Jason Benell lives in Des Moines with his wife and two children. He is a combat veteran, former city council candidate, and president of Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers. This essay first appeared on his Substack newsletter, The Odd Man Out.
A little over a year ago I wrote a piece called “America Needs Farmers, Just Not Their Politics.” It is probably one of my most read pieces, which somewhat broke containment before I even had a space of my own on Substack. I felt like it was a worthwhile endeavor to check back in, since I wrote that piece before the 2024 election.
We’ve had a year to see how the active rural voting parts of our state, alongside the big agricultural entities like the Iowa Farm Bureau and Iowa Soybean Association, would handle the increased turmoil in a Trump administration.
Maybe there would be a break in the rightward shift and a bit of self-reflection when it comes to water quality, air pollution, rural infrastructure, public schools, cancer rates, and healthcare access and its costs. Maybe we would see a bit of a pause in the narrative about rural folks seemingly placing culture war issues above the well being of themselves and their neighbors.
Perhaps with the Trump administration we would see the oft-promised “rebuke” to our trading partners, pushing dollars into the pockets of rural Iowa with tough trade deals and protectionist policies. We might even see some of those Big Ag entities held to account. with a new sheriff in town standing up for the Little Guy!
All of the above was wishful thinking.
Instead, we see Republican candidates applauding discrimination against minority religious groups, a paltry drop in the bucket for food banks instead of funding SNAP benefits, more stern words about voluntary environmental compliance for farmers instead of action, and a lock step Iowa delegation absolutely opposed to any meaningful action on health care affordability and access.
We see more of the same.
Rather than an indignant and angry rural and Republican voter base battering down doors of their representatives and senators, crashing social media with anger, or demanding more access to their leaders….we hear silence.
Strangely, these small communities don’t seem to care that much once the spotlight isn’t on them anymore. Republican members of Congress famously dodged public town halls earlier this year, as angry voters confronted them at every turn across the country.
The Iowa delegation’s solution? Small, private events with limited notice and availability, if they had them at all. Some cancelled public appearances, daring their constituents to do anything about it. Rather than make this a huge deal for their Republican leaders, the struggling rural voters seemingly went back to their social media, went back to football games, and waited for the next culture war issue.
Republican leadership dared their base to hold them accountable. The base blinked and walked away.
Republican voters are very much OK with extra-judicial killings of civilians. They seem to be perfectly fine with the way things are going so long as it seems like it isn’t impacting them. Food assistance was cut, and suddenly social media was filled with reasons why some kids just don’t need to eat as much.
ICE started detaining and deporting nonviolent immigrants and even American citizens, and the silence from most residents of these communities remains striking.
Food and energy prices are increasing under the current Republican federal and state leadership, and still, we hear them grumble about “socialism” in a city on the East coast, thousands of miles away.
Shoot, the Trump administration torpedoed soybean export deals with China, Iowa’s largest purchaser of soybeans, announced massive subsidies to Argentina (a competitor in selling soybeans), and literally torpedoes boats in the Caribbean (which constitutes a war crime). Instead of Republicans howling to the moon and back about their business being threatened and government overreach, we are getting new propaganda institutions at the state universities and new iterations of fear over DEI and “woke.”
Where are the farmers? Where are the “shirt off your back” rural Iowa communities when it comes to helping their neighbors? Where are the “law and order” Iowans, who supposedly care about due process and supporting veterans, as some veterans have been deported? Where are hard working men and women who want a safe and healthy future for their children? Are they asleep? Are they not paying attention?
Or do they just not care?
Make no mistake about who can help fix the terrible leadership at the top in Iowa: it is rural Republicans. These rural voters have an undue amount of power, sure, but they could actually use it for good. They could demand that GOP elected officials show up to town halls. They could clamor for the legislature to advance good bills that tackle issues like water quality, energy prices, cancer rates, and infrastructure, instead of assuming things won’t get done.
Rather than accept that costs will go up and health insurance premiums will massively increase, they could withhold support and votes until their leadership comes up with some kind of plan besides new ways to discriminate against citizens. They act as if it is some kind of negative external factor that “things will just get worse.”
Now that Joe Biden is out of the White House, rather than seeing all the rancor directed at him, we are instead met with silence. (Republicans have dominated Iowa for a decade, so there is literally nothing to blame Democrats for at this point at the state level. Not because they are wrong or have bad policy but because they haven’t had any control to enact anything.)
Strange, isn’t it?
We already know we don’t need their politics, they are toxic to the progress of our state. When rural Iowa controls politics, it drains our state of its young people, of its educated, of its workers. We get dogmatic thinking instead of evidence based solutions across the board. Whether it be how to manage our agriculture, how to structure our economy, how history and civics are taught, to actual religious dogma being used in place of the constitutionally protected rights of Iowan citizens.
But these folks aren’t even standing up for themselves anymore.
If we don’t need farmers’ politics, but we get them anyway, and it hurts themselves along with the state as a whole, what are they even here for?
P.S.—Shortly before I wrote this article, the Trump administration promised another bailout for farmers. How strange that another $12 billion in government handouts are OK for them, but investments in childhood education and nutrition is a bridge too far. These people are deeply immoral.
Final note: I feel compelled to point out the massive elephant in the room when discussing Republicans: this party is intentionally blocking investigations into high profile sexual assault, sex trafficking, and abuse of minors by high level Republican figures. This article focuses on rural Iowa politics, but GOP voters remain morally, ethically, and legally deficient on this point, especially since they have invoked supposed dangers to children to justify much of their opposition to civil rights for marginalized groups.
Top photo of a gravel road in rural Iowa is by Ken Schulze, available via Shutterstock.