Fomented fear is killing civil society

Iowans do not like change. It might be our strongest attribute. Sen. Chuck Grassley has been in politics since 1959. Terry Branstad holds the national record for longest tenure as governor. A third of us probably think we should return to six-girl basketball.

Despite stubborn resistance, change swept over the amber waves of maize.

Iowans who twice voted for Barack Obama gave up on hope and change and rolled with fear and resentment.

“I think there's a larger number of Iowans than we realize who are so terrified of the modern world that they will still choose the party of economic devastation over the Democrats, who stand for everything that frightens them. They would rather be poor than scared,” wrote Tom Snee, who lives in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Johnson County.

Snee is a fellow St. Thomas journalism alumnus, so he must be smart. His reply on Facebook last week to my column about Trump losing support in Iowa was brilliant:

“What frightens them is women who don't need men anymore, Black people who call out racism when they see it, Americans who don't speak English, gays who can get married, trans people who are allowed to exist. Our culture has changed at an incredibly rapid pace the last 20 years and a lot of people feel unmoored and frightened as a result. Trump acknowledges their fear and validates it, tells them they should be afraid of the people they're afraid of. They're OK if he wrecks the economy and destroys democratic institutions, as long as he continues to acknowledge their fear and promises to protect them from it.”

Nobody likes to admit fear or that emotions drive their politics. Iowans like to imagine that resentment is not part of their psyche. But it’s sort of hinky to vote for deporting Mexicans while demanding their cheap labor on the kill floor or in the milking parlor.

Trans people have been around since Cain and Abel. Mexicans have been migrating through Storm Lake since I was a sprout. Iowa won the Civil War. Change might not be as great as we imagine it. What has changed dramatically are our prospects. The family farm picked up and left, and the Maytag repairman got transferred to Juarez. There is no Amalgamated Meatcutters union in Storm Lake. Rural voters have a legitimate beef that the economy has left us behind.

Democrats can’t reclaim rural voters by mocking them. It makes sense to attack the source of the fear: a system that doesn’t value our labor.

If you are fighting the Mexican you are distracted from actually draining the swamp. If you think gay marriage is a sin don’t perform the service in your church; otherwise, quit minding my business that does not infringe on yours. If you have a problem with drag queens, they will never play girls basketball in Hull and you are not required to go to their show in Iowa City.

Now let’s talk business: Don’t you believe in open and transparent markets for cattle producers, country of origin labeling, and vaccination from avian flu for dairy herds? Don’t you believe that more medical research, and not less, could be done at the University of Iowa? Shouldn’t federal funds help support research in Ames into crop genetics to keep our food supply secure?

Reasonable people need to be able to flip the script and engage rural voters on issues that matter. Why do we lack medical technology in the boondocks? Why do we never get ahead despite the tax cuts? Why is Iowa sliding relative to the rest of the country in school test scores after years and years of Republican rule? Why is our economy shrinking? Why is our cancer rate rising?

I would like to talk to my former bros about this, but I admit to the sin of pride that prevents reconciliation. It’s hard for any of us to admit that we are wrong, such as when you ship the wrong guy to a prison in El Salvador or illegally deport without court hearing a four-year-old boy, a US citizen, suffering from cancer to a death sentence in Honduras. Or that refusing to acknowledge the spread of avian flu will contain it. Or that piping CO2 to fracking holes in North Dakota makes sense.

Those conversations don’t happen as much anymore. People are going to believe what they are told, if they are told it enough. Propaganda. That’s what keeps us apart. Facts matter: We are deporting US citizens without a court hearing, something unheard of before in the land of the free. Trump wants that fight, and so do a lot of old boys I know. That is tough to reconcile until the facts seep through: They could lock you up next in a prison in El Salvador, this trade war with China is wrecking a lot of pension accounts, and Elon Musk has your Medicare records on a laptop somewhere. The Iowa Legislature fosters a stench over the land that is a side-effect of the corporate plundering of our wealth. Could we talk about that? Could we start there? Do you fear trans basketball over toxic rivers?

Art Cullen is the editor of the Storm Lake Times Pilot in Northwest Iowa, where this column appeared. For more columns and editorials, please consider a subscription to the Times Pilot. Or, if you wish, you can make a tax-deductible gift to the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation to support independent community journalism in rural Iowa. Thanks.

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