Democrats are riding a blue wave of excitement caused by Biden’s announcement he wouldn’t accept the nomination for president, Kamala Harris garnering enough votes from delegates to the Democratic National Convention to clinch the nomination, and Minnesota governor Tim Walz joining the ticket. Meanwhile, back at the country club, Republicans gathered and griped last Tuesday.

Ensconced at one of their favorite watering holes, the Cedar Rapids Country Club, Republicans laid out their grievances. They criticized President Biden, Vice President Harris, and Governor Walz. RPI chair Jeff Kaufmann had a take, Chuck Grassley did, too. Former Iowa Governor and ambassador to China Terry Branstad said, “a presidential candidate from California was ‘the scariest thing I can think of.'” Kaufmann thought Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro would get the nod for vice president and accused the vice president, whose spouse is prominently Jewish, of antisemitism in picking Walz. Such malarkey suggests they may have had a cocktail or two in the middle of the day on a Tuesday, even if I know many of them are teetotalers. Other than in the local newspaper, the event got little attention.

I have three comments for Republicans gathered to complain at the country club:

1. Joe Biden is not running for president
2. You can’t always get what you want.
3. Get over it.

Country club membership is not something to which I aspired. I’ve been inside the Cedar Rapids Country Club a few times, for company holiday parties and political events, yet who even belongs to a country club? People with means. When Robert Reich talks about rich fat cats I suspect more than a couple were in attendance at Tuesday’s grievance party. Working people were… working.

That’s the difference between Democrats and Republicans. While regular people are busy contributing to society, Republicans are off at the country club making the rules. Wealth and political influence have the power to set the rules of the game. Jeff Kaufmann, Chuck Grassley and Terry Branstad are all aware of and have been participants in this dynamic. The 2023 legislative session provides a textbook example of the influence of wealth.

In May 2023, Governor Reynolds signed Senate File 228 into law. Under the change, Iowans hurt in truck crashes would only be able to get up to $5 million in a lawsuit. With her action, Iowa became the first state in the country to legally cap liability damages against trucking companies. Capping liability has long been on the trucking industry’s to-do list. With the Republican trifecta, they were able to get it done. This is a single example among many as to how wealth and power set the rules regular folk live under.

When Donald Trump announced for president in November 2022, it was in a speech to those gathered at Mar-a-Lago, his estate in Florida. Surrounded by allies, advisers, and conservative influencers, Trump delivered a relatively subdued speech, rife with spurious and exaggerated claims about his four years in office, according to CNN. His decision to announce two years before the general election may have been good for Donald Trump. He doesn’t understand, and probably doesn’t care, that that’s not how we do presidential politics. That’s another difference between Democrats and Republicans: we care about the rules of the game.