A Party of Psychopaths

Joni Ernst was everyone’s favorite farm girl next door. Now the Republican senator scorns voters concerned about people dying from health care cuts.

When Joni Ernst was running in a crowded Iowa Senate Republican primary back in 2014, she released an unorthodox ad boasting about castrating pigs on the farm that changed the race.

The spot went viral, but more importantly, it seemed authentic. Voters couldn’t get enough of Ernst delivering the punchline with apple-cheeked aplomb: “When I get to Washington, I’ll know how to cut pork. Washington is full of big spenders. Let’s make ’em squeal.”

Months later, Ernst became the first female U.S. Senator in Iowa history. In the decade since, she’s enjoyed political success — easily winning reelection in ever-reddening Iowa, but she’s also faced scandal for her relationships with military officials who lobbied her committee.

And as an Iraq war veteran who’s survived sexual assault, Ernst has flirted with standing on principle, but she typically falls short. Last year, she introduced Nikki Haley at a key campaign event, but declined to offer an endorsement to help build momentum in the fight against Trump, who had recently been found liable for rape.

After Trump was elected in November, Ernst expressed serious concerns about his pick to run the Pentagon, Fox News host Peter Hegseth, who allegedly had a long history of drinking and sexually assaulting women. But faced with the prospect of a MAGA primary challenge in 2026, Ernst backed down yet again.

All of these fraught capitulations seemed to have worn on the junior senator from the Hawkeye State, who seemed rather peevish with her constituents at a town hall last week. When she was questioned about Trump’s budget bill kicking millions off Medicaid, Ernst argued that it really just impacts “illegals.”

"People are going to die,” someone from the audience shouted.

That’s when Ernst went full Karen on the crowd, like someone had just cut in front of her during a Black Friday sale at Hobby Lobby. "Well, we all are going to die,” she declared. “For heaven's sakes, folks.”

And she smiled, even while her constituents jeered.

In the olden days, before Trump descended down that golden escalator a decade ago, this would be a five-alarm gaffe. A slick D.C.-type talking down to voters in the heartland? This would top the 2014 Nevada Senate hopeful who cluelessly suggested bartering chickens for medical care. Cable news would play the Ernst clip on loop for weeks, while pundits penned snarky obituaries for her career.

But in the Trump era, this wasn’t even a top-tier story for a day, what with Elon departing the White House with a rather curious shiner, Wall Street’s TACO nickname leaking (Trump Always Chickens Out), and the president escalating his war on judges by turning on the conservative Federalist Society.

Trump remains the center of gravity for the legacy media. And his brazenness amid a whirlwind of constant scandal has created a playbook for other shameless politicians.

So Ernst made the bet to double down on her smugness at the town hall with a direct-to-camera social media video filmed in a cemetery (which undoubtedly was the brainchild of some shitposting MAGA intern).

"I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely apologize for a statement that I made yesterday at my town hall,” she announced.

"I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that yes, we are all going to perish from this earth. I'm really, really glad I did not have to bring up the subject of the tooth fairy, as well. But for those that would like to see eternal and everlasting life, I encourage you to embrace my lord and savior, Jesus Christ.”

Eleven years had passed since the infamous pig-castration ad put her on the political map, but Ernst proved she could still unload a zinger. Only this time, Ernst’s target wasn’t Washington fat cats wasting our money — it was us, the rubes who believed she wasn’t like other slick politicians and would actually look out for our interests.

Now she’s defending Trump’s 1,100-page budget crammed with tax giveaways to billionaires that adds trillions to the already swollen national debt. Joni Ernst has become the D.C. swamp creature she once crusaded against.

That doesn’t make her terribly different from millions of Republicans who have shredded their conservative credentials to kowtow to Trump.

But there’s a smirking sadism to Ernst’s performance art that lingers. First, she haughtily dismissed folks who took time out of their day to listen to her — many of whom undoubtedly and proudly voted for her — just because they dared ask questions she didn’t like.

Rather than admitting she erred in flippantly insisting that chopping health care is no biggie, since everyone’s going to take a dirt nap sooner or later, Ernst knew she could provoke even more outrage by owning the libs with a mock apology while strolling between tombstones. That’s worth a whole lot of fawning right-wing headlines that usually result in a windfall of MAGA campaign checks (which tamp down pesky primary threats).

There’s a perverse incentive in politics today to be as savage as possible and, above all, delight in the inhumanity of it all. It’s made the GOP a party of psychopaths. Some, like Trump and Stephen Miller, are true believers, while others like Ernst simply revel in the worst parts of themselves to assimilate into the assholery.

In the end, for America, it’s really a distinction without a difference.