Grassley Gets a Look at the Rubble His Legacy Has Become

It's now a monument to a senator who would not do his job to defend democracy

U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) got more than an “earful” from angry Iowans who packed his town hall meetings this past week. He got a good look at his legacy - once proud, but now a rusty, dusty pile of shattered rubble.

He has no one to blame but himself.

In his youth, Grassley earned a reputation as a fighter against wasteful spending, fraud and corruption. No one thinks of him that way today. No one will remember him that way in the future.

At age 91, Grassley has a new persona, one he’s been fashioning for more than a decade - a very partisan senator who follows the orders of his most partisan Republican leaders, and a senator who has enabled his party’s embrace of fascism, bigotry, and Trump’s “no need to hide it” massive corruption.

Grassley’s career has now reached the point where:

• Iowa voters literally laughed in Grassley’s face this week at a town hall meeting when he told them - with a straight face no less - that Elon Musk “has no power.”

• Grassley now feels the need to surround himself with a small army of police officers when attending a town hall meeting with Iowans, in Iowa. One might assume that after 50 years in Congress, Grassley might have earned at least a little affection from those who employ him and pay his salary, but if he ever did, he has clearly destroyed it all with his subservience to Trump and refusal to do his job and defend democracy.

• Grassley recently shrugged his shoulders and observed that there is really nothing he or Congress can do “except complain,” when he was asked what he was going to do to stop - or at least provide some oversight of Trump, Musk and their corrupt wrecking ball.

  After 50 years in Congress and becoming the most senior member of the U.S. Senate from either party, that’s the best he’s got?

  This from a senator who was willing to leap tall buildings in a single bound to discover the contents of Hunter Biden’s lap top?

  This from a senator who obtained and released raw FBI investigation files of a non-existent bribery scandal supposedly involving Joe Biden when he was Vice President - a “scandal” we now know was wholly manufactured by and pushed by Russian operatives working with Vladimir Putin?

In my younger days, I used to visit the Iowa Historical Building in Des Moines often. I remember being baffled during one visit when I accidentally stumbled upon a little curio cabinet tucked away in an out of the way corner. Its location was such that I’m pretty sure no more than a dozen people a month ever stumbled upon it, and how many of them paused to view its contents, I can’t even guess. Suffice it to say it was not a very prominent exhibit. At all.

Inside the curio cabinet a saddle used by an Iowa Civil War hero, Brigadier General William Belknap, was displayed. Not only was Belknap a Civil War General, President Grant appointed him to be America’s 30th Secretary of War.

I was puzzled by the almost embarrassing way Belknap’s artifacts were displayed at the building that celebrates and shares Iowa’s history

I was familiar with Belknap’s Civil War service from family history research I had done previously. Belknap began his Civil War service in the 15th Iowa Infranty, in which my Great-Great Grandfather served.

By all accounts, Belknap was both quite competent as a General and extremely popular with the soldiers who served under him. Why then, this almost invisible, very hard to find exhibit of a few of his Civil War artifacts? Why not a more prominent display of someone of whom Iowans should be proud? A good General who went on to serve in a president’s cabinet.

Some brief research revealed the answer.

Belknap turned out to be corrupt as Secretary of War. He and his wife were accused of accepting kickbacks from traders at Ft. Sill. He was impeached by the House - the first, and so far only, presidential cabinet member ever to be impeached - and acquitted by the Senate. A majority of Senators voted to convict him in his Senate trial, but not the necessary two-thirds.

The out of the way curio cabinet treatment became understandable.

Yes, he was a figure of some historical significance in Iowa, but not the fellow whose exhibit you want to be the one to welcome visitors at the front door of the state’s history museum. His failure to serve with honor, his failure to do his job honestly earned him the demotion in history to a generally forgotten and ignored, out of the way, curiosity relic.

I tell this story because whether he knows it or not, Chuck Grassley is on a very similar glide path to a curio cabinet tucked out of the way where few will see it in the state’s history. If he’s lucky.

It’s possible he will be remembered even more harshly.

At age 91, the day is coming - sooner, rather than later - when Chuck Grassley finally retires. There was a day when his retirement would have prompted honors and celebration for his congressional career. Those days are long gone.

Whatever made him popular early in his career has turned to insignificance as he enables the embracers of fascism, bigotry and blatant corruption. That’s how the angry Iowans who showed up at his town hall meetings think of him today.

What he may or may not have done in the far distant past barely matters.

When some of your last acts as a senator include enabling the destruction of American democracy and America’s government, does it really matter that you once complained about the Pentagon paying $500 for a hammer?

If Chuck Grassley wants to avoid a long term legacy that includes more than a curio cabinet stuck away in a seldom visited corner of the state’s history museum he needs to do the following - and sooner, rather than later:

• Stop enabling those who embrace fascism and start defending democracy;

• Stop his ridiculous claim that there is nothing he can do about the Trump/Musk MAGA demolition of the federal government except complain. Actually, complaining about it would be a good place to start. Grassley isn’t even complaining now. The senator needs to speak up. Object. Hold people accountable. Do his job.

• Use his power as a U.S. Senator and the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and those 33 investigators he claims to have, to stop the un-American assault on our government, by Trump, Musk and the other MAGA operatives.

• Start doing his job and make clear - as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee - that Trump is not above the law and will be held accountable.

• Start using his power to hold Musk and other MAGA operatives who are demolishing democracy and democratic institutions accountable for their lawlessness.

A Trump administration action is declared illegal or unconstitutional virtually every day courts are in session. Is it too much to ask that Iowa’s senior senator, the longest serving Republican senator in history, and the most senior senator of either party currently serving in the Senate to speak up, do his job, and defend democracy and democratic institutions?

I don’t think so.

If he doesn’t, he will have earned that curio cabinet that is waiting for him in a forgotten corner.

Instead of a saddle, Grassley’s curio cabinet ought to exhibit one of the protest signs that greeted him at his town hall meetings - a monument to a senator who would not do his job to defend democracy.

WEEKLY OVERDUE FARM BILL TRACKER - 539 DAYS: The number of days that have passed since the 2018 Farm Bill expired on September 30, 2023, without Congress passing a new one. (Total days as of Sunday, 03/23/2025).

Two thirds of Iowa’s congressional delegation serves on the U.S. House and Senate Agriculture Committees: Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Joni Ernst (R-IA) in the Senate; and Reps. Zach Nunn (R-3rd IA) and Randy Feenstra (R-4th) in the House and Representatives

The legislation sets national farm policy. It expired 539 days ago, and was last updated in 2018.

539 days without a new Farm Bill after the old one expired is an important milestone marking unprecedented failure by Congress - and the Iowans who serve on the Agriculture Committees in the House and Senate.

While the Trump administration is busy putting farm export market-destroying tariffs in place and trying to impose mass, random firings at the Department of Agriculture, the odds of a new Farm Bill that is actually helpful to farmers grows dimmer each day.

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