“As we all know as we travel the state, the liberals are unhinged and they are out for us,” Gov. Kim Reynolds warned a gathering of Iowa Republicans on Saturday, “and we need to double down and do all we can and if you keep fighting, I’ll keep fighting.”
Reynolds, an enthusiastic supporter of the famously levelheaded Donald Trump, made the remarks at her inaugural Harvest Festival at the Iowa State Fairgrounds, an event billed as “Fun for the whole family!” featuring pumpkin carving, balloon animals, BBQ, and a speech from Congressman Steve King, who once warned that the US Supreme Court’s ruling to legalize gay marriage would allow people to marry their lawnmowers.
“Let’s keep this united team together because, my gosh, we want to build on the successes that we’ve seen this last legislative session and we want to keep Iowa moving forward,” Reynolds told the crowd. “We don’t want them to come in and reverse the good work that we’ve done, so it’s a challenge. I’m in if you’re in.”
That good work included failing to fix a state budget shortfall caused in part by the GOP’s corporate handouts, passing a voter suppression bill, defunding Iowa State University’s Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture and Planned Parenthood, cutting state support for abuse victims as the privatization of Medicaid by Reynolds’ predecessor hammered the poor and elderly, repealing counties’ minimum wage increases, and gutting union members’ collective bargaining rights.
As Iowa GOP chairman Jeff Kaufmann boasted at the Harvest Festival, “This party does not take our orders from the union bosses. We don’t take our orders from obnoxious protesters.”
