This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t find justice for victims, but there will be no justice under the GOP. The only way to get the GOP out of office is to listen to voters. I know this post will piss some off, but I’m in the trenches with voters every week. I talk and I listen.
I think we can walk and chew bubble gum. I think keeping the pressure on Epstein files cause Trump and GOP to have another front they have to fight, using up resources. Using up valuable national airtime.
👏 👏 Frankly, don't have to agree on everything. Those who are on the ground, speaking to people KNOW because they hear it first hand. Can believe the Epstein files are important AND focus on the price of groceries and cuts to Medicare at the same time. Walking and chewing gum. Doable.
Nope Americas gonna walk right into the trap again. Lipstick on a pig.
I’m with you. I don’t think the Dems can let the issue drop but they need to focus on what voters want - lower prices, healthcare, fight back on Trumps agenda.
Last week, when I was in Iowa, do you know what the big controversy was? Windmills. Who’s talking about windmills right now? It’s a huge issue in Iowa along with their poor water quality. Listen to voters.
Windmills, or wind turbines? There's a huge difference. What's the controversy?
In the Midwest, the only other relevant windmills are the water pumps on the farms, but those are mostly just for looks now. The real water pumps are electric, powered by wind…er… turbines.
live around windfarms. I see them from my kitchen window. The colloquial term is a windmill.
It's hard to have a meaningful discourse about a topic when you can't even use correct terminology.
Look. People are always telling me their flight got delayed for hours on the runway. No, it didn’t. Almost never, unless It was on a ramp, or possibly on a taxiway spur, but that’s immaterial to the conversation - I actually comprehend what they’re trying to say. Same thing here.
There’s a term for a man explaining something to a woman when that woman has experience with that something…
I'm sorry, I don't mean to be that guy, but I also have experience with that something, and words do matter! I have the utmost respect for you, but I do believe in order to sound authoritative about something, you do need to use proper terminology.
Windmills kill whales. Even if the windmills are in Iowa. They emit whale-killing rays. The President told me so.
What are Iowans saying about windmills? I’m curious.
Like I said, this post will piss a lot of people off. I’m reporting from the ground. The reporter from the Atlantic said she was shocked to find out that there weren’t more people asking about Epstein. I’m not.
It doesn't piss me off. I think it's important for candidates to be able to read the room. What's important to voters will invariably differ by what is effecting their lives, farming communities will be different than urban areas. Candidates should understand the voters enough to gauge priorities.
We *already know* the president rapes teenagers, but he has a 100% success rate on changing the subject. He won again.
I don't think he'll ever be held accountable, but we sure as shit should *try* to stop all the predators that got away with it and continue to abuse.
No, he won't. There's just so much more important right now. Like sustaining our democracy. FOCUS, people.
So a child rape industry is no big deal to the voters you’re talking to? Instead it’s windmills? Shoot this country into the sun.
Nothing? No response at all? You just think the rest of the country should give a shit about a group with such awful priorities?
I don’t care about the Epstein files because based off his character and personality I believe the victims! So he should be thrown in jail indefinitely along with every other sex abuser! And I think if we did that, then we would be able to fix a lot of the other problems more efficiently.
Those files don't really affect their lives. No matter who's names are in it. They don't care that trump will never be held accountable anyway...
I work/travel in Georgia-Florida & in mid-low, income areas & the concerns are data center land grabs, high energy costs, solar project funding cuts, FOOD costs & loss of farm/construction workers. The Epstein talk, if any, is zero seriousness & like 'did u see the netflix doc'
I think Epstein is important but all the stuff you mentioned is too. I think for the survivors, who’ve been ignored, the Dems are on the right side of this.
I'm not shocked. Ordinary people, whether rural or urban, care about what affects them directly. Sure, some might be shocked to know the real truth surrounding Epstein, et al. But until and unless that comes out, we care about prices, safety, jobs, and, for many, what's happening to our country.
Journalist need to multitask here. I realize the zone is flooded with shit but in every state and town there are more important issues that can be addressed. In Wisconsin, the fastest growing cheese market is going to deport most of their experienced workers. Someone needs to cover that.
Absolutely. Not one soul I know of cares about Epstein (nor do I for the record). But when I spent $400 at the grocery store yesterday, there was a crowd outside complaining about the costs.
Nothing? No response?
Do you have any idea how evil that sounds? “Hey, it’s not my daughters being raped, let’s talk about my grocery bill!!!”
That fact that not one soul cares tells that America doesn’t get it. At all…. JFC Watching this is painful. Until you address the corruption nothing will change. Slapping lipstick on a pig again. It will take decades to get respect again. But ok….. 😣
People care. But not in the sense that they can do anything about it. We all know trump is guilty and we all know nothing will ever happen to him. But maybe talking about windmills and food costs and inflation and everything else might move the needle somewhere
Yes, the rubes will have questions about whatever they see on Faux News. Rather than just playing defense, we need to put the rubes themselves on defense. I want to hear more about how following trump is not about white supremacy, from the rubes. Make them say it out loud and hear it ring hollow.
People care about those girls. They care about the files. I have no doubt about that. But as you said, people worry about themselves and their families and that’s what they vote on. Right now those worries are financial.
Journalists are shocked whenever people don't care about sensationalism. That's where the money is for them, so it's hard for them to understand what people are paying attention to.
Exactly. The unhinged right-wingers who are obsessed with it are always over-represented in the media.
Not the tarriffs ruining the markets for farmer’s? Wow. I thought that would be a huge issue for them..hmm…
It is— comes across in grocery prices.
So I have a question, did tRump come up with the crazy windmill talk from Iowans or did they get it from Faux and tRump??
#HeyIowa - Finally someone is talking about Iowa issues. Thanks @piperformissouri.bsky.social for visiting Iowa!
I think we can have multiple messages at once. We don’t just have to have tunnel vision & focus solely on “kitchen table issues.”
Which is why I’m confused when we are laser focused on Epstein.
Sorry but in what universe is Dem leadership “laser focused” on Epstein? They are solely focusing on “kitchen table issues.”
Because IT WORKS. His minions are losing their minds over it, which means they need to be reminded before they wander off on the latest shiny thing shown them on Fox and X. But yes-- cutting funding for hospitals, especially rural, is a big deal. The disaster over at HHS. Tariff impacts!!!
Was the windmill talk for or against windmills?
Having lived in Iowa there are tons of wind mills there. Are they against or for them. ?
People aren't aware the majority of Iowa's energy is produced by wind energy. I no longer live in the midwest. We knew who trump was before he was put in office the first time. Sadly people still voted for him anyway. I want justice for the survivors and whatever that is to them.
what is the windmills issue about?
They have wind farms. There are a lot of people who don’t like them because they’ve heard a lot of misinformation or they just don’t like them. I was smack dab in that controversy. One man walked out in my talk because he was so angry about windmills funding schools in Northwest Missouri.
I can't understand this at all, they are stately sentinels, Big Friendly Giants. In 2024, about 30% of UK electricity came from wind farms. If only CO2 was visible as a disgusting smelly brown gas.
I don't mind them during the day, but you look out at night, the incessant red blinking is...unnerving, I guess? It would be worse if it weren't in tandem, but it's a lot. I live in a depression, so most of them are over the horizon, but my neighbors hate it.
This needs a technology tweak.
Thank you, Jess. You are doing the hardest work.
Generally farmers like wind farms because they make good money leasing part of their land for turbines. Doesn't this issue set up intra-GOP friction, between those people profiting off wind and those who get the side-effects without getting a check?
Lived in a town where a farmer was a arrested for shooting at a blade headed to a wind farm. Most like the income though.
I think the focus can be on both. The Epstein Files Cover-Up is more important to point out to the Trump people who care about it to show them they’ve been lied to. They may never vote for a Democrat but they might stay home.
👍💙
It's true that the Epstein files mean nothing to individual Americas, but if our president is proven to have raped teenagers, that's something the whole country needs to know.
Exactly. And the fact that you have to justify it says the American people Still Do not get what’s happening to them right before their eyes. Blame the dems fall For the coup. Jfc America Call out the corruption.
Our media is really to blame for this. Fox News and the like are the problem. People aren’t getting the correct information. There’s the 33% who are fascists and they’re likely not going to be anything but. But we need to open the eyes of the 10-14% who are not fascists but were wooed to Rs.
Isn't it so enraging that they whine incessantly about 'liberal bias' in the media, when Fox et al are blatant propagandists for the right? If all you ever see is right wing media, you live in total delusion.
Right, but midwesterners clearly don’t give a damn about justice for victims. They care more about windmills. That’s shameful, and the fact that you don’t see that is beyond alarming.
They are survivors not victims. Some are speaking out tomorrow. They deserve this.
ANNOUNCEMENT - Everyone should absorb what Jess is saying here☝️. If we neutralize (burn to the ground) the GOP, issues like the Epstein files will take care of themselves.
I agree Jess! Its an important isdue where many need justice. But we need to focus on what will bring in voters for the common good to save ourselves and Democracy. We can do better together.
🥱 you all still don’t get it. At all
Do the people you speak to say things like, "I worked hard for what I have."? Do they realize that the same opportunities given to them were systematically denied to others for decades? Do these conversations ever come up when discussing DEI? What do they say?
I think that’s a dead conversation. They can’t be convinced on that in time. I read voters don’t want to think of themselves in need of help, but to frame these arguments in terms of positive movement for them. The undercurrent that isn’t mentioned is the racism and sexism. /1
2/ It’s “those people” that need help and the ppl you’re talking about don’t want to help them, so it’s not worth trying to convince them they could be in the same straits one day. We have to cater to their selfishness.
That's terrible. Why do we have to cater to their selfishness, exactly? The currency here is self-image. They want to think they are good. Once they understand why they're not perceived as such, they'll have to own it or change. If they own it, then they open up themselves to disenfranchisement.
Catering to these people just delays and denies justice. You're catering to the proliferation of white supremacy. And in that, nobody can trust you because the net effect of your suggestion is to maintain the racist, sexist, xenophobic, religious bigotry of the status quo.
So it's no surprise that democrats don't historically spend campaign funds in red states.
And, as someone with GenZ kids, all they seem to be focused on is Mamdani and Platner and the slither of hope they provide for a future they can't see at the moment. Does Epstein matter to them? Sure. But not having to live with their parents forever is center stage right now.