Some people run for office to serve. Others, like Iowa’s own Joni Ernst, seem to wake up each morning wondering how many lives they can ruin before lunch. If there were ever a performance review for members of Congress based on empathy, moral clarity, or the bare minimum decency required to represent a functioning democracy, Ernst would be fired mid-sentence.

Last Friday, during what should have been a routine town hall in Iowa—a state where many voters still cling to the fantasy that elected officials might occasionally act on behalf of their constituents—Senator Ernst gave us a moment of stunning clarity. A constituent, rightfully concerned about a Republican budget proposal that slashes Medicaid and reduces SNAP benefits, called out with urgency: “People are going to die!” To which Senator Ernst, sitting high on her throne of smug indifference, flippantly responded: “Well, we’re all going to die.”

There it is. The quiet part, said loud. That, in a single sentence, is the GOP platform distilled to its most nihilistic core. We are all going to die, so why bother helping anyone in the meantime? Why fund health care when the grave is the great equalizer? Why extend compassion when cruelty is cheaper and easier to sell to donors?

The audience was shocked. And not in the performative, pearl-clutching sense. People gasped because they knew what she was saying was not just dismissive—it was deliberate. This was not an offhand comment from a tired politician. It was a policy position wrapped in gallows humor and dipped in disdain. It was her political theology spoken aloud: If you are poor, hungry, disabled, or ill—too bad. Ernst and her colleagues have a bill to pass, and your survival is not in the budget.

But wait. It gets worse.

Over the weekend, after a brief media firestorm that managed to trend even in national outlets, Ernst attempted damage control. Sort of. She released what could only be described as a parody of an apology video, shot—because irony is apparently dead—while strolling through a cemetery. Yes. A sitting United States Senator filmed a response to criticism that she was being too cavalier about death by literally walking among gravestones. It was like The Onion had taken over her communications team.

In this so-called apology, she doubled down with deadpan sarcasm, claiming she had merely “assumed” that the audience understood “we are all going to perish from this earth.” She concluded with an altar call, offering viewers a spiritual cop-out: “For those who would like to see eternal and everlasting life, I encourage you to embrace my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” Translation: Die if you must, but as long as your soul is saved, your health care coverage is irrelevant.

Let us pause and ask the obvious: What the hell is wrong with her?

If this were any other job in America, Joni Ernst would be escorted out of the building. Imagine a nurse, teacher, or therapist responding to concerns about life-threatening decisions by saying, “Eh, we all die eventually,” and then filming a passive-aggressive apology in a graveyard while promoting their religious beliefs. They would be gone before the next staff meeting. But in today’s Republican Party, that kind of grotesque performance is not a liability. It is a credential. It earns you airtime on right-wing networks, raises your profile among libertarian hardliners, and reassures billionaires that their tax cuts are safe—collateral damage be damned.

And just to be clear: 15 million Americans could lose Medicaid under this budget bill. That is not a scare tactic. That is what independent analysts have projected. Medicaid is not just an abstract line item. It is how real people access chemotherapy, seizure medication, mental health therapy, mobility aids, and life-saving surgeries. Cut it, and people do not just struggle—they die.

That single mother in Council Bluffs, raising a child with cerebral palsy? She does not need Ernst’s theology lessons—she needs her child’s feeding tube to be covered.

That elderly farmer in Osceola, struggling with early-onset dementia? He needs a nurse who can come to the house, not a tombstone and a verse from John 3:16.

That young trans man in Des Moines trying to stay clean after battling addiction and homelessness? He needs consistent access to behavioral health services, not a smug lecture on salvation from the party that tried to criminalize Narcan.

But all of that nuance is lost on a senator who thinks being told “people will die” is an opening to roll her eyes and give a sarcastic Sunday School promo.

This is the state of American politics in 2025. A sitting senator can publicly mock the very people her policies will harm, throw in a dash of religious superiority, and somehow remain in office. Not only remain—but strut through graveyards while doing it.

This is no longer just political callousness. This is death cult politics. This is a deliberate choice to weaponize indifference as a policy tool. It is not about balancing budgets. It is about balancing the scales of who gets to live and who gets ignored until they die.

And here is the kicker: She did it all while smirking. There was no shame in her tone. No hint of regret. No awareness that perhaps using a cemetery as a PR backdrop was ghoulish at best, and sociopathic at worst. Instead, she seemed to relish the backlash, almost daring critics to push back harder.

Well, challenge accepted.

Let us be honest about what this actually is. It is not politics as usual. It is not a gaffe. It is not even performative cruelty. It is institutional sadism, where elected officials treat suffering like a punchline and moral obligation like a burden. And Joni Ernst has made herself the mascot for it.

The budget she is defending is not some accidental overreach. It is not a miscalculation. It is a blueprint. And in that blueprint, vulnerable Americans—especially Iowans—are not just afterthoughts. They are sacrifices. Offered up in service to corporate welfare, tax breaks for hedge fund managers, and defense contractors already bloated with billions.

Do not forget: SNAP, Medicaid, and other vital social safety nets do not exist in isolation. They are interconnected lifelines. Cut one, and you force more strain on the others. Reduce food assistance, and emergency rooms fill up with diabetic crises and nutrition-related illnesses. Slash Medicaid, and those same hospitals begin rationing care, laying off staff, or shutting their doors in rural counties altogether. These cuts do not just hurt—they cascade.

In Iowa, that cascade has names.

There are real people in Appanoose County relying on a single community health clinic to manage multiple chronic conditions. There are families in Ottumwa deciding whether to buy groceries or fill a prescription. There are elders in Clarion waiting weeks for a home health nurse because the staff has already been gutted by previous cuts. This budget proposal is not a correction—it is an execution plan. One where the weapon of choice is austerity, and the death is slow, bureaucratic, and shrouded in red tape.

And what is Senator Ernst’s solution? Walk through a graveyard. Mock the people her policies will harm. Invoke Jesus Christ as the ultimate health plan.

Someone should remind her that in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus calls out religious hypocrites who tithe publicly but “neglect the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy, and faithfulness” (Matthew 23:23). What Ernst offered was not mercy. It was spiritual malpractice. The same Jesus who healed the sick and fed the hungry would be flipping the tables of her donor luncheons.

And do not think for one moment that this stops with Ernst. Her behavior, grotesque as it is, represents a larger Republican calculus. When she said “we’re all going to die,” she was not just speaking for herself. She was speaking for a party that has become obsessed with punishing poverty, romanticizing death, and packaging both as “fiscal responsibility.”

It is the same party that pushes for forced birth, then slashes maternal health programs.

The same party that cries “freedom” while criminalizing trans existence and banning books.

The same party that demands worship of the Constitution while ignoring the First Amendment and defiling the Fourteenth.

And when they are called out? They double down. They gaslight. They mock. They walk through cemeteries and joke about the very real corpses their policies will help create.

Enough.

This is the part where the story shifts. Because we are not just observers of this disaster—we are participants. We are the ones who let this happen, election after election, by treating politics like sports and cruelty like strategy. We are the ones who mutter about bipartisanship while watching our neighbors suffer. We are the ones who say “it is not that bad” because we can still afford our insulin this month, even if the person next door cannot.

But now it is time for a new kind of reckoning. Not with pitchforks or conspiracy theories—but with ballots. With turnout. With local organizing and national resistance. With the full-throated rejection of this warped death cult that dares to call itself governance.

Iowa voters: This is your moment. You have the power to hold Joni Ernst accountable. You have the power to send a message—not just to her, but to every other soulless operator who thinks cruelty is clever and starvation is an acceptable trade-off for a balanced spreadsheet. You can make the difference between a state that starves and a state that stands.

And to everyone else reading this, no matter where you live—register to vote. Right now. Today. Because the decisions these people make do not stay confined to one zip code. When a senator like Joni Ernst goes unchecked, the cruelty metastasizes. It becomes law. It becomes precedent. It becomes your problem next.

You can check your registration status, update your address, and register to vote at nass.org/Can-I-Vote. Do it. Share it. Make it the thing you ask your friends about over dinner. Because if we do not vote, they will. And they will continue mocking our dead in broad daylight.

This is not about partisanship. This is about preservation. Of decency. Of community. Of life itself.

No more graveyard strolls. No more smirks. No more silence.

Vote like your neighbor’s life depends on it—because in Iowa, and everywhere else, it does.