It’s Tuesday, July 15, 2025.

Amie here. I had a refreshing week off visiting friends in Minnesota, some of whom are Iowa transplants. They tell me their first-world problems (oh no, they haven’t figured out how to get dispensaries up and running yet!). They ask me what Iowa is like now, and shake their heads. They are not interested in returning.

We are shedding people, and that has meant our services and towns are emptying out. Good luck finding a hospital, or a lawyer, or reproductive care (to avoid increasing sexually transmitted infections) near you. And good luck finding workers, since the immigrant workforce who has kept Iowa from losing population are now being abducted, jailed, and deported across the country, including in Iowa, to satisfy a daily quota.

I had a warning for my friends who have decamped north, however: You may have escaped Reynolds and Co., but you are still living in Trump’s America, and he is coming for your schools just like Iowa Republicans did, and he is siphoning all of our taxpayer money out of public services and into the hands of the wealthy in a similar fashion.

I’m not saying they should leave the US entirely; there’s a lot of privilege wrapped up in that, and most people do not have the ability, let alone the money, to emigrate. Some of us don’t want to even leave Iowa; we love our house, our job, our friends. Some of us are ethnically German to boot (read: stubborn).

And anyway, Trump is targeting blue states and progressive cities we might think of fleeing to. ICE enforcement is one way. Another I heard about from a Minnesota teacher friend: The Heritage Foundation (they of Project 2025 fame) is targeting school boards so they can enact bans on talking about diversity, policing bathroom usage, and controlling library books.

No place, in other words, is safe from fascist creep.

So I warned my Minnesota friends to be vigilant, like Iowans have had to be. Start talking about these things openly, without fear; we may find more common ground than we think. Start, or keep, fighting the systems we can fight, in the ways we can fight them. Start making more good trouble.

Minnesota’s lovely. But I’m holding out hope for Iowa still.

GOOD TROUBLE LIVES ON rallies (all on Thursday, July 17):

• Algona, 6 p.m., location upon RSVP

• Ames, 6 p.m., Roosevelt Park

• Ankeny, 5:30 p.m., 800 SE Delaware Ave.

• Council Bluffs, 4:30 p.m., Farmers Market, 100 Pearl St.

• Davenport, 6 p.m., TMBC Lincoln Center

• Decorah, 5:30 p.m., 312 W. Water St.

• Des Moines, 3:30 p.m., Gray’s Lake

• Des Moines, 6 p.m., Iowa State Capitol (East Grand)

• Fairfield, 4 p.m., Central Park

• Fort Dodge, 5 p.m., South 29th St. and First Avenue South

• Glenwood, 5:30 p.m., 430 First St.

• Grinnell, noon, Central Park

• Indianola, 4:30 p.m., location upon RSVP

• Iowa City, 7 p.m., City Park

• Keokuk, 4 p.m., Main Street and Seventh

• Manchester, 5 p.m., Whitewater Park

• Mount Vernon, 6 p.m., Highway 1 North and South

• Red Oak, 6 p.m., Legion Park

• Storm Lake, 4 p.m. (or possibly 6 p.m.), West Lakeshore Drive and Lake Avenue North

• Waterloo, 5 p.m., Waterloo Center for the Arts

• Waverly, 4 p.m., Kohlmann Park

• West Burlington, 6 p.m., Westland Mall

Other protests, events and rallies this week:

• Wednesday, Des Moines: Overpass Action Visibility Brigade DSM, 6 a.m., location upon RSVP

• Wednesday, Muscatine: Let’s talk about ways to #ResistTrump in our community, 6 p.m., location upon RSVP

• Friday, Des Moines: Fed-Up Friday (weekly), 2 p.m., Neal Smith Federal Building

• 
  Saturday, Ankeny: Clean Water Canvass, 9:30 a.m., Ankeny Market and Pavilion

• Saturday, Waukee: Community Rally for Democracy (weekly), 10 a.m., northeast corner of Hickman Road and Alice’s Road

• Saturday, Decorah: Weekly Rally in the Wayside Park (weekly), noon, Carl Selland Park (5th Ave.)

Town Halls and other political meetings:

• Thursday, Dubuque: Indivisible Meet & More, 6 p.m., Driftless Pizza

• Thursday, Tipton: Social and Discussion, 7 p.m., Cedar County Courthouse basement meeting room

• Saturday, Cedar Falls: Young Action Meeting, 2 p.m., Carlos O’Kelly’s

Sign:

• Demand ICE Release West Liberty’s Pascual Pedro Pedro (Escucha Mi Voz) (and donate to his family for help with legal fees)

• Act Now: Protect Iowa Public Radio (Iowa Public Radio)

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