His Ass is Grass

I’ve got no special beef with Chuck Grassley of Iowa. He’s been in the Senate since the Pleistocene period (mammoths, ground sloths, full-sized dire wolves), which makes him part of the geriatric caucus of the Republican Party. As part of the geriatric caucus of the American rabbinate, I rush to say that this is not disqualifying. Back off, millennials! America needs its elders! How else would you know about avocado shag rugs?

And Grassley occasionally utters an insightful word. Just the other day, he said Vladimir Putin was playing us for a patsy. Apart from the fact that this is ancient slang, rooted in the era of flappers and Tommy guns, you can discern the lineaments of a real critique. In the bromance between Trump and Putin, only one of them has the upper hand, and it is not the subject of the infamous pee-pee tapes.

Same goes for the issue of tariffs and exports. Iowa is dependent on international trade. Grassley isn’t one to stand on the barricades, but he managed to choke out opposition to tariffs. As always, it’s timid, obedient and deferential. He’s ready to let Trump win in this round, but future tariffs would need to be approved by Congress. Is that everything? No. Is it something? Yes.

None of this, however, has protected him from his constituents. Unlike his colleagues, he is a town hall senator. To his credit, he makes appearances in the hinterlands and hasn’t figured out a way to keep them off the screen. The result is that he has now been repeatedly eviscerated. He just took a beating at a meeting in Northwood. Before that, it was a beating at a meeting in Kalona. There was, as they say, blood on the floor. Maybe a little on the walls and the baseboards. If he were a patient on The Pitt, Javadi would have called—loudly—for coagulants.

The most interesting thing wasn’t the behavior of the Senator. Constituents announced a range of complaints. Wholesale budget cuts. Mass deportations. Calculated disrespect for the necessity of due process. In other words, the issues you’d hear about in Brooklyn. Forgive me for my sins against my fellow plainsmen, but I was stupefied to hear a litany of blue-state concerns.

But maybe this is finally the turning of the tide. I’m just as guilty of doom scrolling as the next guy, but I’m picking up signals of a massive vibe shift. According to the polls, voters are breaking with Trump. They find him “chaotic,” “scary,” and “dangerous.” That’s true of the economy, Trump’s erstwhile happy place, but now also true of mass deportation. Americans are clearly uneasy about persons without documents, but they don’t like the idea of two-year-old citizens being shipped to Central America without due process.

That’s good news for us, and bad news for Grassley. Is it possible that after decades in the Senate, his ass could finally, deservedly, be grass?