Fact check: I don’t hate Iowa

A friend sent me a note recently about a conversation he had a while back at a church group. He found himself defending The Gazette and your humble columnist amid criticism from some conservatives in the group.

“Boy — are Republicans steamed! They can’t decide whether it’s Iowa or America that you hate more,” he said in the email.

I hate Iowa, and America? Fact check: false.

But my alleged hate is being recognized more and more. A recent letter-writer, for example, claimed I’m “sweltering in hatred.” In this weather? It’s more like I’m wearing a windbreaker of wickedness, or perhaps some fleece of fury.

I actually long for summer’s swelter, when I can float in a pool of hatred, perhaps.

Living my entire life in Iowa, 51 years and counting, is a funny way to show my hatred. I helped increase the state’s population by three with my Illinois-native wife and two kids. I’ve detasseled corn, ate more tenderloins than I care to mention and my chin is permanently greased with sweet corn butter. I’m not a farmer, but I do have a farmer tan. I’m a part-owner of farmland in our family since the 1880s. I went to American Legion Boys State, for cripes sake.

Ask me what the state rock, flower and bird are. Go ahead, because I know.

But now, apparently, I ‘m full of Iowa hate, slathered in it like sunscreen. Marinated in it like an Iowa chop. Dipped in it like State Fair corn dog batter.

In reality, I strongly and strenuously disagree with the way my state is being governed. And I write about it, more often than I’d like. If people think I enjoy railing on all the garbage that passes for legislation under the Golden Dome of Wisdom, they’re flat wrong. I enjoy writing, to be sure, but not so much constantly chronicling my home state’s slide into ruby red political extremism.

Conservatives, naturally, don’t like what I write. They call me a hack, a broken record and much worse. Very few substantively respond to the arguments I’m making, which I would welcome. Normally, I couldn’t care less what critics think. But suggesting I hate Iowa is one criticism I’m not willing to let go.

Have you ever heard that catchy homeland security admonition, “if you see something say something?” Well, I’m seeing things and I’m going to say something, regardless of who wants or doesn’t want to hear it.

And if Statehouse Republicans love Iowa so much more than I do, why do they treat us like we’re thoughtless idiots?

The flat income tax signed into law this year is not a “fairer” tax, as Republicans claim. No amount of fuzzy math can make it so.

Transgender girls are not going to destroy women’s sports. It’s overheated hyperbole that makes Republicans feel better about targeting marginalized kids.

Unemployed Iowans aren’t lounging in hammocks, as the governor suggested. Cutting their benefits won’t fulfill some tough-love, boot-straps-pulling right-wing fantasy. It will just make people’s lives harder.

Public schoolteachers and the media do not have a “sinister agenda” to promote pedophilia or “groom” children for abuse. Some of us just don’t like the idea of banning books as part of a campaign of fearmongering to scare voters.

If they love Iowa and Iowans so much, why are they constantly trying to frighten us with tales of imaginary threats? Why do they invent fake crises and ignore real problems, like, for example, polluted waterways flowing through Iowa? And, no, not everyone really wants clean water. Our waters are impaired, not our ability to sniff out BS.

How is it that their version of “freedom” only applies to some of us, while the rest of us get the double-bird?

I love Iowa unconditionally. But many conservatives demand I agree to terms and conditions. Write stuff that makes them feel better about their political views, shut the hell up or move out. Stop being “biased.” Their love of Iowa also hinges on their own comfort, so we can’t talk about stuff like institutional racism, guaranteeing civil rights to all or permitting books on our library shelves they don’t like. Keeping them comfortable is a never-ending job.

It also seems obvious I make them uncomfortable. Good.

But I do know someone who hates Iowa. I recently got a note from a reader in Boston who thought we went too easy on Sen. Chuck Grassley in an editorial about his votes against the confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.

“I despise every living soul in Iowa because of HIM. His utter disdain for the Constitution, for fellow Americans, for women. Iowa wants to cancel elections? Let's cancel the Louisiana Purchase. Cancel Iowa's statehood. Cancel Iowa altogether,” she wrote.

She called our state a “confederate treason weasel.” Scathing. Sweltering, even.

For the record, I remain steadfastly pro-Louisiana Purchase, despite what you may have heard. And I continue to love my state, warts, weasels and all. Let’s pull it back from the abyss.

(319) 398-8262; todd.dorman@thegazette.com

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