I’m aware of the redundancy of saying “beware of dirty tricks” while we already have a convicted felon occupying the White House engaging in impeachable, lawless behavior on a daily basis. No wonder the party sacrificed the waffley Joni Ernst and now would like to install Joni Ernst on steroids, Super MAGA Ashley Hinson who says she is “running to be President Trump’s top ally in the United States Senate.”  So if you were thinking she is running because she cares about Iowa and wants to represent we the people,  that’s not what she and her buddy Trump are thinking.  Laura Belin has a Substack post up, Ashley Hinson’s Senate rollout: Short-term success, long-term risks. 

Here in Iowa, for Democrats and our candidates, things are looking up but we have many  challenges, thus I would like to put forth a few entreaties for candidates and our party from the view out here in Grassrootsland.

1- Be confident and positive but don’t get braggy – it only alerts MAGAs that they could lose and drives them even harder to come up with a juicy false smear campaign that they will spend millions of dollars on, plastering ads all over the media in order to scare the base with the idea that their world will fall apart if a single Democrat wins a seat at table. I understand they will do this anyway but we don’t need to egg them on. Keep your cards close to your chest as far as they are concerned.

2 – Please beware of MAGA dirty tricks and schemes. They come up with things that we could never even think of let alone consider doing. In all the blaming that has gone on of Democrats on that infamous caucus night somehow this video of Rachel Maddow reporting phone line jamming by MAGAs never seems to be part of the conversation. I still can’t figure out why. I guess too much truth makes people squeamish. This is certainly true about the media.

3 – They will have an October surprise in 2026 and they will not wait until October. During the current administration, we seem to have an hourly October surprise. Please, please be ready and don’t be surprised.

4 – They are going to continue the drumbeat of how bad, terrible, no good Democrats are. They are going to try to control the dialogue by baiting, lying, exaggerating and forcing candidates off of what we want to talk about and onto what they want to talk about.  They will try their best to define Democratic candidates and they will use their endless stash of cash to do so.  They will use their own media but the regular media will follow suit. Do not be naive just because things look good from your point of view.

5 – They are like voyeurs. They want to control people’s private lives and choices.  What we read, who we marry, parenting practices, birth control methods.  They will dream up horrifying scenarios and say Democrats support them, like after-birth or partial-birth abortion (no such thing) or people eating cats and dogs, school teachers with sinister motives grooming children. Do not think this stuff doesn’t work.

6 – They never say die, never back down, never admit they are wrong. This became a thing when Fox News founder Roger Ailes told them a few decades ago this is how they should be in order to win elections.

7 – MAGA policies are horrific and therefore, so unpopular no one who can see what they are doing would vote for them.  They have to resort to undemocratic methods to stay in power.  In addition to vote suppression, this includes making stuff up out of whole cloth. Fox News is there to make sure there is always a certain number of people who will not see through them. Notice no matter what Trump does his approvals, while dropping, still haven’t dipped below thirty-some per cent. You would think an insurrectionist wanna be dictator trying to destroy American democracy would have a lower approval rating.  *More about the Fox News effect below

8 – They have trackers in campaigns right now that you wouldn’t think they would be worried about. That’s for intimidation and because they have endless resources.

Trump has been losing popularity among Iowa Republicans since before the 2024 election. So much so the party chair Jeff Kaufmann had to yell for about fifteen minutes at fellow Rs who were feeling queasy about him, browbeating them and instructing them to fake support for him.

If you listen to the next video long enough you will get to hear Kaufmann go off the rails wailing on Andy McKean, the longest-serving Republican in the Iowa state legislature, who left the party to become a Democrat because of his discomfort with Trump and the Iowa GOP’s super right-wingyness.

Watch this video for a bizarre glimpse into GOP opposite land where “hairy beasts” enter girls locker rooms and everyone but Republicans are the dishonest liars.

*The Fox News Effect refers to a measurable influence of the Fox News Channel on voter behavior and political discourse, particularly its impact on shifting viewers’ policy preferences in a conservative direction, increasing the Republican vote share, and influencing perceptions on national candidates and policy issues. This effect is attributed to partisan coverage, where Fox News selectively reports information that reinforces conservative beliefs and potentially leads to viewers developing a biased set of facts and a distrust of opposing information sources.  – AI overview