Just Let Them Die. A Public Servent Who Serves Herself. Ernst: The Deadly Symptom of GOP Rot.

Senator Joni Ernst has finally said the quiet part out loud, and it’s even more grotesque than we imagined.

There she was Friday morning in Parkersburg, Iowa, channeling her inner Malthus as desperate constituents begged her not to strip away their healthcare. When voters had the temerity to point out that gutting Medicaid might actually kill people, Ernst delivered a response so callous it would make Leona Helmsley squirm: “Well, we all are going to die.”

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This wasn’t a slip of the tongue. This wasn’t misspeaking under pressure. This was the purest distillation of modern Republican governance: a sociopathic shrug at human suffering, delivered with the casual cruelty of someone ordering coffee.

Welcome to Joni Ernst’s America, where the only life worth protecting is the kind that can’t vote, can’t complain, and can’t show up to her town halls to inconvenience her with their pesky desire to keep breathing.

For a decade, Ernst has built her political brand on the sanctity of life — or at least the sanctity of fetal life. She’s genuflected at every conservative Christian gathering, weeping crocodile tears over the “innocent” and the “vulnerable.” At the Family Leadership Summit, she’s proclaimed that “we all have the right to live” with the fervor of a televangelist promising salvation.But apparently, that right expires at birth.

Ernst’s A+ rating from the Susan B. Anthony List suddenly looks like a sick joke. All those votes for fetal personhood amendments? All that passionate rhetoric about protecting the most vulnerable? It was never about life at all. It was about control, punishment, and performing piety for a base that mistakes cruelty for Christianity.

The unborn are Ernst’s perfect constituents because they can’t talk back. They can’t demand healthcare, housing, or basic human dignity. They can’t embarrass her at town halls by pointing out the gaping hole where her soul should be.

What made Friday’s performance so chilling wasn’t just the words — it was the delivery. Ernst didn’t stumble into this moment of moral bankruptcy. She landed there with both feet, wearing a smirk that suggested she thought she was being clever.

“People are going to die!” a constituent cried out, presumably under the naive assumption that this might concern their senator.

Ernst’s response revealed the true face of Republican governance: “Well, we all are going to die.”

Not “Let me address your concerns.” Not “We’ll work to protect the vulnerable.” Not even a basic acknowledgment of human worth. Just a philosophical shrug that would make Pontius Pilate proud.

This is what passes for leadership in Ernst’s Republican Party — a casual dismissal of preventable deaths as if they were discussing the weather. These weren’t abstract statistics to the people in that room. These were their parents, their children, their neighbors who depend on Medicaid to survive. And Ernst essentially told them to get over it because mortality is inevitable.

Ernst’s breathtaking callousness wasn’t an aberration — it was revelation. This is who she’s always been beneath the folksy Iowa nice facade and the carefully constructed veteran persona. A politician so morally hollow that she can pivot from “every life is sacred” to “we’re all going to die anyway” without missing a beat.

The woman who once promised to make Washington “squeal” has instead made her own constituents beg for their lives. The senator who built her career on protecting the innocent has shown us exactly what she thinks of actual innocent people: they’re expendable.

This is the natural endpoint of a political movement that was never really about life at all. It’s about power, control, and the perverse pleasure that comes from inflicting suffering on the powerless while claiming moral superiority.

For years, Ernst has performed this elaborate kabuki of caring, wrapping herself in the flag and clutching the cross that hangs from her neck over the sanctity of life. But Friday’s mask-off moment revealed what many of us suspected all along: it was always theater.

The tears she’s shed over abortion? Fake. The passion she’s shown for protecting the vulnerable? Performance art. The moral authority she’s claimed as a defender of life? A fraud so complete it would be impressive if it weren’t so revolting.

Ernst doesn’t give a damn about life. She cares about controlling women, punishing the poor, and playing to a base that mistakes sadism for righteousness. The unborn aren’t her constituency — they’re her props in an ongoing performance of fake morality.

True to form, Ernst tried to gaslight her way out of the controversy. Her post-town hall social media read like it was written by a malfunctioning chatbot: “Thanks folks for coming out to my town hall in Parkersburg today! I always enjoy hearing from constituents and sharing my work to cut government red tape for you.”

Government red tape. That’s what she calls the programs keeping people alive. The bureaucratic inconvenience of ensuring children don’t starve and elderly people can afford their medications.

Her office’s official response managed to be even more tone-deaf, doubling down on the death theme like they were trying to win some sort of sociopathy contest: “There’s only two certainties in life: death and taxes, and she’s working to ease the burden of both.”

Yes, nothing says “public servant” like working to ease the burden of staying alive.

Ernst’s Friday performance wasn’t an accident or a momentary lapse — it was the logical conclusion of a political philosophy built on manufactured outrage and performative cruelty. This is what happens when you spend years dehumanizing the poor, the sick, and the vulnerable. Eventually, you lose the ability to see them as human at all.

This is modern conservatism stripped of its pretty packaging — raw, ugly, and utterly without conscience. Ernst didn’t misspeak on Friday. She told the truth about who she really is: a politician so morally bankrupt that she views preventable human deaths as an acceptable cost of doing business. She’s no public servant, she a pig at the trough.

In the final analysis, Joni Ernst represents everything that’s rotten about American politics: the fake piety, the brazen hypocrisy, and the casual craven cruelty toward anyone who can’t write a campaign check. She’s built a career on “protecting” life because it paved her way into a job; but in the job she’s actively working on attacking the most defenseless.

Her “we’re all going to die” moment wasn’t a gaffe — it was a confession. A admission that all her talk about the sanctity of life was always bullshit, that her compassion was always fake, and that her moral authority was always a lie.

She faces reelection in 2026, and Friday’s performance should be played at every campaign stop, every debate, every voter forum. Not because it was a mistake, but because it was the truth. The ugly, irredeemable truth about a politician who’s spent years pretending.

Joni Ernst wanted to make Washington squeal. Instead, she’s revealed herself as exactly who she is — a moral monster.

Let’s hope Iowa’s living voters will remember exactly what she thinks of their lives when they cast their ballots.

After all, as Ernst herself would say: We’re all going to die anyway. The only question is whether Iowa voters will let her help speed up the process.

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Josh Powell is a healthcare writer, consultant, and former CEO of a leading multidisciplinary surgical center in New York. Most recently, he served as Project Manager for Columbia University's NIH-funded HEALing Communities Study, addressing the opioid epidemic through evidence-based interventions.

His book, "AIDS and HIV Related Diseases," published by Hachette Book Group, established him as an authoritative voice in healthcare. Powell's insights have appeared in prestigious publications including Politico and The New England Journal of Medicine. As a recognized expert, he has been featured on major media outlets including CBS, NBC, NPR, and PBS.