Art Cullen.

Chris Jones and his boss at the water works used to ask as they gathered daily to discuss the roiling river’s polluted water: “Where’s the outrage?”

Iowans are freaking out over our leading cancer rates, chemical companies are held harmless by the Supreme Court, and it turns out Trump fleeced the world for $2 billion in just a year.

“The outrage has arrived!” Jones declared at the Iowa Democratic Convention. The delegates went nuts.

Nuts for a secretary of ag candidate, mind you.

The outrage is why. It is why so-called Democratic socialists are winning primaries. They want affordable health care. They can’t make rent and Trump is hauling in $2 billion. Mainly from crypto-currency and a coin of himself that people actually pay for.

What could possibly make this geezer worth $2 billion per year? Not even LeBron rolling home to Cleveland is worth that.

The CEO of Principal Financial Group makes $13.8 million. The boss at John Deere makes about twice that. Greg Abel, who runs Berkshire Hathaway and MidAmerican Energy from Des Moines, earns about $25 million annually. Tyson CEO Donnie King brings down $37 million. These are all complicated companies. Jamie Dimon of Chase Bank is paid $48 million to help orchestrate the world economy.

Trump gets $2 billion for trading in confederate money. Pixie dust. Crypto makes trading in pork belly futures look like honest work. You set up a shell company, sheiks who have more money than sense pour $600 million into it, and you are off to the races.

Legal pilfery. That’s what a friend who worked in financial markets calls it. That sort of money could talk you into a war.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Younger people are fed up with it, from New York to Colorado to Iowa. Call them what you will. They are tired of living in the basement. They can’t afford to farm. They are afraid to drink the water. Our legacy is washing downriver.

Chris Jones gives it voice. The degraded quality of life brought on by industrialized agriculture “is the issue of our time,” Jones said.

He speaks essentially to the plunder of Iowa, seeded by greed, as the family farm went the way of the rural village and trust.

People who are struggling to survive see Trump getting fat on their account can only shrug, bound up in a system they believe is rigged by the uber rich. Elon Musk is made a trillionaire by going public with a space company that is losing boatloads of money. Trump is raking it in on a promise to pay for a hamburger next Tuesday.

We are left with a river full of manure.

That’s why Chris Jones draws a crowd. “I never speak to an empty seat,” he said.

The governor candidates notice. Republican Zach Lahn built a primary campaign against corporate power. Democrat Rob Sand is talking a lot more about cancer and water. Sand’s TV ad on accountability is solid and earnest, and the attack ads don’t seem to be landing. People want to believe they hear a straight shooter.

Still, Trump scores around 45% approval among Iowans.

The Supreme Court ordered him to pay E. Jean Carroll $5 million for sexually assaulting her, and people think ho-hum, that is chump change in the shell game we’re playing. Our state attorney general thinks he is swell. So do our legislators.

Not everyone. Sand may have a slight lead on Lahn, who sees Marxism in the schools with his crazy glasses attached to the tinfoil hat.

Catelin Drey flipped a Trump state senate district to blue by calling out the attacks on working families: schools, health care and child care. Women bear the brunt. She is leading the way. Democrats have nearly swept special elections like hers, leading up to the midterms across the country.

Iowa is at the center of it all. Trump has at least $500 million ready to dump on a half-dozen Senate races, including the one between Democrat Josh Turek of Council Bluffs and Republican Ashley Hinson of Marion. They’re in a dead heat. How can Hinson fire up her base when the standard bearer is picking their pockets so he can pay off rape and fraud judgements?

Jones channels the outrage for Sand and Turek. He is able to identify the issue.

“I’m telling you, I have been in politics for 50 years in Iowa and I have never seen anything like it,” said retired Sen. Tom Harkin, who stumped for Jones and believes he may be setting the tone for other Democrats.

Young people who never knew we had a state ag secretary are paying attention, Harkin notes. It’s because Jones is confronting a system driven by greed and led by a convicted fraudster. Trump told them he would drain the swamp, but he emerged with $2 billion in a year. Things need to change. We should all be filthy rich but we’re just filthy, and we know it. Enough with getting played.

Art Cullen is editor of the Storm Lake Times Pilot newspaper, where this column first appeared. It is republished here through the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. Please consider subscribing to the collaborative at iowawriters.substack.com and the authors’ blogs to support their work.