There are enough suckers in Iowa to fill an airport hangar

People lined up for a mile to hear President Trump’s impression of a carnival barker in a Sioux City airport hangar festooned with red, white and blue bunting on Thursday.

He came to help gin up turnout from his base in Northwest Iowa, crucial to Ashley Hinson in particular as Republicans struggle to maintain control of the Senate.

He was preaching to the choir, farmer Harlan Grau of Newell acknowledged to Radio Iowa. The ramble went on more than 90 minutes. Ilhan Omar should be arrested. El Sayed of Michigan is a jihadist. That ad from Vivek Ramaswamy is killer. He loves farmers. He passed three cognitive tests. If Josh Turek is elected over Hinson, it will be worse than the Great Depression. The US will burn down like France, presumably including Sioux City and greater Lawton.

I think that sums it up.

Oh, and he said he might run for a third term. The crowd loved it.

Trump’s approval rating hit another all-time low at around 30%. He is an anchor on Republican hopes. He urged the crowd to go forth from the airport hangar and turn out their fed-up neighbors from Plymouth to Sioux to Lyon to O’Brien counties. If it is a lost cause, this was at least a way for them to have a good time in Sioux City awaiting the potential doom of Nov. 3.

A crazy Trump rally is a fitting way to cap a crazy year politically.

Trump self-destructed in January by shooting White people in the streets of Minneapolis protesting the ICE sweep. He followed it up in February by joining Israel, which had just laid Gaza to waste, in bombing the hell out of Iran. We are engulfed in a regional war that threatens the world. Fuel and fertilizer prices soared as Trump’s numbers tanked. Last January in Sioux City was a signal, where Catelin Drey flipped a state senate district from solid Trump to blue.

State Auditor Rob Sand knew he had a chance with Gov. Kim Reynolds not running for re-election. He may have been a bit surprised when Zach Lahn of Belle Plaine and Kansas beat Rep. Randy Feenstra of Hull in June for the gubernatorial nomination. Sand appeals to moderation, pragmatism and centrism, which has strong appeal. He runs against the record of the most unpopular governor in America. Lahn followed up with a terrible campaign — his running mate’s parents are suing him over $275,000 in unpaid farm rent over the past couple years.

Bushels of money, over $100 million, will have been spent terrorizing Iowans on TV and on their cellphones. The criminal aliens are coming for you. They make Rob Sand look like a criminal alien. Hinson says Turek lies like a rug. But she did hold up a vote on releasing the Epstein files. Too bad she had to explain that to her boys, covered in peanut butter from their food fight from another ad.

Trump will go to Dubuque on Nov. 1, an area that went over the top for him before. It’s hard to know if his rants, where he marvels at men’s buttocks, will turn people out to vote. Most people don’t believe they will get $5,000 each if the Republicans maintain control of Congress, because everyone knows that Trump lies. Farmers are not banking on his $8 billion diesel relief bailout — details to be made public after Nov. 3. Did you hear the one about all the fertilizer plants coming online thanks to Trump assistance? Or the steel mill that should start something any day now? Fuel prices should come down as soon as we end the Iran war, which Hinson voted for seven times but has tried to disown seven times seven and until the cock crowed three times.

Beef prices have not come down despite Trump booking a bunch of Brazilian trimmings. He loves farmers, you know. His tariff disaster payments have come and gone. So at Sioux City, he talked about how ugly the ABC News reporter is. When he slandered Omar, the crowd chanted: “Lock her up.” He chuckled. Good times.

Lahn does not want to believe the polls because they are just that bad.

Honestly, who thought a year ago that clean water would be one of the top issues in all the statewide races? Who imagined, other than Chris Jones, that Chris Jones could be in the running against incumbent Republican Mike Naig for secretary of agriculture? Jones suggests weaning ourselves from ethanol because we are poisoning the water. That kind of talk used to be sacrilege. Times change fast these days.

Trump urges his crowd to stick with him just as they’re bringing in crops that should be worth double using diesel that’s burning a hole in their operations. If you can’t fool them with facts, baffle them with BS. That seems to be the closing pitch. It has worked before. PT Barnum based The Greatest Show On Earth on that premise.