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.