Iowa’s Republican Governor Kim Reynolds delivered a scathing rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s first State of the Union address on behalf of the Republican Party. In a matter of minutes, Reynolds explained the opposing party’s views to those who tuned into the somewhat disjointed one-hour-plus Biden speech. Viewers were told that this administration had failed Americans in every possible way. From skyrocketing inflation, exploding and uncontrollable immigration, blunders in world affairs and diplomacy, no topic the president mentioned was left untarnished.
But where Reynold’s message became nothing less than a surgical strike was a summation of the Democrats’ unmanageable and destructive response to the coronavirus pandemic. A relatively new governor when COVID-19 was canvassing across the United States, Reynolds approached the problem much differently from her Democrat counterparts: Iowans had fewer restrictions during the pandemic than most blue states. And Iowa’s kids are back in school. As Reynolds said, “This is a pro-parent, pro-family revolution.”
Not An American Agenda
Reynolds continued to pick apart the Biden administration in what she called being “Iowa nice.” Then, with calm grace, the grandmother of 11 asserted that the nation was in crisis. And in a matter of few words, she delicately plucked the spin out of the issues. From the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan through the lead-up to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, blame was neatly laid at the feet of the president. “We can’t project strength abroad if we are weak at home,” Reynolds stated.
(Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Switching from pointing out the administration’s flaws, Reynolds pivoted neatly into praising Republican governors and mayors for their leadership in a time of great crisis. She intoned that although the GOP was not the majority on the national level they were filling the leadership vacuum, highlighting the red states where economies were improving. The government was taking a step back.
Reynolds reminded Americans that while they were confined to pandemic rules and regulations, their elected leaders had adopted a “do as I say not as I do” attitude and traveled freely, privately shopped local shuttered businesses, and attended mask-free dinner parties and social hours. And then she said what many Republicans would like to say – if only the media would report it: “Frankly, they are tired of the theater.”
Freedom?
Staying focused on the task at hand, Reynolds reiterated the failures the GOP sees in the Biden administration: Energy mistakes, diplomatic errors, national embarrassments, and the indifference of the president and vice president for citizens outside of the D.C. bubble. Then, invoking the measures taken by the states of Texas and Arizona on the southern border catastrophe, Reynolds stated, “We’ve actually gone to the border. Unlike the president and vice president.” In Iowa-nice, of course.
She closed by letting Americans know that “The soul of the nation is not who lives in the White House – it’s every man, woman, and child.” And drove home what she felt was the difference between Democrat and Republican rule: “We’re respecting your freedom.”
~ Read more from Sarah Cowgill.
