My "What We Lost" Year End Round Up
Like the "Who We Lost" end of year stories about notable people who left us in the year now ending, here's my list of the values and ideas we lost - or that are at least fading fast - in 2023
Many news organizations routinely run a year end wrap up “Who We Lost” story listing the celebrities and other notable people who passed away during the year drawing to a close. The people whose passing is noted were once “center poles” in some aspect of our national life. Yet, the year end reminder of their passing often comes to us with a jolt. We realize we either missed the original report of their demise, or it slipped our mind with the passage of time.
Here’s a similar list - “What We Lost in 2023” - some of which we may not have noticed at the time or which may have slipped our mind, as the political outrages of 2023 mounted.
This list does not - cannot - include everything. There were simply too many losses of values and principles. So feel free to add your own reflections on “What We Lost in 2023” in the comment section.
Robust First in the Nation Iowa Democratic Presidential Precinct Caucus Campaigns: LOST: It was bound to happen after a series of caucus administration flubs, some forced by a national party “big footing” the process in Iowa. It was also inevitable once Joe Biden became President. He’s never done well in the state’s Democratic precinct caucuses, so it surprised no one that he wanted to start the party’s nomination process in another state.
Iowa Democrats will still caucus on January 15 to consider party business, but will vote strictly by mail until March 5, Super Tuesday. It’s a compromise plan between the Democratic National Committee and Iowa Democrats, that virtually assures Iowa’s caucus results will draw almost no attention from anybody.
Iowa had a good run of first in the nation caucuses, but it’s over. At least for now.
Confidence that American democracy is safe, especially from a domestic threat. LOST: We can no longer have confidence that America’s democracy is safe. Today, Donald Trump, after failing to violently install himself for a second term after losing a democratic election, is working hard to make himself an authoritarian dictator. Millions of Republicans - in Iowa and nationally - support him in that effort. He’s the front runner in Iowa and nationally, which means a lot more Iowans and Americans are a lot more comfortable with a dictatorship - likely fascist - than many of us ever thought possible.
Sensible, moderate politics in Iowa, with both parties avoiding the extremes. LOST: Iowa has completely slid into the MAGA muck of extremism. The Republican governor, the Republican state legislature, and the all Republican Iowa congressional delegation now regularly bark at the moon right along with all the other extremists in the Republican Party. Iowa Republicans did themselves proud when they finally voted US Rep. Steve King out of office in a primary, but the current all Republican congressional delegation is not sensible or moderate by anyone’s measure who is not also a right wing Republican.
They all mimic and/or support the extreme national right wing agenda. The Republican state legislature goes even further in pursuit of that national extremist agenda. Both Iowa US Senators and the four Republican House members routinely and reliably vote with the MAGA extremists in Congress.
The days of Bob Ray, Mary Louise Smith, and Jim Leach are long over in Iowa Republican politics. You may find evidence that those kind of Republicans were once present in the state, maybe somewhere on a dark and dusty shelf in the fossil collection at the State Historical Society of Iowa’s museum on Locust Street in Des Moines, but you won’t find any in actual action in Iowa.
That policy makers will respect and take pride in local K-12 pubic schools and teachers. GONE: K-12 teachers and even librarians are now fair game for every tin horn right winger who wants to control what other people’s kids can read or are taught, often without a whiff of professional training, but with wagon loads of belligerent ignorance and uninformed right wing ideology. Too many policy makers are willing to turn decisions about educations that should be made by trained professionals over to the noise makers.
They used to be among the most respected members of the local community. Many stilll are - just not by Republican policy makers.
A genuine appreciation for citizens who step up to help run our local precinct polling places on Election Day, who are motivated by nothing more than a simple desire to make our democracy work. INCREASINGLY GONE: Election Day polling place workers are just as likely to be targets of lies spread by right wing partisans who attack them as they are to be appreciated. Attacks, like those leveled against workers in Georgia, are made as a means or weakening the fair and competent administration of our democratic elections - something that happens to be one of the goals of wannabe dictators who would like to steal or muddle democratic elections.
That Iowa will always make support for public K-12 education a top priority for public tax dollars. GONE: The vast majority of kids, in Iowa and nationally, are educated in public schools which is why tax dollars for education need to be directed to public schools Yet, Iowa is now siphoning away up to $7,600 per student per year, when they enroll in a private school. Those private schools can teach religion, or even ideology, and receive up to $7,600 in public money - money that comes straight out of public school budgets. There was no pubic groundswell for that change. It was driven by right wing ideology and monied special interests. Period.
A commitment to the idea that women should be free to make their own health care decisions, free from government interference. GONE/GOING: The Republican US Supreme Court threw that value out the window, when it Over turned Roe v Wade after 50 yerars. States are now racing to see which of them can enact the most restrictive state lawas against abortion. In many states, state governments have now decided that women will not be able to obtain an abortion needed to save their life. Federal lawakers are trying to make such a bans apply nationally.
This was the year women lost autonomy over their own bodies.
A reasonable belief that federal lawmakers who take an oath to protect and defend the US Constitution mean it, and will do so. GONE: Trump shattered his oath as president routinely, most notoriously when he launched a violent insurrection to try to remain in office. House and Senate Republicans - including Iowa’s two Republicans and every Republican serving in the US House at the time - shredded their oaths when they voted to protect him from impeachment for launching that insurrection and doing nothing to stop it.
A reasonable assumption that Presidents of the United States won’t be crooks and will obey the law. GONE: Granted, President Richard Nixon first stretched this value to the breaking point, but it was soon restored by subsequent Presidents. Nixon proved himself to be an actual crook and accepted a pardon from his successor, Gerald Ford. In retrospect, for all Nixon’s wrong doing, he looks like a rank amateur compared to Donald Trump.
With more than 90 felony indictments pending against him, Trump appears to be a one man, perpetual motion, walking crime wave. Yet Republicans - with hearts aflutter - appear poised to nominate him to be president again.
Apparently being a one man, perpetual motion, walking crime wave is no lomger considered a disadvantage in Repubican presidential politics.
The common sense idea that parents can and should be responsible for making health care decisions for their kids, not the government. GONE: No more, not if their kids are transgender kids and would be helped by gender-affirming health care treatment. Republican state legislators and the governors have already made the decision in multiple states to deny gender affirming health care to transgender kids, no matter the circumstance.
Experts in the field say the only outcome of that policy will be to increase youth suicides.
That is some of what we lost this year. As I mentioned, feel free to add your own items to this list in the comments below.
The good news is that, unlike those on the “Who We Lost” lists we can’t bring back, we can possibly bring back the values and practices on the“What We Lost” list with hard work and full participation in our democracy.
We simply need to make sure that none of this becomes the new normal, and that citizens unwilling to accept them as permanently lost work hard to restore them. The new year is an election year which is when and where decisions are made that will determine whether Iowans and Americans succeed in doing so.
This article made me cry, Barry. This is not the Iowa I grew up in and always had faith in to do what's right. As a former public school employee, the issues with schools and our highly-dedicated teachers break my heart. On the good news front: I worked the polls during the last election and was surprised at how many voters thanked me for doing so. I am going to desperately hope that we can get back to being the Iowa I know we can be. Without hope, where are we?
One fundamental part of any democracy is truth, and to insure we all know what that is, the Bill of Rights offered up "freedom of the press" to guarentee there would be an airing of the facts concerning what was happening in politics or any situation concerning the public. Unfortunately, with the consolidation of newspapers and other media in the hands of the wealthy few , they often don't support "truth." Often supporting "yellow journalism" and freedom of the press has become meaningless. What was the truth now could be called "Pravda" the leading newspaper in the Soviet Union, (the word translates to "the truth"!)