'Mean bimbo': Joni Ernst's tactic of ‘pretending to be stupid’ detailed in analysis
Salon columnist Amanda Marcotte derided U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) for adopting a “favorite lady MAGA trick” for dealing with uncomfortable situations: “pretending to be stupid.”
On Friday, Ernst infuriated constituents at a town hall in Butler County, Iowa, with her “bizarre defense of taking away people's medical care to pay for tax cuts for billionaires,” according to Marcotte. The tactic appeared to involve steering into the realm of the philosophical: "Well, we’re all going to die," she told the crowd, which elicited a volley of boos.
But Ernst had “absorbed Donald Trump's philosophy of always doubling down,” says Marcotte.
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“I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that, yes, we are all going to perish from this earth,’ she said while walking in a cemetery. “So, I apologize, and I’m really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the tooth fairy as well.”
“Ernst may play the mean bimbo for the camera, but she is aware that people aren't asking to live forever,” Marcotte confided. “They just don't want to die decades before their time, due to a lack of basic health care.”
But while the media focuses on her act, Marcotte says Ernst’s follow-up spin was, “if anything, even more callous. She invoked Jesus Christ as the reason it's okay to let people die from easily preventable causes.”
"But for those that would like to see eternal and everlasting life, I encourage you to embrace my lord and savior, Jesus Christ," Ernst declared in her video, with what Marcotte describes as smugness.
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“To those whose understanding of Christianity is based on compassion and love, this comment was jarring. But Ernst understands the second rule of MAGA: their version of Christian ‘love’ is cruelty,” said Marcotte, adding that when a CBS News reporter asked Ernst for follow-up Ernst barked "I'm very compassionate," while running for an elevator.
The coldness is a “deliberate choice,” says Marcotte, which falls in line with a larger trend in white evangelical circles to redefine empathy as a “sin" according to a recent slate of books. These include ‘Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion,’ published last year by right-wing podcaster, Allie Beth Stuckey, as well as right-wing theologian Joe Rigney’s best-selling ‘The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and Its Counterfeits.’
“This is how the conservative Christian convinces himself it's ‘love’ to deny LGBTQ people their freedom, because compelling heterosexuality will get them into heaven,” Marcotte says. “… These are the rationalizations of people who want to hate while denying they are hateful.”
The good news to this, according to Marcotte, is Ernst's “shut-up-and-die ideology is not popular, even with a lot of people who consider themselves conservative Christians,” as suggested by Democratic state Rep. J.D. Scholten recent announcement that he's running against Ernst in the 2026 election.
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See the full Salon report at this link.
