Randy Evans is executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes openness and transparency in Iowa’s state and local governments. He can be reached at DMRevans2810@gmail.com. 

Several dozen people gathered in Monticello on June 21 for a citizen workshop the Grassroots Iowa Network organized to get more everyday Iowans engaged in the political process.

They spent the day listening to speakers (including me) and exchanging ideas and observations, without fear or reprisal. They lunched and learned.

Former officeholders and current office-seekers were there, too. So were people who have spent countless hours working on issues or on behalf of candidates.

Although there were no knee britches or tri-corner hats in sight, our nation’s Founders were there in spirit. The Founders would take comfort knowing those Iowans were exercising liberties so important that they stitched them into our Constitution in the First Amendment—the rights to freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, the right to assemble peaceably, and the right to petition our government for a redress of grievances.

Throughout our nation’s history people have exercised those rights with passion and vigor. We saw that a week ago when thousands of people gathered on the grounds of the Iowa capitol. We saw that in recent weeks when people gathered outside courthouses, federal buildings and in other public spaces from Alaska to Florida and from Maine to Hawaii.

Their cause is unimportant to the broader point, because increasingly when people exercise their First Amendment freedoms, others quickly label them in negative ways because they disagree with their viewpoints.

Even so, those neighbors who march peaceably do not hate the United States. They are not leftist Commies or right-wing nut jobs. They are not hell-bent on destroying our nation.

Just like the colonialists of 250 years ago, the people marching through the streets of America these days do so to express their dissatisfaction with the course the nation is taking. These people are willing to express their disappointment when government ignores, harasses or arrests people for what they think, how they look or what they say.

For me, it is time we again should celebrate those who march in America, or meet in Monticello, as the patriots they are. They deserve our respect, just as we revere the women and men in our military who defend our nation, all it stands for, and its core ideals that they fight to protect, including the right to think and speak in support of a cause, or the right to voice their dissent.

History supports this approach.

For most of our nation’s life, being a patriot did not mean you came only from one side. There were Revolutionaries, Continentals, Populists, Whigs, Agrarians and even contrarians, and each group walked the patriot walk and talked the patriot talk in their own way.

So, let’s encourage more citizen round tables and community marches, because they provide one measure of hope that our nation still stands solid and that better days will come.

Let’s hope Iowans who are Republicans, Democrats, independents, political agnostics, and maybe even a Whig or two, can gather and talk about facts and ideas, policies and problems, solutions and challenges—all without resorting to the name-calling that spews from some politicians.

Let’s make it so words like morons, lunatics, scum, losers, traitors, crooks get left on the elementary school playground. Our country does not benefit from such name-calling.

But Iowa can benefit from a renewed energy of engagement. We need people’s ideas. We need people who will step out of their comfort zone and respectfully disagree with the direction of our state and our nation. We need people who will stand up and demand answers from political candidates and especially from those already in office.

It does not matter who started this war of words. We must return to the civility that used to be a hallmark of our political discourse, when political leaders traded ideas, not insults. Nowadays, politicians scramble like Caitlin Clark with the basketball, except these leaders fall all over themselves to avoid answering questions.

A shining example illustrating the change in civility and our political dialogue occurred 53 years ago in a car traveling from Washington, D.C., to Iowa.

It was in the summer of 1972. Congressional redistricting after the census had thrown two incumbent members of the U.S. House into the same newly drawn Congressional district. One was Democrat Neal Smith of Altoona, and the other was Republican John Kyl of Bloomfield.

These two Washington veterans were campaigning against each other. One would win, and the other would be out of a job. That summer, their wives wanted to escape the summer heat in Washington and get home to Iowa.

The way they did that is memorable—and a lesson for all of us. Their example of civility gets at the heart of Iowa values and respect for those with whom we may disagree on politics, but with whom we probably agree on many other matters. 

Think about this: Bea Smith and Arlene Kyl traversed half a continent by carpooling with each other. 

I am not suggesting we must suppress our differences of opinions. Far from that. But it costs us nothing to treat those with whom we disagree as decent human beings, as neighbors, and as potential friends.

We all need to do our part to restore civility to our political discourse. That applies to us as voters. It most assuredly applies to those we elect to lead us.

And, most of all, we need it to remain patriots ourselves.

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A footnote: The Grassroots Iowa Network invited me to deliver closing remarks at the Monticello event. You can read those remarks on my Substack newsletter, Stray Thoughts.