Iowa has become a petri-dish of Republican radicalism
When Tim Scott, a senator from South Carolina, stepped onto a stage at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines on August 15th, his first topic was how brilliant the woman interviewing him was. That was Kim Reynolds, the state’s Republican governor, who this year has stolen the limelight from the Des Moines Register, which traditionally has given visiting politicians a literal soapbox at the fair, by hosting her own series of interviews with Republican candidates for president. “When your governor passes monumental school choice…it gets my attention. And frankly, I celebrate her success,” said Mr Scott, as Ms Reynolds, dressed in cowboy boots, beamed out at the crowd. “Education is the closest thing to magic,” he went on. And “no state is doing it better” than Iowa.
The reform Mr Scott was referring to is a bill that Ms Reynolds signed in January, which allows almost any Iowan parent to apply for a voucher from the state to pay private-school fees. By August 4th, over 18,500 applications had been approved, meaning that almost 4% of the total number of school pupils in the state will be starting this school year at private schools courtesy of the Iowan taxpayer. The voucher bill is just the most consequential (and controversial) of a slew of conservative laws that Ms Reynolds has acceded to this year. The dozen or more wannabe Republican candidates flocking to her state may have only a limited hope of beating Donald Trump in next year’s caucuses. But they at least get to visit a place where Republicans are almost completely triumphant. Iowa, which a decade ago was purple-ish, has become a petri-dish of right-wing radicalism.
The radicalism comes from the fact that the Republican Party now totally dominates the state, and Ms Reynolds the Republican Party here. Though Iowa has been turning more red for a decade, such emphatically right-wing policymaking had to wait until this year. In May 2022, a weaker…
2023-08-17 08:33:27
Article from www.economist.com
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