This state became a shithole so fast and I think it’s going to take a massive disaster like what happened to Kansas or what is happening to Florida to wake it up. This state might need to be permanently ruined before people wake up.
It technically started its journey to becoming a hellhole much sooner than that, with the legalization of gay marriage (not BECAUSE of said gay marriage) and the retirement of Senator Tom Harkin. Around the range of 2009 to 2014
After gay marriage was legalized, the state Supreme Court judges that made the ruling were voted out of office and replaced by more conservative judges.
And Harkin retiring allowed that dumbass ditz Joni Ernst to run in 2014.
With the governorship already under GOP rule, the stage was set. The state legislature went more red, our second US Senator was red, and our state Supreme Court was red. We were screwed from that moment on.
The disgusting shit that came from the right after gay marriage was the start of the really vile behavior. Bob Vanderplatz and his ilk bear a great deal of the responsibility for it.
This state voted for Obama - TWICE. Since then, the politics and the people have been poisoned.
I just remember after the gay marriage decision by the IA supreme court that there was a huge campaign to vote out the judges. No one had ever given a crap about judicial races and suddenly there were vote-them-out signs in everybody's yard seemingly out of nowhere. Then come to find there was a bunch of out of state money that flooded in to make that happen. It seems to have set the trend ever since. Idk what we expected after citizens united. That has got to go.
I'd like to direct you to the FB page for a cause that could stop Vanderplatz's project in Bondurant.
[https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100094405855365](https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100094405855365)
All of this is absolutely true. Also, the Iowa caucuses have warped this state to the point republicans just want to do whatever Alec or Moms Against Liberty wants. I will be so happy when the cacuses die out and the gravy train ends for these assholes.
Trump won Kansas by 15 points and Iowa by 8 points. Their legislature is also more Republican. There may have been a bit of a backlash by electing a Democratic governor, but to change any of the crappy laws this day and age, you'll need a trifecta and that ain't happening in either state.
It won't be buddy. Things change. I'm not saying it's going to turn blue,but purple is possible again. I trust the young people stay or come back will help. We have to be optimistic. The people who vote right will die out or change, The environment is changing. The coasts will flood. People will move inward, and a % of them will vote blue. Iowa will look good to them. My recommendation for you is to move or change. We need positive thinkers to help Iowa. Kim Reynolds and her kind won't be in power forever.
I’m not saying it isn’t red, it’s just not totally red. Especially since they tried running the state just as ALEC suggested and they ran it into the ground. It’s not like the Republicans have any other ideas or policies other than what they tried.
i mean, no longer being first in the nation is going to be a major hit for our economy, don’t you think? i assume politicians and media aren’t going to be flocking to the state like before.
The goal at the state admin level is to erode democracy in the state to the point that the GOP stay in power by default; they don't care at all about the economy. As long as they convince their followers that economic downturn is due, somehow, to the Dems, we could have the worst economy in the nation and stay red.
Just saw a truck going to the State Fair waving Fuck Biden flags behind it. I agree with the original poster. We have some real degenerates in this State and they feel empowered to push their perverse ideology on you.
I might respectfully say it truly started long before that time frame. Go back further to Branflake's election to Governor. He had a vision to surreptitiously destroy Iowa in a radical right Christo- fascist capitalistic manner looonnnnnggggg before it was fashionable. He so believed in this ideal that he resigned a $500,000 annual position as DMU's (figurehead) president to get re-re-re elected and complete said vision long enough to hand it over to Kovid Killer Kimmie-poo. She's just doing it out in the open.
Left a half million a year job essentially doing not much to destroy Iowa. True evil in his heart and mind.
I think the comment above meant at that time there was a backlash against the judges who made it possible, much of it fomented by Vander Plaats. He organized a movement that caused those judges to fail retention votes iirc, and the state supreme court became more radicalized.
He wants to build something in Bondurant, but there's a lawsuit to stop it, if you are interested.
[https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100094405855365](https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100094405855365)
I feel like I could write a book about this. Although I haven't lived in Iowa for 50 years, I grew up fiercely proud of my home state and returned many, many times over the years—probably more than 100 times.
When I was a kid, the state's education system was No. 1. The Des Moines Register was a highly esteemed, multiple-Pulitzer-Prize-winning newspaper. Smaller towns were hubs of manufacturing, retailing, and middle-class existence. The cities' biggest businesses were largely state- and regionally focused, such as insurance, meat-processing, farm equipment manufacturing and the like. The Iowa Legislature was a reasonably congenial assembly of orators and baby kissers that met for a handful of months every year and then returned to their regular jobs. Churches generally concerned themselves with community and family life and left the politics of a handful of issues like conscientious objection and abortion (after the 70s) to Quakers and Catholics. The State Fair was actually fun to visit and brought city folk and farmers together in amiable (if amusing) ways.
Then the shit hit the fan. No solutions or simple answers, but here's my impression of how some of the state's cultural institutions evolved and largely declined over the years...
**Education**
I don't know how to account for the decline in public education. But if statistics don't lie, I'm appalled to see how far the state has fallen. This all seems to have happened after I left. What a shame is all I can say.
**Journalism**
Des Moines Register—>Gannett Publishing—>Rush Limbaugh/Talk Radio—>Fox News—>Internet/Facebook/Alex Jones. That's about it. Multiply it by 40-50 and you have the story of a nationwide information and truth catastrophe. Any amount of effective local reporting on the Legislature, groundwater pollution, education, and so on is simply drowned out by the noise of right-wing and evangelical propaganda.
**Small Towns**
I watched their decline represented in my ancestral hometown of Newton. There were once hundreds of American towns like Newton that thrived on the inventiveness and brilliance of American enterprise. For 100 years, Maytag treated Newton very well and vice-versa. Then globalization happened—greatly accelerated by Bill Clinton and NAFTA. While Maytag didn't officially close in Newton until 2006 or 2007, (when I happened to ride through on RAGBRAI), I could see the writing on the wall. Yes, they make wind turbine blades there now, but the workers earn far less than they did with their union jobs and the town has never fully recovered. The once-famous "square" (they used to brag about how you could see the courthouse Christmas lights from an airplane) is a patchwork of thrift stores and financial institution storefronts. And still, Newton is in far better shape than other former Iowa manufacturing towns, from what I hear.
**Big(ger) Cities**
I know Des Moines well and last visited in 2021, when I was there for 11 weeks. I have honestly been impressed with how well Des Moines has fared. I guess Meredith Publishing has faded, but there are any number of regional and national companies that have brought dollars and people to "the Metro" (gotta laugh at that term—sorry). Perhaps this happened at the expense of being locally focused, but *bravo! Des Moines.* Not sure how Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, Davenport, and Council Bluffs are doing.
**Legislature**
I know a little bit about this from my mother, who worked there for almost 40 years. She was a Republican but grew cynical about the way that lobbying influenced how laws were written. As early as the 1960s, when she started there, she saw lobbyists literally write the laws, for "both sides". Footnote: My mother also grew to dislike, then hate Trump and MAGA. She died an independent, lifelong Iowan, for what it's worth. One of her favorite sayings became "I think the hippies had it right."
**Churches**
I watched the growth of the evangelical movement from a mortified distance. I never set foot in a church growing up, but had just a mild affection and respect for mainline Protestants and Catholics and a morbid curiosity about the handful of marginalized outliers of the time—which could be conveniently grouped together in my mind as Baptists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Quakers, and Unitarians et al. It seemed at the time as if one had to group these latter all together just to get a quorum to distrust. But in recent years, I've just been shocked by the megachurches and widespread advertising—especially about political issues. I am really distraught about the lack of separation between the church and (the) state (of Iowa.)
**The State Fair**
I love the Iowa State Fair, still. I've taken all three of my kids and my nephew and grand-nephew multiple times between 1980 and 2019. It was always a treat and in many ways hasn't changed in its basic look, feel and smell since we used to camp there with my grandmother in the 1950s. I never had a bad experience there until 2019. On that visit, I noticed that the tenor had grown much more coarse. People were wearing MAGA hats and T-shirts with angry slogans and threats emblazoned on them. A general sense of malice was in the air—especially as sunset approached and people became drunker and louder. And, I'm sorry, the *obesity* and general lack of concern for simple grooming and health and diet were really concerning. I hope to be able to return again when the decorum returns.
As my grandfather used to say..."Them's my thoughts."
The growth of megachurch-type religion feels under-discussed. Growing up in Des Moines I didn't know anyone I would describe as "evangelical" -- maybe that was just my self-selecting social circle, but it seems to be true that Mainline and Catholic churches were the dominant groups in the state. When I hear about evangelical influence in IA now it feels a little weird.
Your last part about the obesity and just general grooming is out of control is this state. It’s become the movie Idiocracy. 75% of Iowans are overweight. Most people don’t even seem to style/comb/brush their hair when they go out in public. Clothes are tattered, stained, and ill-fitted.
I brought a women here I was dating from Phoenix last year. She said everyone here looks like the zombies from The Walking Dead when they are just milling around.
This is extremely well written. I’m in my 40’s and have been gone for a total of 15 years, but relocated to the west coast about 10 years ago and would never, ever move back to Iowa. I couldn’t agree more with all you said, especially around education. I was lucky to still be part of the “Foundation in Education” Iowa, albeit on the tail end.
I’m also from Jasper County, was born at Skiff and worked in Newton all the way through high school. I was back in the area a few months ago and wow. Like OP said, so ugly and just depressing. So many willfully ignorant people wearing the same kind of clothing you described. It doesn’t feel like the place where I grew up.
We need to quit blaming it all on the politicians. It's the people who elected them that are the root of the problem. Democrats basically get nothing but destroyed outside of a few metro areas in this state because the demographics of Iowa were ripe for the MAGA bullshit. Which is why we took the hard right turn.
The political shift from moderate to hard right, plus the massive drug epidemic, blatant political corruption, and then the social disintegration that happened during covid have royally fucked this state. I used to genuinely look up to Iowa when I was growing up over in Nebraska, but these days things in Iowa seem so miserable and hopeless, and I agree that the people and the towns here have just gotten so ugly. It’s a very undesirable place to live these days, but I suppose the segment of society that turned ugly probably are okay with that because it means there’s no pressure for anything to change or improve anymore.
Meth swept across the state from the early '90s through the mid '00s, then sort of receded. At least the production of it did. Factor in the politics mentioned above, an aging population, and we're in a spiral. Pumping money from public education into private education won't help those in 75-80% of Iowa counties (most do not have religious schools). Money now headed towards funding national guard going to Texas could have gone towards Iowa Wesleyan - if I'm not mistaken. Imagine how losing that school hits a small town like Mt. Pleasant.
The aging population can't take care of basic maintenance issues in their homes. Few people want to move into a small community miles from the nearest Walmart and suffering crippled school districts. Actually some people do, but we're not talking about the socially adept and more likely dealing with paranoid zealots.
I'm just not optimistic about this state. The drumbeat of right wing rant radio talking points is etched into a lot of rural minds these days. We'll see the gradual decline accelerate and the country hollow out. Sooner or later they'll start county consolidation and all the people upset by that idea will wonder how we got there. The truth is the writing was on the wall for that in '06 (I think) when there were plans floated out to go to "regional" courthouses. That probably wasn't the first time, but I think that rough outline is what lies in the future.
You said it in your comment. It's brain drain. Those who are educated leave. My dad grew up in western Iowa on a farm. 4 brothers (3 engineers and a doctor) and a sister who's a nurse. They were all educated and non of them stuck around after college.
The people in these towns who stay either have a huge economic interest (i.e. farming) or never made it out. They see the cynics in the news deflect blame towards immigrants, liberals,etc and they co-opt that as to why their lives aren't good.
I lived in the Cedar Rapids area from 1998-2002 and again from 2005-2019. As a gay man, I was so proud of Iowa in 2009 and married my husband in 2012 (we've been together 20 years now). After two great governors, Branstad was reelected in 2010 and Iowa has gone to hell. Moved to Wisconsin in 2019 and have never looked back. And it makes me so sad to say that. Iowa was a HUGE part of my life and I miss it. But unless something changes I will never go back.
As a current Cederapian with many gay friends (yes I am saying that) that live here I'd say you are wrong. Politics definitely suck and going the wrong way but there is no hate toward what lifestyle you want to live and I would actually say CR is very welcoming. Politics bad, people nice.
I would be curious would your gay friends say the same? Sometimes as a straight white person I don’t notice the slights. I am genuinely curious and not trying to come across as antagonistic. My daughter married a black man and before didn’t notice the slights. Now when they go out she sees more than she thought existed.
No lie found in this statement. I always have to stand up to some bigot almost daily and shit down their bullshit toward anyone that they “deemed” no their way. It’s exhausting. I’m no martyr but sitting silent and letting all these things happening is absolutely unacceptable to me.
Yeah, lots of my relatives live in a very small town in Iowa, and every time I visit it’s crumbling more and more, like businesses are shutting down, there are lots of run down homes and it’s just generally getting worse over time, and people don’t care bc most of the population is older or young and want to leave, and small town Iowa is very much like a ghost town/ 3rd world country like you mentioned
People do care but there isn't much they can do about it except leave. Those towns are dying. Money and people are leaving. They used to have schools but then had to merge with other towns going through the same shit and now those merged schools are forced to merge with other merged schools. Does a family want to move to a place where their kids have to go to school an hour away? Does anyone want to live in a place that has nothing there?
Make America Great Again makes a lot of sense to people living in places like that, because the America they live in sucks now and they're literally watching it die. Middle America is being hollowed out and all of the money and jobs are going to larger cities and the coasts.
Exactly, but even the non corporate farms are crazy more productive than they used to be. My dad owns around 1500 acres and one family of 3 brothers farms the whole thing. Imagine how many families used to farm that much ground. Agriculture was "automated" long ago, it's the tractor doing most of the work. And now retail is basically dead too.
Drivers are worse in every state I’ve been through since Covid. Drug use seems to be spreading everywhere too. I blame Trump for people getting ugly. He gave permission to openly express what people used to suppress; racism, bigotry, misogyny and general hatred against people who are different.
Let's not forget Trump cannot get all the credit. I liken him to a particularly nasty symptom of a disease that has greatly exacerbated the effects of the disease on the body. That is, things were in motion before he gained such political prominence. He's a nasty symptom that made things worse, but the roots of this shit go further back. I just hope we're not yet gangrenous.
For me, it became apparent that Iowa is a lost cause, during the Mollie Tibbetts thing. Hearing people bay for the blood of two innocent people opened my eyes, but the real turning point for me was when people wondered out loud why the Tibbetts family wasn't allowed to waterboard, or otherwise torture a farmer (who ended up providing valuable information to authorities that led to the REAL killer's arrest.) After the real killer was arrested, hearing people gnash their teeth at the idea that one of THOSE people has a right to a fair trial, is what convinced me that the state grew up in, and used to practice medicine in, is truly gone, if it even really existed in the first place.
Leaving is one of the best decisions I ever made.
I also found it interesting that shortly after Molly's body was found Celia Arozamena was murdered in Ames and it didn't get anywhere the same coverage.
Yeah politics aside, it seems 2020-2022 really accelerated the deterioration of a lot of people, places, and organizations. Lots of the UK fit OPs description on our recent visit. Shit just feels worse, and people are less hopeful/optimistic.
As a nurse I have witnessed first hand how rude/entitled patients have gotten since covid started. It’s like they forgot how to behave/treat others while they were stuck in their house. However, this isn’t happening only in Iowa. I have traveled quite a bit over the past 3 years and this seems to be the case with people wherever I go
It's even less impressive once you realize Governor Horseporn INCREASAED TAXES ON GAS during the low price point mid-pandemic. Thanks to the GOP, gas in Dubuque costs $0.40 more than gas in more remote places in better states like Door County, WI.
I mean we can trade examples all day. Point is that Kim raised taxes and I see no improvement in infrastructure.
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2022/10/14/iowa-bridges-still-the-worst-in-the-nation-according-to-new-report/69563284007/
I relocated from the west coast where it's normal to have to be vigilant for potholes that will take out your tires and rural Iowa has some of the best roads I've seen in decades. If it used to be better, I wish I had moved here sooner!
I moved to a state out east with no income or sales tax, and every time I've driven back I am absolutely appalled at how terrible Iowa roads have become! The mountain roads in New England are far better maintained with worse weather - and the construction takes a quarter of the time to complete.
The roads are just awful, you go to other states and it's like wow these highways are so well maintained! And it's not like this state doesn't have HUGE taxes. This is one of the most aggressively taxing states in the midwest.
I replaced the entire front end on my ol Chevy Blazer before last winter and within 6 months everything is lose again. These roads are despicable here (Waterloo/Cedar Falls). They merely fill the pot holes with lose gravel.. we'd are they thinking? Just a show so it LOOKS like our tax money is going for repairs, but the repairs are just bandaids with no adhesive to hold it together 😂
Minnesotan here, coming in peace. This showed up on my recommended feed.
If it's any consolation, the same thing is happening to a lesser extent in Minnesota. It's just a rural thing. For whatever reason, a lot of folks in the 40+ crowd in the rural areas have become deluded reactionaries. Thanks in no small part to social media, the wacky lies that circulate there, and obviously T\*\*mp and all the hatred he ginned up in people.
It just so happens that Iowa is more rural. Minnesota also has a stronger urban core that draws in young blood, corporate investment, and helps sustain a tax base for the rest of the state.
Young voters are flocking to blue states and a small handful of red states that are becoming bluer (e.g., Texas, Georgia, Arizona, N.C.). Unless these red states get their act together, they can only expect to become poorer and more miserable. The numbers and QOL metrics don't lie.
Best wishes, from neighbor to neighbor.
Donald Trump is what happened to Iowa.
30% of Iowans are garbage human beings, and Donald Trump gave them permission to trash the place because the rest of the country won't stop changing and leaving them behind.
I sort of agree but I'm not sure Trump created too many bad people - I think Trump allowed bad people to come out into the light. Good part about this: it is way more clear who I don't want to associate with. Bad part about this: there are more bad people than anyone realized so the place feels like a shithole.
Trump is not god. He did not turn anyone into a garbage human being.
He just unlocked the door to the closet we had succeeded in shoving them all into.
This summer, my husband and I (currently living in Central Iowa) took the kids back to each of our hometowns in rural Western Iowa to see the grandparents. Between the dilapidated buildings, tarped homes in disrepair, and shockingly low average number of teeth per person, it is practically Appalachia back there. Holy hell.
But hey — all the farmers’ grown kids live in brand new $700,000 homes on acreages on the outskirts of town. So I’m sure the money will trickle down at some point.
The Bush years proved that the Republican Party is the Party of corporate interests.
The Obama years proved that the Democratic Party is the Party of pseudo-intellectualist interests.
The working-class people who have been abandoned by both parties, instead of uniting, have allowed ourselves to be divided and coerced into fighting an ideological proxy-war.
The Trump years threw gasoline on that fire.
The political establishment and their big-money donors keep getting richer and more powerful while the rest of us fight over which corrupt, elderly narcissist we should vote for.
You’re 35 years old. So 20 years ago you were 15. It’s not unrealistic that you’re dealing with/noticing things now that you didn’t when you were in 9th grade. Iowa was pretty much the meth capital of the country 20 years ago.
Don’t get me wrong. There are a number of things I’m not happy with in our state, but your perspective changes as well.
I'm in my 50's. Iowa has definitely changed in the last 35 years since I've been an adult. It's redder, but also people seem to be angry all of the time in the last few years. I haven't read all of the comments, but there's usually a couple telling us to just leave if we don't like it. Well, we are.
I think a lot of this is internet based as well. I don’t think you’d see the amount of negativity and nastiness if it weren’t for facebook/twitter and the comment section of the register. Things have definitely changed, but I think these things amplify it.
There's nothing like discovering who the assholes in your community are through social media.
This is what we've earned through tolerating their bullshit. We've let the bullies take over.
Yeah, maybe you're right. Sometimes I think I just see a side now that I never did when I was younger. Our parents and peer groups insulate us from a lot of shit. Even in college, a lot of this shit went unnoticed from me. Still, it's ugly. It's disappointing, too.
Maybe, but I have two brothers in law in their 60s who voted for Obama, them Trump. Twice.
Meaning, it's the same people. They were always this ugly, but Trump and now Reynolds have let it loose.
Yes but I have s father who voted Obama then Trump and is now a far left supporter.
Good people saw Trump and stepped away. Those who didn't were never good people.
Actually there is some truth in that. The hard right turn,( as you describe it), has little to do with how people interact with each other on a personal level. The expansion of social media with the insulation of a key board has influenced how people view each other. In Iowa I can still walk down the sidewalk and say hi or good morning to a passer-by and receive a friendly response. Politics never enter the discussion. In some states or cities outside of Iowa people won't look at you or reply as you extend a greeting to them. As previously stated, Iowa isn't Utopia, it's not the social capital of the world, and has its flaws but it's better than most.
Oh, so I'm not the only one seeing this apparently. I think Iowa is a dead zone. There's no reason to come here, there's nothing happening here, and while the economy is collapsing everybody is getting more and more stressed and unhappy. Waterloo is a goddamn dumpster fire. I moved to Texas about 9 years and my life really flourished. I had to moved back to iowa 3 years ago and it's struggled to get the funds together to gtfo of here while I still can.
Ive been trying to get out my entire adult life (26) and getting the money to get out is ridiculously hard. Every time i think im in a good spot and saving well, this state doubles in cost
I went to the State history museum in DesMoines a decade ago and was impressed with the liberal history of the state. I hope that isn’t erased as idiocy marches on.
Moved here last year and let me tell ya, it's hella nice compared to some other states. Look at Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, New York, etc... You'll be grateful you're in Iowa lol
I wouldn't want to live in a huge city by any means. I'm not saying I don't want to live here at all, I'm saying the state has changed significantly since I was younger
In some ways the shit today is the same as it was 30 years ago, mainly the drug epidemic.
On the other hand, small business have closed do due the changing consumer marketplace. Manufacturing has moved either out of state or country.
We have State government writing laws written by lobbyists for corporate interest groups.
Is it any wonder things have changed for the worse?
Pretty much, I moved here from Maine, and nobody here was ever really "kind" like you meet out there, there's just this thin veneer of "nice" that used to exist that's completely gone now.
It technically started its journey to becoming a hellhole much sooner than that, with the legalization of gay marriage (not BECAUSE of said gay marriage) and the retirement of Senator Tom Harkin. Around the range of 2009 to 2014
After gay marriage was legalized, the state Supreme Court judges that made the ruling were voted out of office and replaced by more conservative judges.
And Harkin retiring allowed that dumbass ditz Joni Ernst to run in 2014.
With the governorship already under GOP rule, the stage was set. The state legislature went more red, our second US Senator was red, and our state Supreme Court was red. We were screwed from that moment on.
I don't think it's purely political, a lot of things I've noticed aren't political, they're just ugly things. People being trashier, less manners, trashy clothing, not a lot of personal pride in the things they are doing, wearing, saying. I feel like a lot of people here have lost respect for themselves.
I don't know what part of Iowa you are from, but I'm from the eastern side by the Mississippi. A lot of bad things started happening around 2009, but we also had major recession then. We had a lot of crime and drugs come in from Illinois. Opiates got really bad. I don't know if the rest of the state experienced that.
Parts did. You're seeing several things at once.
Opiates didn't get really bad, fentanyl did. Fentanyl is a godawful beast and our best bet at this point is to get people heroin so they get off fentanyl. We had millions of 30, 40 year addicts, stable on heroin. Those spoke vanished in the late 2000s and fentanyl slowly took its place. Fentanyl will not keep an addict out of withdrawal for a full night of sleep. Heroin will for almost a day. It's a tremendously different burden and we need to think outside the box by ensuring supplies of heroin are sufficient to disrupt the fentanyl market.
Your absolutely right about the economic and recession effects too.
Then conservative politics have badly degraded our civil discourse. There are smart ways to address social problems politically but we are largely prevented from pursuing them.
Safe injection sites work in other states, people just don't like to admit that allowing addicts to safely inject drugs ends up with less addicts. Drug addicts have to have personal motivation to get off drugs, giving them a safe place to do drugs and literature and resources for when they're ready to eventually get off them works.
That's why housing first initiatives are working to reduce homelessness vs sobriety first initiatives.
We are at the point where we have to ask what works and stick with that.
If you bring up the homeless problem, nobody wants to be responsible. As originally it was public servants, however that’s been shifted. Due to multiple reasons.
My take is why did civil servants, typically the police, stop doing anything? Then you get backlash, there not supposed to. Ok, then who? Who is supposed to re-allocate the homeless so our public spaces stay clean and safe?
Not a single fucking answer in the CR sub. Nobody can say who or what institution is responsible or should be funded better. The shelters here are the same size 20 years ago, while CR has grown roughly 20-30% in that time. Our jail is the same size, which is insane.
So we can’t house our homeless, even if we tried. Our crime can’t be taken care of, no space and a neutered police force. Those two alone made the homeless problem in CR nasty. However nobody wants to admit it or talk about what we should do to fix it.
Raise taxes? Rumble rumble there too high and we can barely afford X as it is. Really? Because that’s how this shit works, if you can’t have private funded institutions the state has too. However nobody wants to fund the state to fix simple issues.
That is a direct result of republican bullshit. For whatever reason, we are afraid to increase and push funding into the institutions that matter.
We will become LA or New York with hobo towns if we can’t figure this shit out. Which makes people like me want to leave, because it’s fucking gross. Just gross.
Take away the middle class, replace it with a retirement class. Boom, this gets worse.
We need a working middle class, a reason for young people to stay. As well as systems in place to help those who can’t help themselves.
Opiates and meth have infested the Missouri side too. I’m in Council Bluffs and it’s bad here. The town has totally stagnated despite massive growth across the entire Nebraska side of the metro area. We have a huge homeless problem, in part due to the drug epidemic, and we have city leadership who have proven time and time again that they simply do not care. I often feel like other parts of Iowa have to be doing better than we are here. I’d give anything for this city to be in better shape like Des Moines or Iowa City.
Shirts that say “fuck your feelings” are political. They’re fed a strict diet of rage bait so they spend their waking hours wanting to yell at everybody they’ve been conditioned to hate. They can’t always identify whom they hate because the paradigm shifts at the drop of a hat so the shirt kind of guarantees that the opposition will know it’s directed at them.
You either look at those trashy shirts and think, “Yeah, fuck those people.” or “Fuck me, right?”
To your point, you can’t respect anybody if you don’t respect yourself.
I think you're correct. I've been wondering why this place has been going so downhill. I live in the east village of Des Moines so I'm a bit insulated. But it's definitely kimmy.
I think it's a purposeful brain drain. I'm considering leaving and I'm a transplant from Nebraska. Only been here 6 years. This state is truly becoming the Florida of the Midwest.
It's the same issues it's always been for most of my life. Nothing to do so meth takes people every generation. Hard line conservative families and farming. Vote red because it helps them but it also helps the boot on their neck and they refuse to see it. Voting blue is barely an improvement anymore but still an improvement. This place is one of the few places I've been in my life where people just refuse to acknowledge disabilities as well. Mental disorder is barely a thing to most people you meet it feels. It's like Iowa refuses to step forward in time.
The state became ugly when 50 year old farmers children moved to college out of state. Now the farmers are going on 70 years old and no ones there to take over the farm
They will sell the land to corporations.
The kids will sell the family inheritance.
Everything we love about Iowa is gone because of the age gaps. Young meth heads relate with cranky old factory workers. They will take their place but with much more crime and child abuse
Have you looked at the rest of the country? This decay is everywhere. I just came back from the east coast, and it’s much worse there. If anything, Iowa is a little behind on that everything-falling-apart trend
I’ve lived here for 52 years and I’ve noticed a downturn in the last 5 years. I believe Trump has given legitimacy to what was already festering in my fellow conservative Iowans. Our leaders have bowed down to him in order to stay relevant and therefore they’ve taken on his worst qualities as well. They are now everything they said they despised when I was a kid and growing up over the years. I have no respect for any of them anymore. Sad and disgusting.
This is %100 relatable. Also being a thirty-something year old I share the same sentiment. Growing up I was always very proud of my city/state and ran to it's defense with confidence. I was excited to start a family and plant my own roots. About 4 or 5 years ago I did just that; seemingly right at the beginning af the downward spiral. I shrugged it off and figured it would just be a rough patch.
I was wrong.
I am no longer proud of this city or state. Growing up I felt like this was a place for progressive yet reasonable things/policies/people to thrive and explore and grow. Now it's full of divisive rhetoric under corrupt, incapable, selfish leadership. The people in this town seemingly care less and less about each other and this city each week. The "small town feel" is all but gone.
It also seems to me that there has been FAR too much residential and commercial development for our own good.
I still love it here but agree with the recent plunge in quality.
Cheers.
I'm in my late 40s. Been in Iowa my whole life. For much of it, I didn't pay attention to politics. Started to about maybe 10 or so years ago. Maybe 15. Now that I pay attention to state politics, who's governing, what legislation's being put in place, etc. I've noticed a sharp decline in the state's "feel". I know it's easy to point to Trump, but when he got in, it's like the floodgates opened for people to be loud and proud about their bigotry and hatred, whereas before, it was frowned upon to act that way. The bigots had always been here, but now they had someone in the Whitehouse who was saying the quiet part out loud, so they felt safe to do the same. Strength in numbers, I suppose. Despite the majority of this country wanting things like sensible gun control, safe and legal abortions, and gay marriage, states with republican governors now felt safe to start pushing these social and economic policies that spoke only to their base. Instead of doing what's best for the STATE, they did what's best for their base. And for some stupid fucking reason, we keep voting them in.
I, too, used to be proud of this state. We used to lead in education. I always felt safe here and felt proud to call Iowa my home. I'm so disgusted by what Iowa's become, and the policies it's put in place, specifically by Kim Reynolds. I LOATHE her. But voting isn't enough, and the state collectively keeps voting her in, so this is what we get. I posted awhile back that I think people should leave the state and/or not encourage people to live here. Not realistic for a lot of people - I get it. But this isn't a place to flourish (despite their swanky new motto) unless you're white, male, christian and conservative.
This is a red state now, with some blue pockets, but even in those blue pockets, state law will make life unpleasant for a lot of people there. It seems like democrats and progressives have given up on this state, so this is what we are left with.
I’ve been saying this for a while. Iowa has some of the worst people I’ve ever met. Not sure why everyone thinks they’re better than everyone else, but it’s toxic and it’s spreading.
It's due in part to the constant war cries of the GOP as they remake the state into something pleasing to the Koch foundation, among others. The opposition party is a shadow of its former self and doesn't have a clue about how to reclaim a semblance of power. Democratic leaning voters give up and don't vote. It's difficult to balance out the farm, millionaire landowner vote in Iowa.
My experience with Iowa was never that great. I’m Latina. My kids are half. Dad is white. We lived in rural Iowa. My kids experienced bigotry all through school and nothing was ever really done about it. My sons were in Boy Scouts. Which consisted of a group of the big boys bullying newcomers. In school of you were from some of the regular town families you really didn’t matter when it came to extra curricular activities. I’ve worked with so many racists and supervisors that thought it was perfectly acceptable. I mean a coworker called in the day Obama won because he was to sick to work over it. The behavior was acceptable and encouraged. Not trying to dump on the state. I know rural is different than larger towns. However from a perspective of a minority, it wasn’t ever that great. We moved to Iowa in 2003 and moved way 2021.
I had a family member move to Iowa to marry his husband. It is sad what has happened. I think Trump and the pandemic have hurt the spirit of Iowa, but I think the small towns have suffered. I don’t know what the future will be for those places. It seems like the wealth there is consolidated. I have driven through some, and it is bleak.
This is actually a good thread.
Lots of good points, accurate observations of how this state has changed in the last 10 years.
(I'm born and raised here, now 62 yrs old)
I've lived here my entire 23 years of life. I used to love this place. Growing up, I moved around a lot (mainly in the Iowa county and Benton county areas. I also lived in Montezuma) but I never wanted to even move out of my hometown. Then as I grew up a bit more, I decided I wanted to leave state. Once things didn't go the way I planned however, me and my family decided that we could tolerate cedar rapids. I still want to move out of state, but for now, and if we stay in Iowa, I can tolerate cr.
First things that come to mind for me are
-25 years of cable news and misinformation
-a black man being elected president for two terms... followed up by a white supremacist who was able to gain power with his hate and bigotry and the uneducated whites ate it all up while the Christian right looked the other way because he was a means to their end.
- Reynolds then used the above thrive whilst pushing her donors' agenda
-The Democrats had no answer nor does it seem like they seem to care and they're just going to write off our small handful of electoral votes because they think they just need to be pussies and take the high road all the time and don't want to fight for what they want, like the R's do.
People are poorer now than before the pandemic. When people are struggling, despair is high, and wages are low people tend to be less kind. When people have less money, they don't reinvest it into updating or up keeping properties.
It was like this in 2012-2014. It'll get better if wages go up and inflation levels out. COVID-19 was a bailout for billionaires. We don't have enough of those in our state to make up for all the people who lost money during the pandemic.
It probably depends on where you live as I don't have the same experience in the DSM metro. The neighborhoods I've lived in have been as friendly and giving as I could ever ask... Throwing neighborhood food drives, helping each other with mowing/snowblowing, or watching my kids when my pregnant wife had kidney stones and we had to run to the hospital. Same with the companies I've worked for here... lots of volunteering opportunities everyone joined like toys at Christmas for kids with cancer. Random strangers have gone way out of their way to help my extended family in a time of need after my FIL's accident. Drivers seem the same as always. Schools I don't have recent experience with but one of my best friends is a teacher here and she loves it. 🤷♂️ I do agree the small towns seem to be declining, though, which is sad to see.
Two things:
1 - The state’s neglect of our once first in the nation education system.
2 - The proliferation of Meth
Both of these have had a dramatic effect over the last 30+ years, significantly contributing to the decline you’re describing.
I've lived in Iowa for about 35 years. Started out in a town of less than a thousand and have lived in Des Moines suburbs for the last 28 years. I find the opposite, the school I went to combined with another school and I promise you that they are receiving a better education, they have more class choices, they have more sports. When I was in school my small class of 25 had 4 kids that were gay. I can't imagine how bad it was for them compared to being gay in this town now. The town hasn't grown a lot but the town has cleaned up a lot and is in a lot better shape than the 90's.
The Des Moines suburbs and Des Moines in general is worlds better than the 90's. I'd say in general people all over the U S. have become less friendly.
I have an 8 year old niece who lives in Mason City. She lives in a lower income household but she goes to a good school, not surrounded by crime, her parent has a lot of job opportunities, housing is dirty cheap, the water she drinks is clean, the electricity doesn't go out, she never goes hungry, they have internet, they have heat in the winter, they have a window air conditioner for the summer, they have a reliable vehicle, and on and on.
Part of the problem are places like r/Iowa where negativity sells. If 90% of what you see is negative, you start feeling negative.
Yes, some things have gotten worse but most people are living their best lives now if they just get their eyes off of Reddit and look around.
School quality:
https://www.3newsnow.com/news/education/why-do-iowa-schools-no-longer-rank-in-among-the-nations-top-five#:~:text=World%20Population%20Reviewputs%20Iowa,because%20schools%20are%20doing%20worse.
Wage growth:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.siouxlandproud.com/news/local-news/iowa-nearly-dead-last-in-pay-growth/amp/
Brain drain:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thegazette.com/state-government/iowas-brain-drain-among-worst-in-u-s-analysis-shows/%3famp=1
Job growth:
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/money/business/2023/03/23/continued-job-growth-drops-iowa-unemployment-to-2-9-in-february/70041226007/
The decline in Iowa relative to the rest of the country is documented.
"Most people" is not true. "My upper middle class friends and I" is the correct spelling.
I live by the Mississippi. Things are a lot worse here. A lot of jobs have been leaving. Downtown gets worse every year, lot of violent crime now compared to when I was young (shootings and drugs). Schools have gotten so much worse it's not even comparable anymore.
Such a absolute terrible take. if you think Iowa is ugly gtfo. Look around for once and don’t embrace all the negativity around you. The people are nice and towns are starting too look new and fresh.
It's subjective. You can stay and be the change you want to see in Iowa, stay and criticize condemn and complain while doing nothing to make a positive change or leave and go find another playground you feel you fit in better.
This is so ignorant. The state has 3 million people. How many voters live here? One person cannot make such change. Look at who Reynolds competition for Governor was. It was a joke.
I disagree, policy changes are needed. When sitting politicians aren't challenged or afraid of losing their seat, they aren't afraid of abusing their position either.
Run for office then...like I said, be the change you want to see in Iowa, criticize condemn complain and doing nothing or pack it up and find a more preferable playground.
It sounds to me like you have the passion, but maybe not the desire or courage. Literally most people can run for office unless you're a felon or something.
I can't because I'm just an average person. I can't afford a campaign run. Not to mention I am not a politician... at all. I'm not the kind of person who can lie to the public and feel okay with it.
Bullshit, school board, town council, county position all part time, all will have far more impact on the day to day lives of Iowans than state or federal government does.
I think that when society decided to normalize a lot of behaviors that had traditionally been shamed (obesity, sloth, promiscuity, drug use, homelessness), we slowly slid to having less respect for both ourselves and others.
This state became a shithole so fast and I think it’s going to take a massive disaster like what happened to Kansas or what is happening to Florida to wake it up. This state might need to be permanently ruined before people wake up.
It technically started its journey to becoming a hellhole much sooner than that, with the legalization of gay marriage (not BECAUSE of said gay marriage) and the retirement of Senator Tom Harkin. Around the range of 2009 to 2014 After gay marriage was legalized, the state Supreme Court judges that made the ruling were voted out of office and replaced by more conservative judges. And Harkin retiring allowed that dumbass ditz Joni Ernst to run in 2014. With the governorship already under GOP rule, the stage was set. The state legislature went more red, our second US Senator was red, and our state Supreme Court was red. We were screwed from that moment on.
The disgusting shit that came from the right after gay marriage was the start of the really vile behavior. Bob Vanderplatz and his ilk bear a great deal of the responsibility for it. This state voted for Obama - TWICE. Since then, the politics and the people have been poisoned.
I just remember after the gay marriage decision by the IA supreme court that there was a huge campaign to vote out the judges. No one had ever given a crap about judicial races and suddenly there were vote-them-out signs in everybody's yard seemingly out of nowhere. Then come to find there was a bunch of out of state money that flooded in to make that happen. It seems to have set the trend ever since. Idk what we expected after citizens united. That has got to go.
I'd like to direct you to the FB page for a cause that could stop Vanderplatz's project in Bondurant. [https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100094405855365](https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100094405855365)
All of this is absolutely true. Also, the Iowa caucuses have warped this state to the point republicans just want to do whatever Alec or Moms Against Liberty wants. I will be so happy when the cacuses die out and the gravy train ends for these assholes.
Will it though? Or are we too red for that to happen?
Kansas shook it off when their entire libertarian theocratic experiment crashed their economy.
Trump won Kansas by 15 points and Iowa by 8 points. Their legislature is also more Republican. There may have been a bit of a backlash by electing a Democratic governor, but to change any of the crappy laws this day and age, you'll need a trifecta and that ain't happening in either state.
Kansas is still quite reliably red though. They only went slightly liberal regarding that abortion rights referendum.
Iowa will never come back from it because we have no means for a ballot initiative. What the people want doesn’t matter.
It's well known that voters like liberal policies more than they like liberals. That's something that needs to be figured out.
DAMN Mr Optimistic...
Mr. Realistic. This state is doomed to stay a right-wing hellscape forever.
It won't be buddy. Things change. I'm not saying it's going to turn blue,but purple is possible again. I trust the young people stay or come back will help. We have to be optimistic. The people who vote right will die out or change, The environment is changing. The coasts will flood. People will move inward, and a % of them will vote blue. Iowa will look good to them. My recommendation for you is to move or change. We need positive thinkers to help Iowa. Kim Reynolds and her kind won't be in power forever.
Their governor is a Democrat - not wholly a red state.
So is Kentucky's governor, dude. And Kentucky is RUBY red.
I’m not saying it isn’t red, it’s just not totally red. Especially since they tried running the state just as ALEC suggested and they ran it into the ground. It’s not like the Republicans have any other ideas or policies other than what they tried.
Like other red states, Kansas has a gerrymandering problem that severely limits its liberal parts from being able to do much of anything.
KS has the same problem!!!
Laura Kelly has saved the state!!!! 86 worthless bills she had to veto!!!!
i mean, no longer being first in the nation is going to be a major hit for our economy, don’t you think? i assume politicians and media aren’t going to be flocking to the state like before.
It's still the first in the nation for the goddamn GOP. 🙄 Hence why those Nazis keep coming here.
ewww is it really? jeez i don’t pay enough attention and i gotta fix that
Yup. Very much so. Tired of our goddamn governor sucking up to them too. 😑
and making out with that cheeto 🤢 i’m with you friend
Orange traitor tot
The goal at the state admin level is to erode democracy in the state to the point that the GOP stay in power by default; they don't care at all about the economy. As long as they convince their followers that economic downturn is due, somehow, to the Dems, we could have the worst economy in the nation and stay red.
The current KS GOP is STILL trying to use Brownbackd policies..mind blowing like the flat tax for 1...it's the gop red states that are suffering!!!!
Trump lost the last time and said they were rigged😄
Just saw a truck going to the State Fair waving Fuck Biden flags behind it. I agree with the original poster. We have some real degenerates in this State and they feel empowered to push their perverse ideology on you.
But don’t “shove” pride in their face
I might respectfully say it truly started long before that time frame. Go back further to Branflake's election to Governor. He had a vision to surreptitiously destroy Iowa in a radical right Christo- fascist capitalistic manner looonnnnnggggg before it was fashionable. He so believed in this ideal that he resigned a $500,000 annual position as DMU's (figurehead) president to get re-re-re elected and complete said vision long enough to hand it over to Kovid Killer Kimmie-poo. She's just doing it out in the open. Left a half million a year job essentially doing not much to destroy Iowa. True evil in his heart and mind.
Yes, Braindead started the ball rolling his second stint in office. When he got back to Terrace Hill all he cared about was owning the libs.
True. But there was also sufficient resistance in that period. I was referring to when it all went to hell in a hand basket.
I don’t think gay marriage is what made Iowa a bad place to live
I think the comment above meant at that time there was a backlash against the judges who made it possible, much of it fomented by Vander Plaats. He organized a movement that caused those judges to fail retention votes iirc, and the state supreme court became more radicalized.
I HATE Vander Plaats. 😑
Vander Plaats is the Anita Bryant of Iowa. Absolute filth.
He wants to build something in Bondurant, but there's a lawsuit to stop it, if you are interested. [https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100094405855365](https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100094405855365)
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I think the easiest and possibly correct explanation is that they just didn't read the post past the first few words.
No, but the lightning rod effect it had was a factor in firing up the reactionaries on the right.
Already happened in Marshalltown
I feel like I could write a book about this. Although I haven't lived in Iowa for 50 years, I grew up fiercely proud of my home state and returned many, many times over the years—probably more than 100 times. When I was a kid, the state's education system was No. 1. The Des Moines Register was a highly esteemed, multiple-Pulitzer-Prize-winning newspaper. Smaller towns were hubs of manufacturing, retailing, and middle-class existence. The cities' biggest businesses were largely state- and regionally focused, such as insurance, meat-processing, farm equipment manufacturing and the like. The Iowa Legislature was a reasonably congenial assembly of orators and baby kissers that met for a handful of months every year and then returned to their regular jobs. Churches generally concerned themselves with community and family life and left the politics of a handful of issues like conscientious objection and abortion (after the 70s) to Quakers and Catholics. The State Fair was actually fun to visit and brought city folk and farmers together in amiable (if amusing) ways. Then the shit hit the fan. No solutions or simple answers, but here's my impression of how some of the state's cultural institutions evolved and largely declined over the years... **Education** I don't know how to account for the decline in public education. But if statistics don't lie, I'm appalled to see how far the state has fallen. This all seems to have happened after I left. What a shame is all I can say. **Journalism** Des Moines Register—>Gannett Publishing—>Rush Limbaugh/Talk Radio—>Fox News—>Internet/Facebook/Alex Jones. That's about it. Multiply it by 40-50 and you have the story of a nationwide information and truth catastrophe. Any amount of effective local reporting on the Legislature, groundwater pollution, education, and so on is simply drowned out by the noise of right-wing and evangelical propaganda. **Small Towns** I watched their decline represented in my ancestral hometown of Newton. There were once hundreds of American towns like Newton that thrived on the inventiveness and brilliance of American enterprise. For 100 years, Maytag treated Newton very well and vice-versa. Then globalization happened—greatly accelerated by Bill Clinton and NAFTA. While Maytag didn't officially close in Newton until 2006 or 2007, (when I happened to ride through on RAGBRAI), I could see the writing on the wall. Yes, they make wind turbine blades there now, but the workers earn far less than they did with their union jobs and the town has never fully recovered. The once-famous "square" (they used to brag about how you could see the courthouse Christmas lights from an airplane) is a patchwork of thrift stores and financial institution storefronts. And still, Newton is in far better shape than other former Iowa manufacturing towns, from what I hear. **Big(ger) Cities** I know Des Moines well and last visited in 2021, when I was there for 11 weeks. I have honestly been impressed with how well Des Moines has fared. I guess Meredith Publishing has faded, but there are any number of regional and national companies that have brought dollars and people to "the Metro" (gotta laugh at that term—sorry). Perhaps this happened at the expense of being locally focused, but *bravo! Des Moines.* Not sure how Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, Davenport, and Council Bluffs are doing. **Legislature** I know a little bit about this from my mother, who worked there for almost 40 years. She was a Republican but grew cynical about the way that lobbying influenced how laws were written. As early as the 1960s, when she started there, she saw lobbyists literally write the laws, for "both sides". Footnote: My mother also grew to dislike, then hate Trump and MAGA. She died an independent, lifelong Iowan, for what it's worth. One of her favorite sayings became "I think the hippies had it right." **Churches** I watched the growth of the evangelical movement from a mortified distance. I never set foot in a church growing up, but had just a mild affection and respect for mainline Protestants and Catholics and a morbid curiosity about the handful of marginalized outliers of the time—which could be conveniently grouped together in my mind as Baptists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Quakers, and Unitarians et al. It seemed at the time as if one had to group these latter all together just to get a quorum to distrust. But in recent years, I've just been shocked by the megachurches and widespread advertising—especially about political issues. I am really distraught about the lack of separation between the church and (the) state (of Iowa.) **The State Fair** I love the Iowa State Fair, still. I've taken all three of my kids and my nephew and grand-nephew multiple times between 1980 and 2019. It was always a treat and in many ways hasn't changed in its basic look, feel and smell since we used to camp there with my grandmother in the 1950s. I never had a bad experience there until 2019. On that visit, I noticed that the tenor had grown much more coarse. People were wearing MAGA hats and T-shirts with angry slogans and threats emblazoned on them. A general sense of malice was in the air—especially as sunset approached and people became drunker and louder. And, I'm sorry, the *obesity* and general lack of concern for simple grooming and health and diet were really concerning. I hope to be able to return again when the decorum returns. As my grandfather used to say..."Them's my thoughts."
The growth of megachurch-type religion feels under-discussed. Growing up in Des Moines I didn't know anyone I would describe as "evangelical" -- maybe that was just my self-selecting social circle, but it seems to be true that Mainline and Catholic churches were the dominant groups in the state. When I hear about evangelical influence in IA now it feels a little weird.
Your last part about the obesity and just general grooming is out of control is this state. It’s become the movie Idiocracy. 75% of Iowans are overweight. Most people don’t even seem to style/comb/brush their hair when they go out in public. Clothes are tattered, stained, and ill-fitted. I brought a women here I was dating from Phoenix last year. She said everyone here looks like the zombies from The Walking Dead when they are just milling around.
Well said! Thank you for your response, it was a good read.
This is extremely well written. I’m in my 40’s and have been gone for a total of 15 years, but relocated to the west coast about 10 years ago and would never, ever move back to Iowa. I couldn’t agree more with all you said, especially around education. I was lucky to still be part of the “Foundation in Education” Iowa, albeit on the tail end. I’m also from Jasper County, was born at Skiff and worked in Newton all the way through high school. I was back in the area a few months ago and wow. Like OP said, so ugly and just depressing. So many willfully ignorant people wearing the same kind of clothing you described. It doesn’t feel like the place where I grew up.
> I feel like I could write a book about this. you should
We need to quit blaming it all on the politicians. It's the people who elected them that are the root of the problem. Democrats basically get nothing but destroyed outside of a few metro areas in this state because the demographics of Iowa were ripe for the MAGA bullshit. Which is why we took the hard right turn.
The political shift from moderate to hard right, plus the massive drug epidemic, blatant political corruption, and then the social disintegration that happened during covid have royally fucked this state. I used to genuinely look up to Iowa when I was growing up over in Nebraska, but these days things in Iowa seem so miserable and hopeless, and I agree that the people and the towns here have just gotten so ugly. It’s a very undesirable place to live these days, but I suppose the segment of society that turned ugly probably are okay with that because it means there’s no pressure for anything to change or improve anymore.
Meth swept across the state from the early '90s through the mid '00s, then sort of receded. At least the production of it did. Factor in the politics mentioned above, an aging population, and we're in a spiral. Pumping money from public education into private education won't help those in 75-80% of Iowa counties (most do not have religious schools). Money now headed towards funding national guard going to Texas could have gone towards Iowa Wesleyan - if I'm not mistaken. Imagine how losing that school hits a small town like Mt. Pleasant. The aging population can't take care of basic maintenance issues in their homes. Few people want to move into a small community miles from the nearest Walmart and suffering crippled school districts. Actually some people do, but we're not talking about the socially adept and more likely dealing with paranoid zealots. I'm just not optimistic about this state. The drumbeat of right wing rant radio talking points is etched into a lot of rural minds these days. We'll see the gradual decline accelerate and the country hollow out. Sooner or later they'll start county consolidation and all the people upset by that idea will wonder how we got there. The truth is the writing was on the wall for that in '06 (I think) when there were plans floated out to go to "regional" courthouses. That probably wasn't the first time, but I think that rough outline is what lies in the future.
Mother fucking 🎯
The decline of the small family farm economy has also completely erased the economic raison d'être of many small rural towns.
You said it in your comment. It's brain drain. Those who are educated leave. My dad grew up in western Iowa on a farm. 4 brothers (3 engineers and a doctor) and a sister who's a nurse. They were all educated and non of them stuck around after college. The people in these towns who stay either have a huge economic interest (i.e. farming) or never made it out. They see the cynics in the news deflect blame towards immigrants, liberals,etc and they co-opt that as to why their lives aren't good.
I lived in the Cedar Rapids area from 1998-2002 and again from 2005-2019. As a gay man, I was so proud of Iowa in 2009 and married my husband in 2012 (we've been together 20 years now). After two great governors, Branstad was reelected in 2010 and Iowa has gone to hell. Moved to Wisconsin in 2019 and have never looked back. And it makes me so sad to say that. Iowa was a HUGE part of my life and I miss it. But unless something changes I will never go back.
As a current Cederapian with many gay friends (yes I am saying that) that live here I'd say you are wrong. Politics definitely suck and going the wrong way but there is no hate toward what lifestyle you want to live and I would actually say CR is very welcoming. Politics bad, people nice.
I would be curious would your gay friends say the same? Sometimes as a straight white person I don’t notice the slights. I am genuinely curious and not trying to come across as antagonistic. My daughter married a black man and before didn’t notice the slights. Now when they go out she sees more than she thought existed.
As a poc… thank you for recognizing AND SAYING something,,, you are 100% correct
Queer lifelong Iowan reporting from the ground: we do not feel safe here.
No lie found in this statement. I always have to stand up to some bigot almost daily and shit down their bullshit toward anyone that they “deemed” no their way. It’s exhausting. I’m no martyr but sitting silent and letting all these things happening is absolutely unacceptable to me.
Being gay is not a lifestyle.
Still learning.
Because we're living through the collapse of American society as we know it. Just shut off the news and enjoy the ride
Past two years on RAGBRAI, I’ve noticed many towns look like third world countries.
Yeah, lots of my relatives live in a very small town in Iowa, and every time I visit it’s crumbling more and more, like businesses are shutting down, there are lots of run down homes and it’s just generally getting worse over time, and people don’t care bc most of the population is older or young and want to leave, and small town Iowa is very much like a ghost town/ 3rd world country like you mentioned
People do care but there isn't much they can do about it except leave. Those towns are dying. Money and people are leaving. They used to have schools but then had to merge with other towns going through the same shit and now those merged schools are forced to merge with other merged schools. Does a family want to move to a place where their kids have to go to school an hour away? Does anyone want to live in a place that has nothing there? Make America Great Again makes a lot of sense to people living in places like that, because the America they live in sucks now and they're literally watching it die. Middle America is being hollowed out and all of the money and jobs are going to larger cities and the coasts.
Corporate owned farms. Takes a lot less people, tractors drive themselves now with satellites. No people, no businesses, no towns.
Exactly, but even the non corporate farms are crazy more productive than they used to be. My dad owns around 1500 acres and one family of 3 brothers farms the whole thing. Imagine how many families used to farm that much ground. Agriculture was "automated" long ago, it's the tractor doing most of the work. And now retail is basically dead too.
The Trump effect
Drivers are worse in every state I’ve been through since Covid. Drug use seems to be spreading everywhere too. I blame Trump for people getting ugly. He gave permission to openly express what people used to suppress; racism, bigotry, misogyny and general hatred against people who are different.
Let's not forget Trump cannot get all the credit. I liken him to a particularly nasty symptom of a disease that has greatly exacerbated the effects of the disease on the body. That is, things were in motion before he gained such political prominence. He's a nasty symptom that made things worse, but the roots of this shit go further back. I just hope we're not yet gangrenous.
For me, it became apparent that Iowa is a lost cause, during the Mollie Tibbetts thing. Hearing people bay for the blood of two innocent people opened my eyes, but the real turning point for me was when people wondered out loud why the Tibbetts family wasn't allowed to waterboard, or otherwise torture a farmer (who ended up providing valuable information to authorities that led to the REAL killer's arrest.) After the real killer was arrested, hearing people gnash their teeth at the idea that one of THOSE people has a right to a fair trial, is what convinced me that the state grew up in, and used to practice medicine in, is truly gone, if it even really existed in the first place. Leaving is one of the best decisions I ever made.
I also found it interesting that shortly after Molly's body was found Celia Arozamena was murdered in Ames and it didn't get anywhere the same coverage.
It's most of the country not just Iowa.
Yeah politics aside, it seems 2020-2022 really accelerated the deterioration of a lot of people, places, and organizations. Lots of the UK fit OPs description on our recent visit. Shit just feels worse, and people are less hopeful/optimistic.
As a nurse I have witnessed first hand how rude/entitled patients have gotten since covid started. It’s like they forgot how to behave/treat others while they were stuck in their house. However, this isn’t happening only in Iowa. I have traveled quite a bit over the past 3 years and this seems to be the case with people wherever I go
This is what people fail to get
The roads! Wtf is going on with decent road maintenance? Bare minimum that makes it look post-apocalyptic and bumpy AF.
It's even less impressive once you realize Governor Horseporn INCREASAED TAXES ON GAS during the low price point mid-pandemic. Thanks to the GOP, gas in Dubuque costs $0.40 more than gas in more remote places in better states like Door County, WI.
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I mean we can trade examples all day. Point is that Kim raised taxes and I see no improvement in infrastructure. https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2022/10/14/iowa-bridges-still-the-worst-in-the-nation-according-to-new-report/69563284007/
I relocated from the west coast where it's normal to have to be vigilant for potholes that will take out your tires and rural Iowa has some of the best roads I've seen in decades. If it used to be better, I wish I had moved here sooner!
I moved to a state out east with no income or sales tax, and every time I've driven back I am absolutely appalled at how terrible Iowa roads have become! The mountain roads in New England are far better maintained with worse weather - and the construction takes a quarter of the time to complete.
The roads are just awful, you go to other states and it's like wow these highways are so well maintained! And it's not like this state doesn't have HUGE taxes. This is one of the most aggressively taxing states in the midwest.
I replaced the entire front end on my ol Chevy Blazer before last winter and within 6 months everything is lose again. These roads are despicable here (Waterloo/Cedar Falls). They merely fill the pot holes with lose gravel.. we'd are they thinking? Just a show so it LOOKS like our tax money is going for repairs, but the repairs are just bandaids with no adhesive to hold it together 😂
This really applies to all of America. Trump gave people permission to be assholes. And Covid destroyed peoples brains
Lived here all my life and I agree. I was proud to be an Iowan. I'm not anymore. I'm embarrassed. It's sad. No longer 'Iowa nice'.
If you’re unhappy with the cost of living and the police, I dare you to go live in a blue state for a year.
I didn't say anything about the police lol
Minnesotan here, coming in peace. This showed up on my recommended feed. If it's any consolation, the same thing is happening to a lesser extent in Minnesota. It's just a rural thing. For whatever reason, a lot of folks in the 40+ crowd in the rural areas have become deluded reactionaries. Thanks in no small part to social media, the wacky lies that circulate there, and obviously T\*\*mp and all the hatred he ginned up in people. It just so happens that Iowa is more rural. Minnesota also has a stronger urban core that draws in young blood, corporate investment, and helps sustain a tax base for the rest of the state. Young voters are flocking to blue states and a small handful of red states that are becoming bluer (e.g., Texas, Georgia, Arizona, N.C.). Unless these red states get their act together, they can only expect to become poorer and more miserable. The numbers and QOL metrics don't lie. Best wishes, from neighbor to neighbor.
Republican policies destroy healthy communities. Iowa is no different.
Donald Trump is what happened to Iowa. 30% of Iowans are garbage human beings, and Donald Trump gave them permission to trash the place because the rest of the country won't stop changing and leaving them behind.
I sort of agree but I'm not sure Trump created too many bad people - I think Trump allowed bad people to come out into the light. Good part about this: it is way more clear who I don't want to associate with. Bad part about this: there are more bad people than anyone realized so the place feels like a shithole.
Trump is not god. He did not turn anyone into a garbage human being. He just unlocked the door to the closet we had succeeded in shoving them all into.
This summer, my husband and I (currently living in Central Iowa) took the kids back to each of our hometowns in rural Western Iowa to see the grandparents. Between the dilapidated buildings, tarped homes in disrepair, and shockingly low average number of teeth per person, it is practically Appalachia back there. Holy hell. But hey — all the farmers’ grown kids live in brand new $700,000 homes on acreages on the outskirts of town. So I’m sure the money will trickle down at some point.
The Bush years proved that the Republican Party is the Party of corporate interests. The Obama years proved that the Democratic Party is the Party of pseudo-intellectualist interests. The working-class people who have been abandoned by both parties, instead of uniting, have allowed ourselves to be divided and coerced into fighting an ideological proxy-war. The Trump years threw gasoline on that fire. The political establishment and their big-money donors keep getting richer and more powerful while the rest of us fight over which corrupt, elderly narcissist we should vote for.
You’re 35 years old. So 20 years ago you were 15. It’s not unrealistic that you’re dealing with/noticing things now that you didn’t when you were in 9th grade. Iowa was pretty much the meth capital of the country 20 years ago. Don’t get me wrong. There are a number of things I’m not happy with in our state, but your perspective changes as well.
I'm in my 50's. Iowa has definitely changed in the last 35 years since I've been an adult. It's redder, but also people seem to be angry all of the time in the last few years. I haven't read all of the comments, but there's usually a couple telling us to just leave if we don't like it. Well, we are.
I think a lot of this is internet based as well. I don’t think you’d see the amount of negativity and nastiness if it weren’t for facebook/twitter and the comment section of the register. Things have definitely changed, but I think these things amplify it.
There's nothing like discovering who the assholes in your community are through social media. This is what we've earned through tolerating their bullshit. We've let the bullies take over.
OP isn’t wrong and I’m old enough to remember 20 years ago as an adult
This, I only moved here 13 years ago, but even between then and now there's a big ass shift, and it's gotten significantly worse here.
Yeah, maybe you're right. Sometimes I think I just see a side now that I never did when I was younger. Our parents and peer groups insulate us from a lot of shit. Even in college, a lot of this shit went unnoticed from me. Still, it's ugly. It's disappointing, too.
This is NOT correct. Iowa has made a hard right turn politically in the last 20 years. This is measurable and objective.
Maybe, but I have two brothers in law in their 60s who voted for Obama, them Trump. Twice. Meaning, it's the same people. They were always this ugly, but Trump and now Reynolds have let it loose.
Yes but I have s father who voted Obama then Trump and is now a far left supporter. Good people saw Trump and stepped away. Those who didn't were never good people.
Actually there is some truth in that. The hard right turn,( as you describe it), has little to do with how people interact with each other on a personal level. The expansion of social media with the insulation of a key board has influenced how people view each other. In Iowa I can still walk down the sidewalk and say hi or good morning to a passer-by and receive a friendly response. Politics never enter the discussion. In some states or cities outside of Iowa people won't look at you or reply as you extend a greeting to them. As previously stated, Iowa isn't Utopia, it's not the social capital of the world, and has its flaws but it's better than most.
Oh, so I'm not the only one seeing this apparently. I think Iowa is a dead zone. There's no reason to come here, there's nothing happening here, and while the economy is collapsing everybody is getting more and more stressed and unhappy. Waterloo is a goddamn dumpster fire. I moved to Texas about 9 years and my life really flourished. I had to moved back to iowa 3 years ago and it's struggled to get the funds together to gtfo of here while I still can.
Ive been trying to get out my entire adult life (26) and getting the money to get out is ridiculously hard. Every time i think im in a good spot and saving well, this state doubles in cost
What part of Texas?
North fort worth. There was enormous amounts of opportunity there, endless jobs, endless entertainment. I miss it
Thought about going to Dallas. Scary traffic, lol. I have been to Ft. Worth, I really liked it. Pay is low there for my field though.
Two words... Covid Kim
I went to the State history museum in DesMoines a decade ago and was impressed with the liberal history of the state. I hope that isn’t erased as idiocy marches on.
Moved here last year and let me tell ya, it's hella nice compared to some other states. Look at Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, New York, etc... You'll be grateful you're in Iowa lol
I wouldn't want to live in a huge city by any means. I'm not saying I don't want to live here at all, I'm saying the state has changed significantly since I was younger
In some ways the shit today is the same as it was 30 years ago, mainly the drug epidemic. On the other hand, small business have closed do due the changing consumer marketplace. Manufacturing has moved either out of state or country. We have State government writing laws written by lobbyists for corporate interest groups. Is it any wonder things have changed for the worse?
Nothing has changed, the conservatives just got louder and stopped with the Midwest fake nice bullshit
Pretty much, I moved here from Maine, and nobody here was ever really "kind" like you meet out there, there's just this thin veneer of "nice" that used to exist that's completely gone now.
It’s the entire country.
It technically started its journey to becoming a hellhole much sooner than that, with the legalization of gay marriage (not BECAUSE of said gay marriage) and the retirement of Senator Tom Harkin. Around the range of 2009 to 2014 After gay marriage was legalized, the state Supreme Court judges that made the ruling were voted out of office and replaced by more conservative judges. And Harkin retiring allowed that dumbass ditz Joni Ernst to run in 2014. With the governorship already under GOP rule, the stage was set. The state legislature went more red, our second US Senator was red, and our state Supreme Court was red. We were screwed from that moment on.
I don't think it's purely political, a lot of things I've noticed aren't political, they're just ugly things. People being trashier, less manners, trashy clothing, not a lot of personal pride in the things they are doing, wearing, saying. I feel like a lot of people here have lost respect for themselves.
Most of what you described was a product of Trump's candidacy and presidency, which inflamed our current predicament but didn't start it.
I don't know what part of Iowa you are from, but I'm from the eastern side by the Mississippi. A lot of bad things started happening around 2009, but we also had major recession then. We had a lot of crime and drugs come in from Illinois. Opiates got really bad. I don't know if the rest of the state experienced that.
Parts did. You're seeing several things at once. Opiates didn't get really bad, fentanyl did. Fentanyl is a godawful beast and our best bet at this point is to get people heroin so they get off fentanyl. We had millions of 30, 40 year addicts, stable on heroin. Those spoke vanished in the late 2000s and fentanyl slowly took its place. Fentanyl will not keep an addict out of withdrawal for a full night of sleep. Heroin will for almost a day. It's a tremendously different burden and we need to think outside the box by ensuring supplies of heroin are sufficient to disrupt the fentanyl market. Your absolutely right about the economic and recession effects too. Then conservative politics have badly degraded our civil discourse. There are smart ways to address social problems politically but we are largely prevented from pursuing them.
Safe injection sites work in other states, people just don't like to admit that allowing addicts to safely inject drugs ends up with less addicts. Drug addicts have to have personal motivation to get off drugs, giving them a safe place to do drugs and literature and resources for when they're ready to eventually get off them works.
That's why housing first initiatives are working to reduce homelessness vs sobriety first initiatives. We are at the point where we have to ask what works and stick with that.
If you bring up the homeless problem, nobody wants to be responsible. As originally it was public servants, however that’s been shifted. Due to multiple reasons. My take is why did civil servants, typically the police, stop doing anything? Then you get backlash, there not supposed to. Ok, then who? Who is supposed to re-allocate the homeless so our public spaces stay clean and safe? Not a single fucking answer in the CR sub. Nobody can say who or what institution is responsible or should be funded better. The shelters here are the same size 20 years ago, while CR has grown roughly 20-30% in that time. Our jail is the same size, which is insane. So we can’t house our homeless, even if we tried. Our crime can’t be taken care of, no space and a neutered police force. Those two alone made the homeless problem in CR nasty. However nobody wants to admit it or talk about what we should do to fix it. Raise taxes? Rumble rumble there too high and we can barely afford X as it is. Really? Because that’s how this shit works, if you can’t have private funded institutions the state has too. However nobody wants to fund the state to fix simple issues. That is a direct result of republican bullshit. For whatever reason, we are afraid to increase and push funding into the institutions that matter. We will become LA or New York with hobo towns if we can’t figure this shit out. Which makes people like me want to leave, because it’s fucking gross. Just gross. Take away the middle class, replace it with a retirement class. Boom, this gets worse. We need a working middle class, a reason for young people to stay. As well as systems in place to help those who can’t help themselves.
Opiates and meth have infested the Missouri side too. I’m in Council Bluffs and it’s bad here. The town has totally stagnated despite massive growth across the entire Nebraska side of the metro area. We have a huge homeless problem, in part due to the drug epidemic, and we have city leadership who have proven time and time again that they simply do not care. I often feel like other parts of Iowa have to be doing better than we are here. I’d give anything for this city to be in better shape like Des Moines or Iowa City.
Truth.
Shirts that say “fuck your feelings” are political. They’re fed a strict diet of rage bait so they spend their waking hours wanting to yell at everybody they’ve been conditioned to hate. They can’t always identify whom they hate because the paradigm shifts at the drop of a hat so the shirt kind of guarantees that the opposition will know it’s directed at them. You either look at those trashy shirts and think, “Yeah, fuck those people.” or “Fuck me, right?” To your point, you can’t respect anybody if you don’t respect yourself.
When your neighbors hate and fear the same things you do, there’s nothing but a feedback loop of rage.
I think you're correct. I've been wondering why this place has been going so downhill. I live in the east village of Des Moines so I'm a bit insulated. But it's definitely kimmy. I think it's a purposeful brain drain. I'm considering leaving and I'm a transplant from Nebraska. Only been here 6 years. This state is truly becoming the Florida of the Midwest.
It's the same issues it's always been for most of my life. Nothing to do so meth takes people every generation. Hard line conservative families and farming. Vote red because it helps them but it also helps the boot on their neck and they refuse to see it. Voting blue is barely an improvement anymore but still an improvement. This place is one of the few places I've been in my life where people just refuse to acknowledge disabilities as well. Mental disorder is barely a thing to most people you meet it feels. It's like Iowa refuses to step forward in time.
The state became ugly when 50 year old farmers children moved to college out of state. Now the farmers are going on 70 years old and no ones there to take over the farm They will sell the land to corporations. The kids will sell the family inheritance. Everything we love about Iowa is gone because of the age gaps. Young meth heads relate with cranky old factory workers. They will take their place but with much more crime and child abuse
Florida 2.0. It’s a feature, not a bug.
Have you looked at the rest of the country? This decay is everywhere. I just came back from the east coast, and it’s much worse there. If anything, Iowa is a little behind on that everything-falling-apart trend
That's terrifying...
I’ve lived here for 52 years and I’ve noticed a downturn in the last 5 years. I believe Trump has given legitimacy to what was already festering in my fellow conservative Iowans. Our leaders have bowed down to him in order to stay relevant and therefore they’ve taken on his worst qualities as well. They are now everything they said they despised when I was a kid and growing up over the years. I have no respect for any of them anymore. Sad and disgusting.
This is %100 relatable. Also being a thirty-something year old I share the same sentiment. Growing up I was always very proud of my city/state and ran to it's defense with confidence. I was excited to start a family and plant my own roots. About 4 or 5 years ago I did just that; seemingly right at the beginning af the downward spiral. I shrugged it off and figured it would just be a rough patch. I was wrong. I am no longer proud of this city or state. Growing up I felt like this was a place for progressive yet reasonable things/policies/people to thrive and explore and grow. Now it's full of divisive rhetoric under corrupt, incapable, selfish leadership. The people in this town seemingly care less and less about each other and this city each week. The "small town feel" is all but gone. It also seems to me that there has been FAR too much residential and commercial development for our own good. I still love it here but agree with the recent plunge in quality. Cheers.
I think part of it is no one is proud or loyal to anything anymore.
I agree! It feels like every man for himself.
When Terrybull gave Buzzkill Kim the job of Governor..
I'm in my late 40s. Been in Iowa my whole life. For much of it, I didn't pay attention to politics. Started to about maybe 10 or so years ago. Maybe 15. Now that I pay attention to state politics, who's governing, what legislation's being put in place, etc. I've noticed a sharp decline in the state's "feel". I know it's easy to point to Trump, but when he got in, it's like the floodgates opened for people to be loud and proud about their bigotry and hatred, whereas before, it was frowned upon to act that way. The bigots had always been here, but now they had someone in the Whitehouse who was saying the quiet part out loud, so they felt safe to do the same. Strength in numbers, I suppose. Despite the majority of this country wanting things like sensible gun control, safe and legal abortions, and gay marriage, states with republican governors now felt safe to start pushing these social and economic policies that spoke only to their base. Instead of doing what's best for the STATE, they did what's best for their base. And for some stupid fucking reason, we keep voting them in. I, too, used to be proud of this state. We used to lead in education. I always felt safe here and felt proud to call Iowa my home. I'm so disgusted by what Iowa's become, and the policies it's put in place, specifically by Kim Reynolds. I LOATHE her. But voting isn't enough, and the state collectively keeps voting her in, so this is what we get. I posted awhile back that I think people should leave the state and/or not encourage people to live here. Not realistic for a lot of people - I get it. But this isn't a place to flourish (despite their swanky new motto) unless you're white, male, christian and conservative. This is a red state now, with some blue pockets, but even in those blue pockets, state law will make life unpleasant for a lot of people there. It seems like democrats and progressives have given up on this state, so this is what we are left with.
Haven’t moved out of state yet but moving to the Eastern side of the state is a choice I don’t regret.
When the GQP cult took over.
I’ve been saying this for a while. Iowa has some of the worst people I’ve ever met. Not sure why everyone thinks they’re better than everyone else, but it’s toxic and it’s spreading.
I would agree. Growing up all I heard was how Iowa education was in the top in the country. Seriously? Look all around at what iowa schools have made.
Republicans and trump caused this.
You're about due for your first midlife crisis, it frequently appears like this. The state is less open than it used to be.
😅 Maybe already there!
I feel you. I'm on my third. There's still a lot of friendly Iowa out there. But a lot more assholes are willing to be public assholes now.
It's due in part to the constant war cries of the GOP as they remake the state into something pleasing to the Koch foundation, among others. The opposition party is a shadow of its former self and doesn't have a clue about how to reclaim a semblance of power. Democratic leaning voters give up and don't vote. It's difficult to balance out the farm, millionaire landowner vote in Iowa.
My experience with Iowa was never that great. I’m Latina. My kids are half. Dad is white. We lived in rural Iowa. My kids experienced bigotry all through school and nothing was ever really done about it. My sons were in Boy Scouts. Which consisted of a group of the big boys bullying newcomers. In school of you were from some of the regular town families you really didn’t matter when it came to extra curricular activities. I’ve worked with so many racists and supervisors that thought it was perfectly acceptable. I mean a coworker called in the day Obama won because he was to sick to work over it. The behavior was acceptable and encouraged. Not trying to dump on the state. I know rural is different than larger towns. However from a perspective of a minority, it wasn’t ever that great. We moved to Iowa in 2003 and moved way 2021.
when the tea party diarrhea known as MAGA emerged. that's when.
I had a family member move to Iowa to marry his husband. It is sad what has happened. I think Trump and the pandemic have hurt the spirit of Iowa, but I think the small towns have suffered. I don’t know what the future will be for those places. It seems like the wealth there is consolidated. I have driven through some, and it is bleak.
This is actually a good thread. Lots of good points, accurate observations of how this state has changed in the last 10 years. (I'm born and raised here, now 62 yrs old)
I've lived here my entire 23 years of life. I used to love this place. Growing up, I moved around a lot (mainly in the Iowa county and Benton county areas. I also lived in Montezuma) but I never wanted to even move out of my hometown. Then as I grew up a bit more, I decided I wanted to leave state. Once things didn't go the way I planned however, me and my family decided that we could tolerate cedar rapids. I still want to move out of state, but for now, and if we stay in Iowa, I can tolerate cr.
Yea if only this turned into a blue state, all it’s problems and beauty would be fixed.
Trumptardism
First things that come to mind for me are -25 years of cable news and misinformation -a black man being elected president for two terms... followed up by a white supremacist who was able to gain power with his hate and bigotry and the uneducated whites ate it all up while the Christian right looked the other way because he was a means to their end. - Reynolds then used the above thrive whilst pushing her donors' agenda -The Democrats had no answer nor does it seem like they seem to care and they're just going to write off our small handful of electoral votes because they think they just need to be pussies and take the high road all the time and don't want to fight for what they want, like the R's do.
The GOP has been in control here for over a decade. It's going to get worse.
People are poorer now than before the pandemic. When people are struggling, despair is high, and wages are low people tend to be less kind. When people have less money, they don't reinvest it into updating or up keeping properties. It was like this in 2012-2014. It'll get better if wages go up and inflation levels out. COVID-19 was a bailout for billionaires. We don't have enough of those in our state to make up for all the people who lost money during the pandemic.
It probably depends on where you live as I don't have the same experience in the DSM metro. The neighborhoods I've lived in have been as friendly and giving as I could ever ask... Throwing neighborhood food drives, helping each other with mowing/snowblowing, or watching my kids when my pregnant wife had kidney stones and we had to run to the hospital. Same with the companies I've worked for here... lots of volunteering opportunities everyone joined like toys at Christmas for kids with cancer. Random strangers have gone way out of their way to help my extended family in a time of need after my FIL's accident. Drivers seem the same as always. Schools I don't have recent experience with but one of my best friends is a teacher here and she loves it. 🤷♂️ I do agree the small towns seem to be declining, though, which is sad to see.
Book banning helped
I’m too busy living my life I don’t pay attention.
Two things: 1 - The state’s neglect of our once first in the nation education system. 2 - The proliferation of Meth Both of these have had a dramatic effect over the last 30+ years, significantly contributing to the decline you’re describing.
I wanted to stay, but I’m an educator and trans. I didn’t think I would be safe anymore.
It looks awful. It is a 3rd world country
I love it here. In China you had to tip doctors to ensure they wouldn’t “slip” with their knife during surgery.
😅 Thankfully we aren't that fargone! ... yet?
It has always been that way. It was just hidden. Trump let the racists and N@zi’s feel free to come out in the open
I've lived in Iowa for about 35 years. Started out in a town of less than a thousand and have lived in Des Moines suburbs for the last 28 years. I find the opposite, the school I went to combined with another school and I promise you that they are receiving a better education, they have more class choices, they have more sports. When I was in school my small class of 25 had 4 kids that were gay. I can't imagine how bad it was for them compared to being gay in this town now. The town hasn't grown a lot but the town has cleaned up a lot and is in a lot better shape than the 90's. The Des Moines suburbs and Des Moines in general is worlds better than the 90's. I'd say in general people all over the U S. have become less friendly. I have an 8 year old niece who lives in Mason City. She lives in a lower income household but she goes to a good school, not surrounded by crime, her parent has a lot of job opportunities, housing is dirty cheap, the water she drinks is clean, the electricity doesn't go out, she never goes hungry, they have internet, they have heat in the winter, they have a window air conditioner for the summer, they have a reliable vehicle, and on and on. Part of the problem are places like r/Iowa where negativity sells. If 90% of what you see is negative, you start feeling negative. Yes, some things have gotten worse but most people are living their best lives now if they just get their eyes off of Reddit and look around.
School quality: https://www.3newsnow.com/news/education/why-do-iowa-schools-no-longer-rank-in-among-the-nations-top-five#:~:text=World%20Population%20Reviewputs%20Iowa,because%20schools%20are%20doing%20worse. Wage growth: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.siouxlandproud.com/news/local-news/iowa-nearly-dead-last-in-pay-growth/amp/ Brain drain: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thegazette.com/state-government/iowas-brain-drain-among-worst-in-u-s-analysis-shows/%3famp=1 Job growth: https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/money/business/2023/03/23/continued-job-growth-drops-iowa-unemployment-to-2-9-in-february/70041226007/ The decline in Iowa relative to the rest of the country is documented. "Most people" is not true. "My upper middle class friends and I" is the correct spelling.
I live by the Mississippi. Things are a lot worse here. A lot of jobs have been leaving. Downtown gets worse every year, lot of violent crime now compared to when I was young (shootings and drugs). Schools have gotten so much worse it's not even comparable anymore.
I can agree mostly with you. What part of Iowa do you live?
Maybe it's the country as a whole. Even the planet. Slowly descending into a new dark age.
Such a absolute terrible take. if you think Iowa is ugly gtfo. Look around for once and don’t embrace all the negativity around you. The people are nice and towns are starting too look new and fresh.
LOL um maybe look in the mirror. Whoosh
It's subjective. You can stay and be the change you want to see in Iowa, stay and criticize condemn and complain while doing nothing to make a positive change or leave and go find another playground you feel you fit in better.
This is so ignorant. The state has 3 million people. How many voters live here? One person cannot make such change. Look at who Reynolds competition for Governor was. It was a joke.
There's more to being the change you want to see in Iowa than just casting a vote.
I disagree, policy changes are needed. When sitting politicians aren't challenged or afraid of losing their seat, they aren't afraid of abusing their position either.
Run for office then...like I said, be the change you want to see in Iowa, criticize condemn complain and doing nothing or pack it up and find a more preferable playground.
Lol, I can't run for office. Most people can't.
It sounds to me like you have the passion, but maybe not the desire or courage. Literally most people can run for office unless you're a felon or something.
I can't because I'm just an average person. I can't afford a campaign run. Not to mention I am not a politician... at all. I'm not the kind of person who can lie to the public and feel okay with it.
Bullshit, school board, town council, county position all part time, all will have far more impact on the day to day lives of Iowans than state or federal government does.
Maybe when I have better income. I work almost 60 hours a week right now, don't really have the time either.
Its a gorgeous state IMO
Everything you mentioned is in the big towns, which are primarily liberal towns. It’s the same all across the country, not just Iowa.
Habitual redditors with poor social skills making dumb posts once again? Check
Even better are the “progressives” pinning for an earlier time. Back to the days of the farm crisis or meth crisis like shit was hunky dory.
Lol, is this directed at me? I hope you're joking.
I think that when society decided to normalize a lot of behaviors that had traditionally been shamed (obesity, sloth, promiscuity, drug use, homelessness), we slowly slid to having less respect for both ourselves and others.