The Great Republican Migration Is About to Begin in Iowa
They hope your memory is as bad as their judgment
(WASHINGTON. D.C.) — Like the migratory ducks and geese that fly over Iowa each Fall, a similar “migration” will soon begin for Iowa Republicans hoping general election voters will soon forget that MAGA style extremism was their style in the 18 months of the second Trump regime.
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) - With the Iowa Republican primary elections and state convention now behind them, look for the “Great Republican Migration” to begin in earnest in the immediate days and weeks ahead.
Watch for Iowa congressional Republicans to migrate to create more “bi-partisan” images, even though they have been hard core MAGA partisan extremists up to now.
They repeatedly adopted the MAGA / Trump style extremism to avoid Republican primaries where MAGA voters wield great influence.
General elections are a different matter.
MAGA extremism may attract voters in Republican primaries. but are more likely to repel in general elections, where winners must reach beyond their ideological base.
Don’t misunderstand. Their actual position on the political spectrum won’t change. What they vote for and against won’t change. Only their rhetoric will moderate - and that just a little - as they try to bamboozle non-MAGA voters into believing they are not the Trump extremists the record clearly shows them to be.
They hope general election voters will forget their constant genuflecting to Trump; their abandonment of their congressional oversight responsibilities; their blank check support for Trump’s unconstitutional war in Iran; their silence in the face of Trump’s long string of broken promises; the blind eyes they turned toward Trump’s non-stop corruption, etc. (This list can go on and on.)
They know that general election voters forgetting those sad and sorry records is the only way they can win in November.
Trump will not be the “wind beneath their sails” they were hoping he would be when compiling those records that please Trump but hurt Iowa.
Trump will have little to no coat tails here.
Republicans who win, will have to do so on their own.
Trump, himself - public opinion polls prove this - is in the midst of general disintegration. Even significant numbers of Republicans are experiencing a bad case of “buyers remorse” as the many failures of Trump’s policies come into focus and his general corruption becomes increasingly blatant and systematic.
Many others who have voted for Trump in the past are now thoroughly disgusted by him and won’t consider doing so again.
Iowa Republicans in Congress can’t erase their records, but they can use rhetoric that they hope will soothe voters concerned about their extremism, corruption, and abandonment of responsibilities assigned to Congress by the Constitution.
For an example of what to look for as this “migration” gets underway, turn your attention to US Rep. Zach Nunn (R-3rd IA) who has been on this road for some time now (and doing it badly.)
Nunn jams the word “bi-partisan” into most of his press releases. As if saying he is bi-partisan actually makes it so.
Every time I read a Nunn press release, I’m reminded of a story President Abraham Lincoln reportedly used to tell:
“If you count the tail on a horse as a leg, how many legs does a horse have?” Lincoln used to ask visitors. They would inevitably reply “Five.”
“No. Just four,” Lincoln would reply. “Saying a horse’s tail is a leg doesn’t make it so.”
Nunn can say the word “bi-partisan” as often and as loudly as he wants, but it doesn’t make him a “bi-partisan” member of Congress. His record is one of a Trump acolyte and that record cannot be erased by misleading rhetoric.
Nunn is such a Trump errand boy that when he thought about running for Governor of Iowa, his first stop was the White House, to ask for Trump’s permission. When Trump told him to “forget about it,” Nunn readily agreed to drop his planned candidacy, went home and ballyhooed Trump’s endorsement for his re-election race - to the US House seat he already held.
That support was a “given” before Nunn even visited the White House to ask permission to run for Iowa Governor, given his rigid, lock step, march behind all things Trump.
Yet we’re supposed to forget about what we’ve seen with our own eyes, heard with our own ears, and witnessed with nearly every vote Nunn cast during his time in Congress, because he put the word “bi-partisan” in a press release?
Zach Nunn is bi-partisan in the same way that I’m a leaping Lipizzaner Stallion. Which is to say, not at all. He is on board for Trump’s highly partisan, right wing agenda every step of the way.
Claiming otherwise is false. It is an attempt to fool voters.
Nunn knows that with Trump’s general collapse and steady deterioration on issues, Nunn has to convince voters he is something he is not - because what he is, a flaming MAGA, right wing, authoritarianism, Trump supporter - has lost much of its former “market value.”
The same with Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-2nd IA). She’s an enthusiastic supporter of Trump’s illegal war in Iran, even though she identifies it as a political burden in her race for US Senate. Apparently, it’s a burden she’s all too happy to bear. She’s said or done nothing to stop it, and has voted to allow it to continue without an authorization by Congress.
Hinson also apparently shares Trump’s disinterest in enacting a long over due Farm Bill to replace the that expired in 2023. She has done nothing real to drive any action on it before or after it expired.
Across the board, few of the votes Hinson has cast have any daylight between them and Trump and his far right MAGA agenda.
But don’t expect Hinson to tell it that way on the campaign trail.
She’s already claiming to be “bi-partisan.”
Again, truth be told: she’s bi-partisan in the same way Count Dracula loves to work on his tan in bright sunshine.
As the campaign accelerates and moves beyond the hard core, right wing universe of primary voters, look for Iowa Republicans to increasingly attempt to convince Iowa general election voters that they are anything but the Trump acolytes they enthusiastically became to get past possible primary challenges.
To win, voters need to forget about their full support of Trump’s corrupt, fascist, authoritarian policies which only make the issues and problems he once promised to to fix “on day one” grow rapidly worse.
They’ll still “talk MAGA” to Republican audiences, of course. But for general audiences, look for them to tone the MAGA rhetoric down and pose as much more reasonable people.
Their rhetoric will metaphorically shout “Pay no attention to the MAGA extremism, silence in the face of Trump corruption, and the illegal wars behind the curtain.”
Your job? Pay attention. Don’t forget. Hold them all accountable.
OVER-DUE FARM BILL NOW 987 DAYS LATE
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) — Iowa’s congressional “Can’t Do Caucus” still can’t get it done when it comes to enacting a new Farm Bill to replace the one that was written in 2018 and expired on September 30, 2023. That date is not typo. The basic federal farm program that family farmers urgently need to plan their crop years has been one big black hole on Capitol Hill for 987 days, as of Sunday, June 14.
As representatives of a major farm state, the economy of which depends heavily on agriculture, Iowans in Congress had and still have a special responsibility to ensure that old Farm Bill did not expire before a new one was in place, and to enact a new one as soon as possible if that - once unthinkable - deadline for a new one was missed.
Iowa’s “Can’t Do Caucus” - and the rest of Congress - failed to meet both challenges. A new Farm Bill continues to “twist slowly, slowly in the wind,” unenacted to this day.
Two thirds of Iowa congressional delegation bear special responsibility for these failures, the four who sit on chairs at their respective Agriculture Committees.
(Given their actual results, it seems a bit of a stretch to say they “serve on” the Agriculture Committee, so I’m going with the “sit on chairs” at the Agriculture Committee as a more accurate description of what they do.)
The four Iowans who are especially culpable for the failure to enact a new Farm Bill for 987 days and still counting are: US Reps. Zach Nunn (R-3rd IA) and Randy Feenstra (R-4th IA); in the Senate: Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Joni Ernst (R-IA).
You can call them special Iowa’s Profiles in Failure, when it comes to the Farm Bill.
The remaining two members of Iowa’s “Can’t Do Caucus” when it comes to the Farm Bill: Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-1st IA) and Ashley Hinson (R-2nd IA) who seems to think her failure to see that a new Farm Bill is enacted in a timely manner deserves a promotion to the US Senate.
SOUNDBITES & RUMBLES
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) - Donald Trump, in his mind is never wrong. When he lost his 2020 re-election, it had to be because he was the victim of a rigged and stolen election.
It was pathetic to watch then, and as he continues whining, it is still pathetic to witness.
He has never offered ANY credible evidence to back up that big lie. Don’t take my word for it. Federal and state courts have repeatedly ruled against him for exactly that reason.
Trump’s is also rationalizing his last minute endorsement of Republican gubernatorial primary loser Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-4th IA) as another adventure in victimhood.
It wasn’t Trump’s fault. He was given bad information.
As is always the case with Trump, the “buck stops” over there. Not here.
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“Your job? Pay attention. Don’t forget. Hold them all accountable.”
Excellent advice! Thank you.
Barry, as always you never disappoint. Thank you for pointing to these plodding examples of more pertinent legislative activity-like passing the farm bill while showing nothing for it but regress and denial of responsibility-at least the U.S. House passed its version but the Senate has yet to come up with its version. It seems the only action that they’ve done is to grease the wheels of authoritarianism by appropriating two massive budget packages $140 billion (2025), and an additional $70 billion package (2026) to ICE/CBP and to vote and act on how their leader wants them to vote, not the way their constituents have asked them to consider voting as alternatives.
Like you said there are so many examples of just towing the line, but to name a few: the Medicaid budget was significantly severed which will result in an estimated 120K Iowans being whittled away from health insurance due to changing qualifications to receive care. Or not extending the ACA tax credits, causing over an estimated 100K Iowans and their dependents to not have any healthcare insurance over the next ten years. It is estimated that by the end of 2026, more than 25K Iowans will have stopped their ACA enrollment coverage due to the rising cost of monthly premiums. Roughly 27% of farmers and rural households in Iowa have the ACA as their healthcare insurance. The harm upon dependents in those households is shameful thanks to these lockstep lackeys, voting for OBBBA legislation to give themselves and their billionaire lobbyist friends shameful privileges and tax cuts, in addition to executive level healthcare.