Iowa GOP Gov Kim Reynolds' Racist Ad Is The Worst Thing You'll See For The Next Few Minutes!
Guess we'll have to watch.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds' campaign ad opens with her alone in a coffee shop watching a Black woman on TV. It's not her Democratic opponent, Deidre DeJear, but an entirely different Black woman who lives in an entirely different state, Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri.
Reynolds, a Republican, is visibly aghast when Bush declares that "defunding the police has to happen." This footage is from over a year ago, and it still isn't Deidre DeJear, who does not support defunding the police. Just a couple weeks ago, DeJear praised Democratic Rep. Cindy Axne for helping pass a House bill that ensures "Iowa’s law enforcement will have the recourses necessary to fulfill their sworn duty."
We get that Cori Bush is Republicans' preferred scary Black lady candidate, but in reality she has limited power and influence within the Democratic Party. She's not a liberal version of Marjorie Taylor Greene. Party leadership isn't afraid of her and Democrats in swing states don't actively seek her endorsement. When Greene endorsed JD Vance in the Ohio Republican Senate primary, that helped paved the way for Donald Trump's eventual nod. Tim Ryan wouldn't take the same bus as Cori Bush.
And it bears repeating: Reynolds isn't running against Cori Bush. She's running against Deidre DeJear, whose running mate Eric Van Lancker wearsbow ties.
So, let's watch the Reynolds ad in its racist entirety:
Reynolds mutes the TV and asks her audience, "Watching the news, you wonder: Has the rest of the country lost its mind?" She laments the "attacks on police" over footage of a Chicago police car set on fire. This was during the summer of 2020. She conveniently ignores the prominent attack on police at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
"Open borders!" she cries. " Paying people not to work."
Democrats do not have an open border policy. That's a lie. Reynolds invokes the reliable welfare queen imagery, but here's what really happened: Last year, when the pandemic was raging, the Biden administration didn't deliberately take away COVID-19 benefits so desperate workers would endanger their health so we could rev up the supply chain. Reynolds cut off Iowans from federal pandemic relief last June. Get thee back to the COVID-infected salt mines!
"Aren't you glad you live in Iowa?" Reynolds asks before leaving the seemingly abandoned coffee shop. Seriously, next time invest in some extras.
REYNOLDS: Here we still have common sense. We kept businesses open and kids in school. We cut taxes and support our police.
Iowa was one of the few states to never have a COVID-19 stay-at-home order. (Even Florida had one that people mostly ignored.) Dead people are not reliable voters, so Reynolds can gloat about preserving freedom and all that crap. Reynolds opposed mask mandates and most reasonable mitigation measures that helped keep schools open.
Reynolds "supports the police" so much she reflexively sided with Donald Trump when the FBI conducted a legal search of his tacky alligator rest home. She tweeted: “The Biden Administration is taking our nation down a dangerous path, unleashing the DOJ and FBI on parents, taxpayers, gun owners, and now on President Trump himself. The federal government is more focused on punishing working Americans than solving the border crisis, record inflation, and declining national security. It’s wrong and the American people deserve better!”
The Biden administration didn't "unleash" the Department of Justice on anyone. President Joe Biden respects the DOJ's independence.
Reynolds ends her ad with the insulting line, "In Iowa, America still works." Nothing in the 30 second spot directly addresses or even acknowledges her actual Democratic opponent. Why bother when Reynolds can cast Cori Bush as Generic Anti-American Democrat.
Responding to Reynolds' ad, DeJear said: "I saw what my opponent was doing. Not only was she trying to stoke and divide within our party, she was trying to stoke and divide between two women who had never even met each other before.” DeJear and Bush have since spoken over social media.
This is Iowa, so Reynolds is all but guaranteed re-election. She could have just run some ads where she eats corn dogs in an empty park, but Republicans these days can never stop playing to the Tucker Carlson audience.
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It's her opening salvo for 2024, either for the nom or for Trump's veepstakes, and it shows how that will break down. DeSantis is large and loudly vicious but Reynolds and Noem will be playing the common sense mom card, assuring the swing voters who will be revolted by Trump or DeSantis that they just want to keep things nice. It will be the distaff version of The Full Youngkin.
She has the same chance in 2024 that ice cubes have in Hell, but it is still a useful preview of how the Culture Civil War is going to be sold to voters who want to think of themselves as good rather than angry.
Proud independent tax cutting Iowa receives $1.43 in federal funding for every dollar they contribute in federal taxes