Iowa's "Silent Six" In Congress Mum in Wake of Trump's Latest Violent Threat
Their silence stands in stark contrast to more responsible leaders, pillars in Iowa's political history
Last week I wrote about the troubling silence - cowardice - of Iowa’s congressional delegation which can’t muster the courage to tell 2024 Republican presidential nominee and 34x convicted felon Donald Trump to knock off the Hitler Fan Boy talk coming out of his mouth lately.
On Friday, the “Silent Six” doubled down on their silence after Trump started fantasizing aloud in Arizona about executing former US Rep. Liz Cheney.
Trump seemed to be suggesting that former US Rep Liz Cheney - current Republican and a Vice President Kamala Harris supporter - should face a firing squad: “Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with 9 barrels shooting at her. Let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face.”
Cheney said she views Trump’s violent remarks and imagery as an attempt to intimidate her.
Arizona’s Attorney General Kris Mayes says she’s investigating Trump’s threatening remarks as a possible crime.
Countless professional observers said such talk is quite dangerous, given how high tensions are in the final days of an election campaign in which democracy is literally on the line; and also given that some Trump supporters have proven to be easily manipulated by his rhetoric into violent action. Exhibit A: the January 6 mob he gathered and sent to the Capitol to violently overthrow democracy.
All six Iowans in Congress - Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Joni Ernst (R-IA); Representatives Mariannette Miller Meeks (R-1st IA); Ashley Hinson (R-2nd IA), Zach Nunn (R-3rd IA), and Randy Feenstra (R-4th IA) - the “Silent Six” - said nothing.
Let me say that again: They. Said. Nothing.
All. Six.
Trump was talking about how he considers Cheney a coward. In her principled and active opposition to Trump and the threat he presents to democracy, she’s actually proven herself to be to be anything but. She’s one of the bravest Americans in the country. So count his slur against her as just one more of his thousands of lies.
Trump claimed that Cheney is willing to vote for wars, but not fight in wars herself. That’s a very strange topic for a five time Vietnam War draft dodger to bring up.
But that’s a different story for another day.
It is a mistake, however, to dismiss his threat against Cheney, and others, as just Trump being nuts because there’s plenty more crazy talk where that came from. He’s threatened to execute his former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and use the military against citizens who oppose him - citizens he now calls “enemies of the people.”
Clearly the man has violence and retribution on his mind and on his agenda. His language is straight out of the fascist dictator’s play book, and plenty of would be fascist dictators - once in office - have absolutely followed through with their threats.
So if we dismiss or ignore him, we do so at our own peril.
Yet, Iowa’s “Silent Six” act as though this is just another walk in the park day.
It isn’t. If any one of them were real leaders, responsible leaders, they would say so. But they aren’t and they don’t.
It hasn’t always been this way in Iowa. We’ve had leaders - not so long ago - who were not spineless and had the courage to do the right thing when higher ups in their own political party were in or heading for the ditch.
Two who immediately come to mind are Governor Bob Ray (R-IA) and Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA).
Last year in this space I wrote a column about an interview I had with Ray back in 1973 when he visited the Iowa State University campus in Ames. Early that evening, shortly before Ray’s arrival on campus, news crossed the wires that then Vice President Spiro Agnew, a Republican from Maryland, was being investigated for well supported allegations of accepting cash bribes as Vice President.
Which turned out to be true.
I was a cub reporter. When I caught up with the Governor to get his reaction to the Agnew news, I was apparently the first to share it with him. (Waaay before the days of smart phones, obviously.”)
Ray’s response was immediate and scathing. “This is the first I’m hearing this, but if it is true, then he needs to get scalded,” Ray said.
That’s how a leader who cares about the integrity of our government reacts when leaders in his own party do something stupid, or even illegal. Not with crickets. Not by pretending nothing happened. Not with silence. But with “he needs to get scalded.”
U.S. Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) provides another example of positive, responsible leadership. Harkin was a three term member of the U.S. House when President Jimmy Carter announced imposition of a grain embargo against the Soviet Union as a US sanction for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
(Full disclosure: I was Harkin’s Communications Director in the US House at this time.)
To put it mildly, farmers were not happy with the embargo. Harkin represented Iowa’s Fifth District then and was a member of the House Agriculture Committee. He shared the opposition of Iowa farmers to the grain embargo.
Harkin was a relatively new member of Congress at the time - in just his third term - but his bona fides with Carter were strong: in 1976, he was the first major Democratic office holder in Iowa to endorse Carter’s first presidential candidacy, in the state that put Carter on the map as a presidential contender.
Harkin had a lot to lose by taking Carter on over the grain embargo.
It also would have been easy for him to remain silent, offering up the excuse of party unity, clearing his throat and noting that the president was from his party and involved in a re-election campaign. Hey, what are you going to do?
He did not chose that route. He put his head down and plunged ahead, taking Carter head on.
The 1980 Iowa Caucuses were already completed by that point in time, but the Iowa Democratic Party’s district conventions still had yet to take place. They were also an important part of the Democratic convention delegate selection process.
Harkin used that fact as his leverage and began musing aloud - and in the ears of a few well placed national political reporters - that he’d take his fight against the grain embargo directly to Carter as a favorite son candidate in the Iowa Democratic Party’s district conventions.
Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) was running against Carter for the 1980 nomination for president, so the prospect of Harkin possibly peeling away Carter’s delegates at the district conventions in Iowa and beyond was not an insignificant matter. It was a real complication for Carter’s campaign.
President Carter, himself, was one of the first to take notice. Harkin soon received a phone call from the president, inviting him to the Oval Office where Harkin made his case directly to the president against the embargo.
Iowa once had responsible political leaders and Bob Ray and Tom Harkin were what that leadership looked like. Leaders speak up. They don’t hide and enable national leaders, who are on the wrong path, with their silence. They do the right thing and insist that others do so as well.
Back to the present day. It has now come to this: The current Republican nominee for president, Donald Trump, can suggest that a former member of Congress, a former Republican leader in the House, one of their own former colleagues in Congress should be executed, and Iowa’s “Silent Six” in Congress can’t or won’t find the courage to say anything against it!
What good are they, really, if they can’t even clear that low bar?
By the way, if they can’t even do that, is there any reason to think they’ll ever muster up the courage to speak up and convince Congress to finally enact a new Farm Bill to replace the one that expired in 2023?
I don’t think so. Speaking up isn’t their strong suit.
We like to think Trump’s corruption and rot is limited to him. It is not.
It’s firmly planted on Iowa’s door step now with the “Silent Six” and their inability to speak up with courage, integrity, and a sense of urgency when they see fascism, corruption and grave threats to democracy right under their nose.
I remember the years of Ray and Harkin well. Without thinking about it, I just knew they would do what's right. The same goes for Liz Cheney. She and I will never agree on our politics, but she has become one of my heroes. The Silent Six? I don’t even think about them, as it's just a big black hole. But come election time? I will be thinking a lot about how I can help to get them out.
You are 💯per cent right, in my book, Barry. But at least we have columnists, like you, who DO speak up. Thank you. I am grateful for your rebuke and saying aloud what many of us see and believe. I appreciate your ‘inside with Harkin’ perspective as well. We are so lucky to have you in Iowa.