheeple for repeating it because they heard it someplace on the internet). And maybe if we would embrace our sheeple-ness, we could do better. Sheep hang together, they frolic, and yes, they stray (but can be brought back into the fold with proper coaxing). We want to believe we are individualists because you guessed it, that has been the message we have gotten in choosing blue jeans, as well as what our history books mostly taught us. Sheep are social beings and so are we. I am pretty sure sheep don't do everything in lockstep and we don't have to either. Nonetheless, we do have to decide to stop the suck.

If things suck, it is because we are overwhelmed by the enormity of the problems we face. Who wants to figure out what to do about the overcrowding of the planet, the neverending diaspora of people, the lack of drinkable water, the escalating planetary temperatures, the limited arable land, the constant warring, etc. when we can boil elections down to how bad candidate a is and how great candidate b is at defending our freedoms? We have been told that freedom is the most important thing we can fight for, but not how awesome the responsibility of what we do with that freedom can be. We auction off the future of our offspring for the promise of the quick fix of the moment and somehow think that is the best use of our freedom?

Maybe we just suck? We suck because we want others to fix things for us or leave it to us to fix them ourselves. We suck because if it takes a village, someone has to want to build the village (and make sure everyone has a hut). We suck because we listen to the fearmongering voices and think, "hmm, maybe I am superior than the person who will cancel out my vote." We suck because we pretend that others are the cause of why things suck when it is actually a tautology of sucking. We suck because we suck.

But we don't have to suck. We do have to hold those we elect accountable for doing fewer things that suck for us all. We do have to vote, even when it sucks to do so. We do have to call bullshit when we see it, including on people who are choosing to be a posse that stops us from exercising our important freedoms (like voting and speaking up at public forums). We can actually research issues and be informed about what we are voting for or against. We can ask to be on commissions, run for school boards, and volunteer at polls. We don't have to believe in the inherent good or bad of people, we do have to act on our own hopes. At the end of the day, if things suck, it is because we allowed the suck to win. And nothing will ever suck harder than that.

The Big Lie Is Not Election Fraud

There is an old joke: How do you know a politician is lying to you? The answer: Their lips are moving. In Iowa, the Republican party has been on a "Freedom Tour" featuring the governor and her potential allies for attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer, and auditor. They showed up for a visit by none other than Doanld Trump who saidmechoing Kim Reynold's campaign ad, "The Iowa way of life is under siege."  Under siege from what, you may ask? Certainly Trump was not terribly concerned when the Capitol was really under siege, but how the crowd in Sioux City reacted was according to script. They accepted this lie as gospel and cheered him and later Reynolds, Grassley and others on.

But ask yourself this question, are you any more free now than you were four years ago in Iowa? The answer is likely no, particularly if you are an employee of a business or organization that was happy for you to work from home during the pandemic, but now requires you back on-site (even though productivity increased), a school teacher trying to do your job but facing mobs who demand schools curriculum to be "inclusive" of right-winged propaganda and cruel to non-binary conforming kids, or a woman wanting to exercise your reproductive rights with very few exceptions or trying to access services for child care when there is a drastic shortage of options, or a recent graduate saddled with debt and with a degree that was limited due to COVID protocols. 

It is unlikely that the Republicans will be able to push their agenda far in Washington, DC (though not through a lack of trying and likely to gum the works to make the case that Joe Biden isn't fit to lead because they will create distractions and posture about things that Biden would likely veto if he is the last line of defense) and that is precisely why voting in this mid-term election is so important on a local and state level. State legislatures like here in Iowa are likely to pass more legislation that constricts women's reproductive rights, continues to pull public funds away from public education and limit the scope of educational curriculums and supports, and continues to cut taxes and simultaneously making funding for state-supported social services including public health, mental health, child care, and alternatives to mandatory sentencing even more limited. In Iowa's case because of budget surpluses, there is no reason to rob Peter while simultaneously starving Paul, but it will likely happen because they are determined to showcase how awful government can be when you cave to special interests and stop it from doing the one basic thing government is supposed to do, support the people who need a leg up.

The majority of Republican leaders whose names aren't Cheney or Kinzinger, have told us that they are the thin red line between elections being fair and square, but what seems to be true is that they are just sour and sore losers. Even when their own tell them that elections have not been rigged, they "believe" they are and have right-winged disciples foment dissent. Their message seems to be we'll stop the step by stealing rights. In Iowa, you could vote early and be pretty sure your vote would be counted. Now, if you have a piece of handwritten information wrong on your early voting packet, your vote could be nullified. 

No, the big lie is that Republicans are going to make you freer by their policies that hurt women, blue and white collar workers, parents, and lower-income individuals (many of whom are of the white, Christian, evangelicals that are their own true-believing base). They are dogging Joe Biden because he has worked hard to provide opportunities to more Americans than his predecessors and during a time when the global supply chain is playing catch up due to unleashed demand post-Covid and with corporate interests raking in massive profits, especially those in the gas/oil industry. I get it. Whoever has the wheel is always faulted for whatever people are worried about in the moment. The difference here is that Republicans are not offering better ideas, just mean-spirited critique.

In Iowa, our current governor is counting on a landslide victory so that she may run the table and set herself up for future political mountain climbing. She hopes to have an Attorney General to due her bidding in suing the federal government over policies that she does not agree, she hopes to have a auditor who will look the other way while she uses state and federal funds at her personal discretion, and have a secretary of state who will continue to look for measures that make voting more difficult and support the party. The biggest lie of all is that any of this is a good idea. Iowa that would be in the control of only one party can look to places like Kansas to see how that experiment went.  Thankfully, even Kansas saw the error of its way and has surprised the nation in a good way recently.

Big lies are easy enough to pull off for a minute, but it takes a commitment from voters to reverse course. For the sake of Iowa, I hope that voters are committed to staunch the bleeding.

Iowa Attorney General Race: Why it Matters

 Iowans will have a decision on November 8th, stick with 10-term-serving Democrat Tom Miller as Attorney General or give Kim Reynolds her own AG by electing Republican Brenna Bird. Tom Miller has been a thorn in the side of Iowa governors, Branstad and Reynolds, by not supporting their politically-motivated initiatives. However, he has been effective in serving Iowans by accomplishing the following:

Miller led the roughly three-year-long multi-state negotiations in the effort to settle with several U.S. banks over alleged abuses and faulty documentation used in the seizure of homes since the crisis began in 2008. The deal was expected to give up to $40 billion to struggling homeowners, and an estimated "1 million U.S. homeowners who were "underwater" on their mortgages.

His office has helped hundreds of thousands of Iowans with complaints about wide-ranging topics, including "improper debt collection practices, telemarketing fraud and abuse, charity fraud, predatory lending, mortgage, and vehicle complaints.  His office's undercover telephone lines have helped reduce telemarketing crimes that cheat older Iowans and people all over the nation."  

He has also successfully taken on the tobacco industry and through the courts has caused them to pay billions in settlements across multiple states. He continues to work to reduce youth tobacco addiction.

Miller has also established "the nation’s first-ever farm division in an attorney general’s office". Since then, the division has had success in cases against agricultural chemical companies and has "consistently defended farmers against big agricultural companies," according to the Iowa Attorney General's website.

Miller also has "taken a lead in holding accountable the drug companies and others who contributed to the opioid crisis... will work to challenge corporate mergers that would potentially harm Iowa consumers and farmers and... looking into concentration in the fertilizer industry, which has led to high prices for farmers."

Further, Miller issued a report citing "overwhelming" incidents of abuse and "extensive" cover-up that spanned decades in detailing 50 complaints his office received about allegations of sexual impropriety by Catholic clergy, non-clergy or spiritual leaders — including 17 victims who had not previously come forward to report abuse to authorities.

Finally, Miller is a pro-choice and called the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade "a terrible mistake." He said, "I believe that women should essentially make this choice," he said. "That they should have the freedom from government intervention to make this decision with their family, if necessary, and, of course, with a doctor." Miller declined to defend the "fetal heartbeat" law, calling it "far, far too restrictive on women."

 In the wake of a measure passed in 2019 by the Republican-led Iowa Legislature that would have limited the attorney general’s powers to go after Trump administration policies, Miller and GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds agreed he would seek her permission before joining any multistate lawsuits. Under that agreement, she vetoed the bill. The Associated Press reported last year that Reynolds had subsequently denied two-thirds of Miller’s requests.

Miller said the current system works for choosing judges, but he opposes the Republican-backed law that gave the governor more power in choosing people to serve on the state judicial nominating commission.

Contrasting Miller with Brenna Bird, who is the current Guthrie County Attorney, Guthrie county has a population of 10,623 as of the 2020 census) was elected in 2018 and is president-elect of the Iowa County Attorneys Association. She previously worked for former Gov. Terry Branstad and former Congressman Steve King. She has been on record that she "would back our law enforcement, hold the Biden administration accountable and seek justice for victims of crimes." 

She is on record for supporting the 6-week abortion ban saying she would have defended a 2018 Iowa law that would ban most abortions as early as six weeks into pregnancy. “I’m 100 percent pro-life, and it will be my job as attorney general to defend the law that the legislature would pass,” Bird said. She has declined to say what kinds of abortion restrictions she might recommend to lawmakers.

Bird also has said she would like to "Give Biden the Bird" and sue the president over COVID requirements, water quality regulations and U.S.-Mexico border policies, key issues for Governor Reynolds who has potential aspirations for higher office and has been speculated as a potential GOP Vice-President nominee.

Bird's willingness to walk lock-step with the Governor has won her a ringing endorsement by Reynolds, but also of Donald Trump, though she accepts the results of the 2020 election, she said, “I do believe that Joe Biden is our president, I have a lot of concerns, though, about election integrity” while simultaneously praising Iowa's election laws.

Latest polling data shows Miller with a 16% lead over Bird, but polling for down ticket races is notoriously limited. If you are an Iowan who really believes our state motto, "Our Liberties We Prize and Our Rights We Will Maintain," it is clear that there are important differences between these to candidates and keeping Tom Miller as AG should be at the top of your ticket.