Dear Iowans
Dear Iowans
Dear Iowans,
On Monday, you will once again perform the sacred duty of kicking off the Presidential nomination process, which will ultimately culminate in our selecting the next President of the United States. As Iowans, you have long taken this task to heart, spending more time and effort in vetting candidates than perhaps any other state in the nation. There is a long tradition - since 1972 - of Iowa being the first state to reflect the general mood of the country in this process. Six of the last seven Presidents have won in the early state votes - either Iowa or New Hampshire (which votes the following Tuesday); Jimmy Carter, George W Bush and Barrack Obama each won the Presidency after winning in Iowa as challengers, in 1976, 2000 and 2008.
I spent a lot of time in Iowa when I worked for a startup company headquartered there for eleven years. Iowans are generally down-to-earth, modest, humble, god-fearing people that put duty to others over themselves. Some of the finest people I’ve met in my close to fifty years on this earth were born and raised in Iowa. It is a beautiful part of the world, perhaps an unlikely crossroad between the traditions of agriculture and farming and high tech software and finance. Iowa maintains many of the aspects of traditional America; when people talk about restoring America to its greatness, I imagine they think of Iowa as an example.
And so we return to you, this time to help us out of a jam. If the polls are to be believed, Republicans and Democrats are about to make two huge mistakes by renominated Joe Biden and Donald Trump. A vast majority of voters do not want either candidate to be the nominee, let alone President. We are faced with terrible choices unless Iowans can put the world right again. The country is hurting in so many ways, it is time for a new generation of leaders to take over from the Boomers, who have failed the country miserably. Their time has passed.
Indeed, we face stark choices in this election cycle. Will we continue to borrow and spend money we don’t have to enrich our adversaries? Will we continue to drive the national debt at an unprecedentedly swift and unsustainable rate that drives high prices and continues to narrow future policy choices? Will we continue to fight endless, regime change wars? Will we allow these wars to be prosecuted in a manner in which they are never to be won, but exist in a constant stalemate, fighting for decades in areas not strategically significant for the homeland? Will we continue to neglect existential interests like the rise of China and our lawless border? Will we let large corporations and billionaires - the donor class - have huge influences on our choices for representation? Will we continue to reward and punish citizens based upon the pigment of their skin or their membership in some “protected class?” Will we let authoritarianism on both sides of the aisle undermine our system of laws and due process? Shall the FBI, DHS, the CDC and others be allowed to monitor and censor speech through their illegal “misinformation” agencies? Will we allow an erstwhile entertainer to continue to make promises he will never keep, and lie about every aspect of his and other’s record? Will we allow a fifty year creature of the DC Swamp who is in rapid cognitive decline continue to phone in his Presidency and campaign? Will we continue to allow members of the Cabinet to shirk their duties to the Constitution and the laws of the United States with no consequence? Will we continue to allow candidates who are completely compromised by their family’s business dealings with foreign adversaries make our foreign policy decisions? Will we continue to allow an invasion of 8 million illegal aliens plug up our courts, divert our scarce resources and ruin our cities with no end in sight? Shall our cities continue to allow open and unpunished thievery and mayhem? Will the protests of people with the wrong political views continue to see them jailed, while protests by people with the right political views go unpunished? Will we return to rewarding merit over identity, excellence over intersectionality? Will we allow the architects of the punishing, failed COVID policies to be rewarded?
There is so much to fix in this country, and the last two Presidents have had their opportunity - they both failed. It is time for new leadership. Please, Iowa, help us out of this mess. You are our first, best hope for change.