Just as Iowa veers toward the Democrats, California comes to the rescue — for Trump

Just as President Trump is making a bid to win back New Mexico, Democrats have made a lunge to win back Iowa.

Fortunately, as they beaver away, California has come to Trump’s rescue, horning in to demonize Iowa as its means of virtue-signaling.

Start with a column describing what’s going on in Iowa from the U.K. Guardian. Hold your nose if you need to:

Nearly every [Democrat] campaign has a cogent rural agenda that calls for more conservation funding, massive increases in renewable energy research and deployment in rural environs, and support for new regional food supply chains.

[Elizabeth] Warren issued a striking call for a return to supply management, where farmers would be required to set aside acres for conservation as they were before the Nixon Administration urged farmers to plant fencerow to fencerow. She and Amy Klobuchar want more anti-trust enforcement.

Rural residents are listening. Warren attracted a crowd of 500 to talk agriculture and water quality near Fort Dodge in a mid-week afternoon. Bernie Sanders had the young crowd packed in at Iowa City railing on climate.

Trump and Co are fixed on bailouts and ethanol blending requirements. Meantime, Tim Ryan wants to expand the Conservation Reserve Program and help ag stop surface water pollution. Beto O’Rourke understands the role that grazing plays in a new farm economy. They’ve even talked up this stuff during the televised debates.

Democrats propose a compact with rural America built around environmental services, renewable energy, a diverse and stable network of food producers and suppliers, and less dependence on export markets to keep rural America in business.

Blah, blah, blah, and yes, it is the U.K. Guardian, which is left-wing. But the writer, Art Cullen, is a small-town Iowa newspaper columnist, a valid liberal, and presumably knows his region well. While some of his logic is off, other parts of his analysis may be worth looking at.

Start with the weak part: he argues that O’Rourke and Ryan have plans, and sure enough, they do have plans, but their plans are to demonize Iowa farmers as polluters. Somehow, I’m going to bet that farmers will see through their candy-coated words on that one and say “no.” Those clowns also are currently polling around 1% and aren’t going to win anyway.

However, his argument also says that Warren and Sanders are resonating in Iowa on less hateful proposals, and we can’t close our eyes to this. Neighboring Minnesota and Wisconsin both have significant progressivist traditions, dating at least a hundred years back, so Iowa may be feeling the same currents, given how farmers have suffered under tariffs, which affect their exports as well as the price of farm equipment, as Cullen notes. The discontent may be real.

But never fear: California has come to the rescue, for Trump, vowing to boycott Iowa over its stance on transgender issues.

According to Fox News:

California announced last week that it has added Iowa to the list of states on its ever-expanding “travel ban” list because of that state’s new prohibition against funding gender-transition surgeries under Medicaid.

The announcement by state Attorney General Xavier Becerra means that as of Oct. 4, California will no longer offer taxpayer-funded trips to Iowa for any public employee or student at a state-run university.

Becerra’s authority came from a 2016 California law signed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown that bars state-funded travel to other states that undercut LGBT rights. The blacklist already included Alabama, Kentucky, North Carolina, Texas, Oklahoma and Mississippi.

California’s state government, see, isn’t just about virtue-signaling; it’s also about controlling others. If a rival state does what California does, then fine, interstate commerce can flourish. If it doesn’t, especially if it is smaller…

That’ll go down real good with the Iowans who had been leaning against Trump and hearing the siren call of the Democrats.

Laboratory of the states, to the California elites — and for all socialists, see, is for the birds. California doesn’t respect the laboratory of the states, let alone state sovereignty, at least from other states, so the people running the state have chosen now to make Iowa their target. They’re not only bigger, they’re socialist, and socialism has always been about controlling others.

They just did it at about the worst time they possibly could have done it — when Iowa was swinging leftward.

That amounts to a gift to Trump, reminding Iowans what they are dealing with as they sign on with Democrats.

With enemies like this, President Trump doesn’t need friends.

Keep chugging them out, California. Nothing like a little virtue-signaling to give us all More Trump.