Another one of Donald Trump’s Senate GOP pals is in real trouble
As Donald Trump faces his own impeachment, a number of Republican senators are facing problems of their own when it comes to being re-elected. This makes it more difficult each day to run to his rescue. As we can see from the recent fallout between Trump and Lindsey Graham, this is what Trump fully expects the Senate to do – act as his fixers, perhaps because he’s realizing the number of people in his administration who document his illegal requests and because the original ones he had in the beginning – like Cohen and Manafort, are currently in prison.
Colorado, Maine and Arizona are looking worse by the day for Republicans – but now there’s signs of trouble in reliably red South Carolina and most recently, Iowa – where incumbent first-term senator Joni Ernst has openly acknowledged her campaign has been struggling. Of course, she’s a bit confused as to the reason her campaign is struggling, if her radio interview with AMQC is any indication.
She attributed being outraised by her Democratic opponent, Theresa Greenfield, to Iowa’s changing demographics. There may be any number of reasons for why her campaign is struggling – likely it’s because she’s outspoken about privatizing social security and gutting Obamacare – but changing demographics is the absolute last problem she has to worry about. Iowa is one of the least diverse states in the country – with a population that’s about 90.7% white, down from 91.3% in 2010. Hispanic residents increased in the last decade from 5% to 6.2%, while the African-American population went from 2.9 to 4%, all statistics within the margin of error.
What Ernst is really doing when she says this, is quietly stirring up the same bigots who turned out for Donald Trump in 2016 – blaming the state’s minorities for her campaign’s own shortcomings, and thinking she can rely on those same voters to save her, as some of them did for Steve King last year. It’s not exactly news that Republican policies are hurtful to minorities, but now Republicans like Ernst are saying so out loud as they try to save themselves.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making