What happened to America?

Or more specifically, what happened to Chuck Grassley?

There is a story people in Iowa like to tell themselves about Sen. Chuck Grassley. Grassley, the oldest sitting US senator, used to be independent, the story goes. He used to be able to scrap with both Republicans and Democrats. The senator who’s become a voice for President Donald Trump was once a voice for the people.

At a recent town hall, Grassley was confronted by a voter who said, “You used to be independent.” Now, the voter said, Grassley has become “a foot soldier for Trump.”

The image of the harmless bespectacled grandfather tweeting about Dairy Queen and his beloved vacuum Bertha often stands in contrast with the reality of the lawmaker who has defended January 6 rioters and stood by the president as he made false claims about the 2020 election.

What happened to Chuck Grassley, who fought his own party over corruption in the 1980s? That question points to another one: What happened to Iowa, a state, once famously and stubbornly independent? What happened to our grandfathers, fathers, and sons? How did they all end up here? How did we end up here?

Three years ago, I spent 10 months interviewing Chuck Grassley’s friends and co-workers for a Vanity Fair profile. I visited his hometown and interviewed people who remembered growing up with him. And I read the one biography of Grassley that was made with his cooperation. Titled Grassley: Senator From Iowa, it was written by his former campaign manager Eric Woolson, who did not speak with me for the profile.

What I discovered then, and what is deeply apparent now, is that Grassley never changed. Woolson’s biography describes a deeply regimented and sober man who refused to compromise; a man who wanted to end no-fault divorce and did not support the ERA. Grassley’s team disputed the claim that Grassley used to oppose no-fault divorce. But it seems unlikely that a hagiography like Woolson’s would use a detail like that unless it were true.

During his first run for office Grassley was endorsed by the KKK. And the John Birch Society, a far right-wing group that opposes abortion, feminism, birth control and LGBTQ people, among many other things, also helped Grassley’s campaign, sending mailers attacking his Democratic opponent. (Grassley did not publicly embrace either group or their endorsements.)

In 1977, Grassley was the only member of the Iowa House delegation to vote against a congressional resolution sanctioning Rhodesia for being an apartheid state. And later, as a senator in 1980, he voted to lift the sanctions.

Additionally, The Des Moines Register reported that in 1979, as a member of Congress, Grassley gave a speech to the Liberty Lobby, whose founder promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories and campaigned to persuade Black Americans to move to Africa. (Grassley reportedly spoke about gold to the group’s Financial Survival Seminar, and his press secretary told The Des Moines Register at the time that Grassley had “not intended when he accepted the invitation to jump into bed with some political group. He thought he was going to be talking to a financial seminar, to economists and people like that.”)

Grassley, because of his mumble-mouthed aw-shucks ethos, isn’t often credited with his ability to beckon to extremists with one hand and moderates with another. But he’s been doing it for decades. The approach is exemplified by his statements about January 6 — when he praised Pence, but also said people had a right to demonstrate. He said the president’s comments didn’t help the situation, but refused to condemn the rioters. Some of his statements, issued in his trademark stumbling manner, led to confusion. On a call with agriculture reporters on January 5, 2021, when asked how he was going to vote, Grassley made a statement that seemed to imply he, not Pence, would preside over the vote:

“If the vice president isn’t there, and we don’t expect him to be there, I will be presiding over the Senate and obviously listening to the debate without saying anything,” he said on a call with agriculture reporters on January 5, 2021. “You’re asking me how I’m going to vote. I’m going to listen to that debate on what my colleagues have to say during that debate and decide how to cast my vote after considering the information before me.”

His press secretary later cleared up the misstatement. But the next year, when Grassley was up for reelection, his opponent, Admiral Michael Franken, implied the statement was one of collusion. The smear didn’t stick for many reasons, the first being the investigation into January 6 turned up no evidence. But another was that Iowa Republicans were not outraged about the riot at the US Capitol. Grassley had made statements that allowed him to maintain election deniers as his base, while presenting a veneer of respectability.

The Sioux City Journal · Tue, Oct 28, 1980 · Page 3.

Franken should have learned from history. During the 1980 election, Grassley’s primary challenger, Tom Stoner, tried to connect Grassley to the Rockefellers and the Trilateral Commission and a conspiracy to create one world government, all because he accepted a $150 donation from Chase Bank, which was headed by David Rockefeller. (All of this was basically a bonkers conspiracy that felt plausible because of the paranoia of 1980s conservatism.) Grassley sidestepped the issue, expressing outrage over the attack without condemning the conspiracy directly. He knew how to look reasonable while still appealing to his base.

It’s telling then, that Stoner never used the fact that Grassley was backed by the KKK or the Birchers at the time to smear him. When I asked David Yepsen, a longtime Iowa political reporter, about all of this, he observed that Iowa voters simply didn't care.

What’s more, Grassley’s wholesome-grandpa demeanor means that attacks — even the true ones — are hard to make stick.

Iowans only remember what they want to remember about this man who has represented them for so long. Because to truly remember, to truly go back and to look at his statements and his ideas, would implicate everyone who supported him in the past. It would kick over that felled log and see what rot we were willing to overlook, what we are still willing to overlook — the casual everyday cruelty, the passing racism.

Chuck Grassley has not changed. Just like America has not changed.

He wasn’t better during the 1980s, just as he isn’t worse now. But the narrative of his changing continues to stick, because if we can pretend that he was once noble or at least respectable then we can believe that about ourselves and our own past. Then we don’t have to think too hard about the realities we ignored or the compromises we made in the name of expediency and our own pocketbooks.

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