There are two parts to turning the country around and both run through the ballot box.
The first is voting: making sure we take care of ourselves by checking our registration and then voting in person, either early or on election day. Encourage everyone we know to do likewise.
The second is changing the public narrative about life in Iowa and in the United States. We should not accept narratives being fed to us by major media outlets, churches, interest groups backed by wealthy people, and political parties. Instead, we must develop new narratives that properly reflect how we live despite our differences. I predict this will change how we vote.
If we can do those things, there is a chance to make society a better place to live. I believe this is possible in 2024.
In Iowa, the political strategies and tactics Democrats used during the 2006-2008 election cycles have become obsolete. Not because talking to people lost importance to winning votes, but because we, as a society, have grown ever more suspicious of people we don’t know. Have to ask, what happened to Democrats after Obama won his first presidential election? We may feel we have to ask, but that’s the wrong question. What was an ability to win elections in 2006 and 2008, was an all in, once or nothing endeavor whose usefulness waned by 2010 when Republicans began re-taking control of state government.
I door knocked for Democrats during the 2022 election cycle and can attest the game changed since 2008. In the Johnson County part of House District 91, Democratic voter registrations outnumbered Republican and Democrats still couldn’t win that part of the district. At the doors, I heard people have complicated lives where voting was not among the highest priorities. I did the best I could, yet my efforts and those of fellow Democratic canvassers couldn’t get the job done. It wasn’t from a lack of effort.
How do we change the narrative about how we live? There are no easy answers. Recognizing how important this is to the process of taking back our government is a necessary first step. I’ll make sure my personal network votes in November. Every other political energy I expend will be devoted to changing the narrative. I believe it can make a difference.
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2 replies on “Political Action in 2024”
It is hard to get a platform when we have WHO radio and the elected officials pumping out the lies and not caring what outsiders think. I once kind of knew my Rep, Barb McCulla, but she is putting out the most anti-science, anti-intellectual bills and won’t answer my inquiries. She got nearly a million dollars in PPP loans so I imagine she is showing her gratitude to KR right now. We locals keep saying, we can’t get a platform, can’t get a foothold. It of course all turned with Citizen’s United. Now, even the smelliest pig’s ear becomes a silk purse thanks to money. As Liz Cheney says, we are electing idiots and I might add, mean idiots with the bully pulpit.
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Although I believe the writer has a good point in this article however, having lived back in my home state from 2008-2017, (Leaving only because of how crude the Republican politics had become), The very thing I observed throughout the happening of that time period was the anger that was unleashed following the state supreme court’s decision to legalize gay marriage. Rural people went absolutely ballistic. Lots of bigoted people living in Iowa’s rural parts (not all of them are). From that time on, seemed the dirty Republican politics became ushered back in overnight. Now they’re working hard to go after LGTBQ+ rights in general. Rural people, and maybe many Iowans in general become freaked out when they feel big changes to their traditional way of life (such as gay marriage) become, in their eyes, overturned. I think that once some of the younger generations begin to vote, the trends may begin to change back to at least being a purple state. Unfortunately, could take another 10-20 years. By that time, in my opinion, there won’t be much left to salvage from such longstanding decline. They want nothing to do with gays, trans, black, brown or yellow. These scary things don’t fit into their so called “traditional values”. I was born and raised in the Okoboji area and if it weren’t for all the different types of educated people coming from the cities to spend their summers, the native population is just a bunch of rural people with the same mindset that different is scary and therefore bad.
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