Women Will Save Democracy

Kick the patriarchy's ass, and save the world...

Nov 05, 2024

Chair of the Iowa Democratic Party Rita Hart, center left, checks her phone last Wednesday as she thanks Marion County Democrats for their efforts.

It was raining and windy and we were under a tornado watch when my friend Scott and I hung a large Christina Bohannan sign in his and his wife Jan’s yard in Knoxville, Iowa last week. Christina is the Democratic candidate for House running against incumbent Republican Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks. They already had a smaller Bohannan sign or two nestled among Harris/Walz and other signs for Democratic candidates running for local races. Next door is the home of a retired elementary school teacher, and there are several Democratic signs in her yard as well. Her recently passed husband ran the local faith-based food bank for years. He had a little rat-tailed ponytail, and when I asked him why, he told me that he wanted to remind people that everyone is different, and that’s OK.

Between those two yards and more, people driving into town from the south are greeted with a phalanx of signs that say there is plenty of support in Knoxville for the Harris/Walz ticket. In nearby conservative Pella a friend has printed and distributed many patriotic signs that on one side say “Enough Darkness” and on the other “We’re in this Together.”

Harris/Walz signs are all over the county. A realtor told me they are in rural locations where she has never seen political signs before.

There are Trump/Vance signs for sure, and a few Trump/Pence signs where “Pence” has been crossed or painted out. But not as many as Harris/Walz signs, to my eye. That’s probably because a month or two ago, the county Republican secretary sent out an email telling county Republicans that the state or national party wouldn’t provide any Trump signs and that they had to buy their own. I figured that with Lara Trump now running the RNC all the cash that used to go for signs was being hosed up by the Trump family.

Shortly after Scott and I got back to county Democratic headquarters on the square, a tornado warning was issued and the radio told us it was heading to the airport, so as a trained weather spotter I drove to the airport and parked my truck next to a firefighter’s truck who was storm spotting too. We soon saw rotation above us, clouds swirling like water circling a drain, and the tornado, if it was one, faded away.

Women here run the Marion County party. They mostly do all the hard work like organizing, paperwork, and door-knocking. The women also know how to gather and use the online data, and all of the information provided by the state party. I’m not sure that any of the men do. A couple of guys do door-knock, but most of the time they are happy driving around town and putting signs up. John door-knocks with his wife Kate because it appears that he likes spending time with her.

Saturday night the Iowa Poll came out and told us that VP Harris has a three-point lead over Trump in Iowa! My phone blew up with texts and calls, and I haven’t seen Iowa Democrats this happy since Joe Biden dropped out of the race. (On Sunday, another poll was released showing Bohannan has a 16-point margin over Miller-Meeks.) I texted a friend the results, and she replied with two brown fingers crossed and the message “Fingers crossed it is from their fingers to God’s ears and true nationally…”

Older women, like many of the women leading the Marion County Democrats, are leading the way. The poll shows that senior women favor Harris 2-1 over Trump. They remember what it was like before Roe v. Wade. And here it is mostly older white women.

In 1969 or 1970 I stood in the parking lot of my high school and watched an ambulance crew carry a girl through the boy’s locker room door into an ambulance. The ambulance kicked rocks at us bystanders as it sped away. The girl, 15 or 16 years old, was a popular and joyful cheerleader with a fun and a bit ornery sense of humor. Her boyfriend was a football star at our little high school, and they had heard that one could perform an abortion with a coat hanger, so they tried to do it in the empty locker room. She survived but was gone for a few months. When she came back her joy was gone, as was her humor.

Iowa has a six-week abortion ban. Several young women were protesting about freedom and reproductive rights at a large Republican religious rally last year in Des Moines. They were angry, and yelling and chanting at passersby. A tall older white man walked up to them and started quoting Bible verses and scolding them. If I remember correctly, they threw candies and confetti at him. One woman held up a sign that read “If I wanted your religion in my p***y I would f**k a priest.” Another young woman wore a hospital gown with fake blood on it. I went up to talk with her, and she told me that she was a nursing student and would graduate soon, and then she would leave Iowa and never come back.

Teachers are leaving too--mostly women--tired of being belittled by Republican legislators and Governor Kim Reynolds, and angry at the voucher money being given to private schools with no accountability while their school budget suffers, and more. Books that have been read for generations have been pulled from school libraries—especially books written by minorities and members of the LGBTQ+ community.

Some books banned from public schools

Anyone who wants to ban these books is either a dumbass or a fascist.

One community has driven a public librarian from the state, belittling her for “peddling porn to children” at numerous ugly city council meetings. I miss her, but she tells me she’s happier where she’s at.

Women protesting money in politics at a Republican event in Des Moines in 2015

At a Trump rally in Ottumwa last fall I left a little early. I met a woman on the sidewalk who was holding a sign that had one word on it. LOVE. As I spoke with her several young white men in the bed of a pickup with Trump flags flying circled us, heckling her, yelling, and calling her names. She stood there with tears in her eyes.

Trump is delusional, with his rhetoric increasingly violent. If he were a neighbor in town we’d call the cops who would ascertain the level of his threat, and then likely try to get him the mental health treatment he needs. Our hospital in Knoxville has a new padded room where psychiatric patients can be made comfortable until they stabilize and are safely at home.

The Marion County Dems are holding a watch party tonight. I’ll be honored to be there among those strong women and those like them across the country who are proving to be the difference this election. I’ll probably bring a six-pack. Or maybe a martini in a paper cup from the A&P down the block as we hopefully watch the MAGA movement fade away, like the tornado.

I anticipate the women will bring food--they always do.

I think Trump knows what’s coming--I’ve been getting texts from “him” for several days now offering two MAGA hats for the price of one.

Marion County, as does every county in the nation, has dedicated volunteers who are working hard to save democracy. I asked Louise Esveld and Jan Evans to share the names of the people who helped this election cycle—here is the list of names they came up with. I asked them yesterday when they were very busy, and they are concerned they are missing someone, and we apologize for that, but here’s the list:

Dave and Mary Timmer, Megan Day, Jaci and Chad Ray, Sherril Graham, Cheri Scherr, Susan Reiter, Gavin Flynn, Jackie Kilby, Kay Jensen, Kate Holt, Lisa Rock, Florence Bartels, Steffanie Davis, April Verwers, Elaine Jordan, Sam Fuson, Pat Jesse, Martha Popson, Cathy Huth, Steve Eck, Kelli Dunkin, Scott Evans, John Holt, Lee Nichols, LouAnn Willis, Jerry Beary, Shawn Jahner, Janice Kerner, many postcard writers! Lacey Plants, Eric Cabral, Cathy Haustein, and AJ Jones.

All of these Iowans defend the gates of democracy. Thank you.

When their children and grandchildren ask them what they did when MAGA came for Democracy, they can answer, “we fought!”

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