Herb Strentz was dean of the Drake School of Journalism from 1975 to 1988 and professor there until retirement in 2004. He was executive secretary of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council from its founding in 1976 to 2000.

On June 1, 1950, U.S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith (a Republican from Maine) delivered a speech that she called her “Declaration of Conscience.” She targeted fellow Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin and the fear, hate mongering, and divisiveness that was tearing the nation apart in McCarthy’s anti-Communist crusade to make America great again.

Seventy-five years after Smith showed courage and patriotism, Republican Senator Joni Ernst took the opposite path. She mocked a Iowan who cried out against GOP legislation and MAGA efforts that divide the nation today.

“WE ALL ARE GOING TO DIE”

At a town hall meeting on May 30 in Parkersburg (Butler County), a constituent had shouted “people will die” because of severe cuts to Medicaid and food assistance in President Donald Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill.”

Ernst was dismissive, saying, “Well, we all are going to die.” After that comment made national news and drew condemnation, the senator mocked concerns about the cuts in a satiric “apology” posted to Instagram. She likened concerns about the Republican bill to someone who believes in the tooth fairy.

Our nation desperately needed Senator Smith in 1950.

We need her courage now.

Instead we get Ernst—a Trump acolyte—and Trump, whose policies and statements may hasten the reality that “We’re all going to die.”

Here are some excerpts from Senator Smith’s speech, which rang true 75 years ago and ring true today:

I would like to speak briefly and simply about a serious national condition. It is a national feeling of fear and frustration that could result in national suicide and the end of everything that we Americans hold dear. […]

I speak as a Republican, I speak as a woman. I speak as a United States Senator. I speak as an American. […]

Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism—

The right to criticize;

The right to hold unpopular beliefs;

The right to protest;

The right of independent thought.

The exercise of these rights should not cost one single American citizen his reputation or his right to a livelihood nor should he be in danger of losing his reputation or livelihood merely because he happens to know some one who holds unpopular beliefs. […] The American people are sick and tired of seeing innocent people smeared and guilty people whitewashed.

Laura Belin covered well the Ernst comments and the deserved outrage in response.

Some recent news events serve as a reminder that politicians still try to score points through fearmongering.

RED CHINA—A RED HERRING?

We’ll have to deal with the tone of Ernst’s Parkersburg reaction time and again in the coming year and a half as we cope with political campaigns, including Ernst’s bid for re-election and the possibility that U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra (IA-04) may run for governor on the MAGA ticket. 

The two are already into fearmongering, proposing companion legislation in the Senate and the House of Representatives to deal with our “foreign enemies”—nations that are supposedly gobbling up Iowa farmland. Their bills call for the Foreign Agricultural Restrictions to Maintain Local Agriculture and National Defense (FARMLAND) Act.

In a news release casting China as the bogeyman, Ernst declared, “For far too long, an outdated system has allowed China’s malign influence to threaten our security by buying up our nation’s land.”

Feenstra has struck a similar tone of fear. The debut television commercial for his “exploratory” campaign for governor bragged that Feenstra is “leading the fight” to stop China from buying Iowa farmland. And in a news release in March, the Iowa Republican said, “I firmly believe that American farmland belongs to American farmers, and I will continue to lead the fight to protect our farmers and ensure that our farms are passed onto the next generation, not our foreign enemies.”

“Foreign enemies”?

The only “enemy” mentioned in either news release is China — four mentions in each. For good measure, the Ernst release also tosses in “Chinese” once.

OUR ALLIES MAKE A “FOREIGN ENEMIES” LIST

If we follow Ernst and Feenstra and their fear of foreigners controlling Iowa farmland, Iowa’s top five enemies in 2010 would have been Italy, Portugal, France, Germany and, in a four-way tie for fifth, Canada, the Netherlands, Liechtenstein (!), and Sweden.

(Liechtenstein, with a 2010 population of about 35,000, may have made the list, a friend suggested, because the purchasers were from another nation but made the Iowa buy through Liechtenstein for tax purposes.) 

A recent Iowa State University report, Corporate and Foreign Land Ownership in Iowa, provided data on foreign ownership or leasing of Iowa farmland in 2010 and 2021.

The eight listed “enemies” uncovered in the 2010 survey combined to own or lease 0.56 percent of Iowa farmland. (The four countries tied for fifth place each were listed at about one-hundredth of 1 percent, 0.01.)

The top five “foreign enemies” in 2021 were Canada, Italy, France, Portugal and Spain. They combined to own 1.41 percent of Iowa farmland. 

China did not make either top ten list of foreign nations controlling Iowa farmland. 

The ISU report concludes: 

The topic of land ownership, especially by corporations and foreign entities, has garnered a lot of attention recently, with specific concerns about land ownership by US adversaries. It is important to note that, first, the total amount of Iowa land owned and leased by foreign entities is quite small, making up less than 2% of Iowa farmland. Second, most of that interest comes from wind and solar energy companies, similar to the nationwide trend.

CORPORATE OWNERSHIP A BIGGER THREAT

That conclusion is consistent with what The Des Moines Register’s Donnelle Eller reported a year ago on legislative action regarding foreign ownership of Iowa farmland in 2024. When lawmakers “tightened Iowa’s already restrictive law on foreign ownership of farmland,” the bill “increased reporting requirements, boosted penalties for violations and gave the attorney general’s office subpoena powers to investigate possible violations.”

Eller’s article noted that Wall Street and venture capitalism may pose a bigger threat to domestic access to farmland than do “foreign enemies.”

Last year’s Des Moines Register story quoted both State Representative J.D. Scholten, a Democrat now running for Ernst’s Senate seat, and a leading Iowa expert on agricultural law.

But more work is needed to restrict venture capitalists and other investors from buying Iowa farmland, Scholten said. “Foreign ownership is a big deal, but as big a deal is Wall Street buying up all the farms,” he said.

Iowa has laws restricting corporate ownership but they have several exemptions, said Jennifer Zwagerman, director of Drake University’s Agricultural Law Center. “It is not as restrictive as people might think it is or want it to be,” Zwagerman said. “The real need is to focus more on investment and corporate ownership at a domestic level.”

(In 2023, Eller reported that a non-Iowan investment coalition of American professional athletes was “spending $5 million or more buying U.S. farms, with their first purchase coming in Iowa” — a 104-acre farm.)

WE ALL DIE—SOME PREMATURELY

To wrap up, let’s return to the reality of death and the town hall plea that Ernst discounted. Trump has similarly been dismissive about public health concerns.

Count 1: In its 2021 analysis of the of the first wave of COVID-19 during the previous Trump administration, the respected Lancet commission found, “In seeking to respond to the pandemic, Trump has been widely condemned for not taking the pandemic seriously enough soon enough, spreading conspiracy theories, not encouraging mask wearing and undermining scientists and others seeking to combat the virus’s spread.”

The commission estimated that 40 percent of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S.— which totaled about a half million at the time—could have been prevented.

Count 2: In March 2020, President Trump recommended at least three times that people take the anti-malarial drug Hydroxychloroquoine to counter COVID-19. An analysis later found the drug was responsible for almost 17,000 deaths in six countries, including 12,000 deaths in the U.S. At that time in the Covid pandemic, Trump had said of the unproven treatment: “What do you have to lose? Take it.”

Count 3 and continuing: We’re still in the early stages of counting how many deaths around the world will be attributed to the U.S. cutbacks in foreign aid, our withdrawal from the World Health Organization, and threatened cuts to health care domestically. Prior to the Trump funding freeze and dismantling of USAID, foreign aid from the U.S. alone was estimated to save more than 1.5 million lives annually.

Count 4: Counts 1, 2 and 3 are compounded by Trump’s reckless decision to name Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as secretary of Health and Human Services. The Senate confirmed him by 52 votes to 48, with support from Ernst and Iowa’s senior Senator Chuck Grassley, despite vocal opposition from the medical community.

While we all are going to die, that fact is no excuse for government actions that may hasten death for countless thousands or even millions of people.

In desperation and hope, we might cry, “Believers in tooth fairies and the survival of democracy, Unite!”