STORM LAKE, Iowa
NOTE: This story first appeared in The Storm Lake Times Pilot.
Iowans should be outraged at calls for reparations for Blacks for slavery as the state had the highest per-capita service in the Union Army during the Civil War, Larry Elder, a California Republican seeking the presidency, said in a wide-ranging interview Wednesday morning.
“Racism has never been less important, but it’s never been more important for the Democrats because they want Black people to be scared and angry and pissed off so they go in there like lemmings and go for that,” said Elder, who is Black.
Speaking to The Storm Lake Times downtown, Elder, a conservative commentator who gave up a long-running newspaper column and other high-profile platforms to run for the Oval Office, says the false belief — fanned, he says, by the media and liberal special interests — that the United States is systematically racist is at the core of devastating discord.
“The issue that I am bringing, hopefully, to the center is this lie the Democrats used for decades that America remains systemically racist,” Elder said during the interview at Coffee Tree on Lake Avenue. “And that lie drives things like Critical Race Theory. Things like reparations, it drives things like diversity, equity inclusion and is dividing the country.”
Elder wants to abolish the IRS as he thinks Americans are overtaxed. With a farm background he supports ethanol production, and notes that California, his home state, is a major ag producer.
A proud product of South Central Los Angeles, Elder spent time as a young person on a family farm in Alabama with corn, tobacco and sugar cane.
He also wants to see the U.S. Department of Education abolished, and thinks the U.S. Supreme Court should have some rural representation.
He opposed the U.S. pullout of Afghanistan.
Elder’s mission in the race is a forceful message, one he came to back many times in the interview: America is not a racist nation, he said.
Elder spotlighted calls for reparations for Blacks with ties to slavery as egregious. He pointed to Iowa’s high level of involvement in the Union Army.
“I think any person who descends from those who fought on the Union side should be particularly offended by this, especially if you have an ancestor who died, got injured,” Elder said.
Elder says the modern culture deals with race in a deadly way, elevating prejudice that just isn’t there most of the time.
“It is a murderous lie because one of the consequences of that is something called ‘The George Floyd Effect’ or ‘The Ferguson Effect,’ which is a phenomenon of cops pulling back because they’ve been accused of being systemically racist,” Elder said.
More Black people would be alive today if the police were allowed to do their jobs, and not caught up in the cultural currents, Elder said.
Police kill more white people than Black, he said, noting that he gave a speech to a largely Black audience and no one present could name an unarmed white person killed by the police.
“Because when there is a shooting of an unarmed white the media doesn’t give a rip and nobody comes in,” Elder said. “CNN doesn’t come in, The New York Times doesn’t come in — giving you the false impression.”
Moving to other issues, Elder said Iowa, under Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, is a leading state, one that is enacting policies that should be followed around the nation.
“Well, I have had a couple of meetings with Governor Reynolds and one of the things she’s proud about is the school choice voucher initiative that you have statewide,” Elder said. “I think it’s a model for the rest of the country. I’m in LA. The teachers’ union was behind shutting down the schools for almost two years because of COVID. The kids were already doing badly and now they’ve lost a whole other year or two of learning, which will translate into earnings loss over the course of their lives. It’s outrageous.”
In 2021, Elder topped a field of 46 Californians challenging Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who faced a recall. Newson turned back the recall effort, so the second question on the ballot, his replacement, was moot — but had Newsom fallen in that race two years ago, Elder would have been governor.
During that race, President Biden said Elder is the closest thing to a Donald Trump clone he’s ever seen.
“I’m not sure whether he was trying to flatter me or insult me,” Elder said in the interview.
Elder stressed that he is one of several Republicans seeking the presidency, that he is not waging a campaign against Trump — although he criticized the former president for being part of a bipartisan string of commanders in chief and members of Congress who have run up the national debt.
“I am not running against him. I’m running against Harris and Biden,” Elder said. “And I’m running to put the issues that I mentioned to you front and center — the lie that America is systemically racist.”
Douglas Burns is a fourth-generation Iowa journalist and a member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. Please consider reading some of our other writers.
The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative is also proud to ally with Iowa Capital Dispatch.
Laura Belin: Iowa Politics with Laura Belin, Windsor Heights
Doug Burns: The Iowa Mercury, Carroll
Dave Busiek: Dave Busiek on Media, Des Moines
Stephanie Copley: It Was Never a Dress, Johnston
Art Cullen: Art Cullen’s Notebook, Storm Lake
Suzanna de Baca Dispatches from the Heartland, Huxley
Debra Engle: A Whole New World, Madison County
Julie Gammack: Julie Gammack’s Iowa Potluck, Des Moines and Okoboji
Joe Geha: Fern and Joe, Ames
Jody Gifford: Benign Inspiration, West Des Moines
Nik Heftman, The Seven Times, Los Angeles and Iowa
Beth Hoffman: In the Dirt, Lovilla
Dana James: New Black Iowa, Des Moines
Pat Kinney: View from Cedar Valley, Waterloo
Fern Kupfer: Fern and Joe, Ames
Robert Leonard: Deep Midwest: Politics and Culture, Bussey
LettersfromIowans, Iowa
Tar Macias: Hola Iowa, Iowa
Darcy Maulsby: Keepin’ It Rural, Lake City
Kurt Meyer, Showing Up, St. Ansgar
Wini Moranville, Wini’s Food Stories, Des Moines
Kyle Munson, Kyle Munson’s Main Street, Des Moines
Jane Nguyen, The Asian Iowan, West Des Moines
John Naughton: My Life, in Color, Des Moines
Chuck Offenburger: Iowa Boy Chuck Offenburger, Jefferson and Des Moines
Barry Piatt: Piatt on Politics: Behind the Curtains, Washington, D.C.
Dave Price: Dave Price’s Perspective, Urbandale
Macey Spensley, The Midwest Creative, Davenport and Des Moines
Larry Stone, Listening to the Land, Elkader
Mary Swander: Mary Swander’s Buggy Land, Kalona
Mary Swander: Mary Swander’s Emerging Voices, Kalona
Cheryl Tevis: Unfinished Business, Boone County
Ed Tibbetts: Along the Mississippi, Davenport
Teresa Zilk: Talking Good, Des Moines
Exactly John. Using verbiage without fact base gives no justification for the statement. He gives no real knowledge of Iowa.
What does it mean to say the US is "systemically racist?"