Save for Catilin Clark and her famous No. 22 jersey, the years between the two Trump terms were bleak for Iowa’s premiere T-shirt producer.
“It was kind of lean, so our catchphrase around here was, ‘Thank God for women’s basketball,’ because the whole Caitlin Clark women’s basketball thing really like saw us through the Biden years,” Mike Draper, founder of Raygun, told the Daily Beast.
But Draper knew he had a winner when a friend emailed his Des Moines headquarters a video clip of Iowa U.S. Senator Joni Ernst going mega MAGA during a May 30 town hall meeting in Parkersburg.
“They’re like, ‘Check this out,’” Draper recalled. “And we were like, ‘Holy s--t!’ And they were like, ‘Yeah, holy s--t!’”
Ernst had been offering falsehoods such as those spread by Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to justify cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). A constituent had just called out, “People are going to die!”
Ernst’s unforgettable response was being printed on t-shirts later that very day.
“WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE”
- US Sen Joni Ernst
The $24.95 item flew off the shelves at Raygun’s 10 stores. What was listed on the Raygun website as, “We All Are Going To Die Joni Ernst Quote,” was hot in the way of a No. 22 jersey. Dems could now rally against Ernst just as the whole state had rallied for Clark.
Ernst further proved herself a hawkeye Marie Antoinette and T-shirt maker’s bonanza the next day by posting a sarcastic non-apology video made inside a cemetery.
“I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that yes, we are all going to perish from this Earth,” she said in the video. “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.”
She then took her decidedly unfunny joke to an unholy extreme.
“But for those that would like to see eternal and everlasting life, I encourage you to embrace my lord and savior, Jesus Christ.”
Any serious consideration of Jesus would have to include His teachings regarding the poor and the vulnerable.
As for the tooth fairy, Medicaid-eligible children in rural Iowa areas such as Storm Lake have to be driven hours to see a dentist who will accept reimbursement levels that have not increased in a quarter century. Buena Vista County Social worker Tracy Gotto told the Daily Beast that youngsters could not get much-needed heart surgery due to untreated dental infections.
Ernst’s “apology” was bizarre enough to make for another great T-shirt:
“JONI ERNST
IS GOING TO DIE.
OFFENDED? WELL, SORRY,
THE TOOTH FAIRY ISN’T REAL EITHER.
BUT DON;T WORRY BECAUSE JONI BEEHIVES
HER LORD AND SAVIOR WILL GIVE HER ETERNAL EVERLASTING LIFE.”
Raygun also produced a simpler offering; a variation on the official welcome emblazoned on the state road sign with the slogan, “Iowa…fields of opportunities.” The shirt reads, “Iowa - we all are going to die. “
India May, the 33-year-old Town Hall attendee who made the declaration on Friday that started it all is a once- registered nurse, director to the Ionia Community Library and a Chickasaw County death investigator. She also runs the TikTok site, PDA Iowa, for the Iowa chapter of the Progressive Democrats of America.
She tried to attend a town hall for Iowa’s other senator, Chuck Grassley last month, but the site was filled beyond capacity. She managed to get into the Ernst event, which was held at a high school an hour’s drive from home and began at 7:30 a.m. on a work day. She livestreamed it and brought the intense interest of someone with her particular combination of occupations.
“I’m a nurse and a librarian, and my job is to bring people the care and the resources that they need. And those resources are already dwindling as people are getting fired and the funding gets cut, and it’s scary and upsetting, so I’m just trying to do everything within my power legally to stop people from getting hurt or worse,” May later told the Daily Beast.
May is well aware that numerous studies have found a direct correlation between Medicaid coverage and mortality. A University of Chicago study found that by signing on Medicaid expansion via the Affordable Care Act, 41 states–including Iowa–saved approximately 27,400 lives between 2010 and 2022.
Another study found that the refusal of 10 states to sign on cost 15,600 lives between 2014 and 2017. Ernst now wants the whole country to regress in that direction.
“I want my headstone to say, ‘People will die,’” May told the Daily Beast on Wednesday.
In recent days, May has considered running for the state legislature, if nothing else, to reduce by at least one the number of Republican seats that are uncontested in the next election. The Republicans have had a majority in the Iowa General Assembly (the House of Representatives and the Senate) since 2010.
A current member of the Democratic minority in the legislature has been emboldened by Ernst’s quote. Rep. J.D. Scholten told the Sioux City Journal that he now intends to oppose her when she is expected to seek reelection next year.
As it happens, the State Capital is just a few minutes away from Raygun’s flagship store. Draper is all but sure to still be selling “WE ALL ARE GOING TO DIE” t-shirts when Ernst, Scholten and May may all be on the ballot in November of 2026.
Thanks to Ernst and ultimately a returned President Trump, who won the state by 13 points, the lean Biden years are over in the Iowa t-shirt world.
“Now we’re kind of back on the, I was going to say ‘Trump Train,’ but I guess I would just call it the ‘Crazy Train,’” Draper said. “We’re back on the ‘Crazy Train.’”
And it seems even crazier on a personal level when he considers that Ivanka Trump was in his year at the University of Pennsylvania. Her father was at the graduation party in 2004.
“He’s there with Melania, and I think Barron was like, this little kid,” Draper remembered. “We’re like, ‘There goes the host of The Apprentice.’ And if somebody were like, ‘You know he’s going to be president one day,’ we would have been like, ‘Donald Trump. Yeah, right.’”
