By Casey Jarmes | The News-Review
SIGOURNEY – Iraq veteran and Democrat Senate candidate Nathan Sage had a meet-and-greet at the Sigourney Cafe on Oct. 10, as part of his “99 Counties in 99 Days for the 99%” tour. Sage stated that he was an independent for a long time, but was now a Democrat because he wanted to help people and felt like the Republican party kept ripping things away. Sage described himself as a “regular guy” who grew up in a trailer park in Mason City. His father was a factory worker and his mother was a daycare teacher. Sage stated that he grew up on food stamps and Hawkeye insurance and called himself a “poster boy” for why we to strengthen unions and pay a livable wage. Sage stated that he “never in a million years” thought he would go to college.
He explained that he watched the Sept. 11 terror attacks when he was a junior in high school and joined the Marine Corps when he was 17. He served from 2003-2007, being sent to Iraq twice, in 2004 and 2006. Sage stated that his first tour left him with PTSD from a rocket landing behind him and that he received therapy through the VA. He stated that he knew how good the VA can treat people, because of how it helped him, and that we needed to put more money into the VA, instead of watching 30,000 VA jobs be “stripped away.”
“I was really mad about that with Joni (Ernst), because she’s a veteran too,” said Sage. “And, if you’re okay with stripping away jobs from the VA, you’re okay with leaving a man behind, and that’s one thing that we were always taught. You never leave a man behind.”
Sage stated that it was hard to leave the military and that things were different when he got out, due to leaving his friends and the military’s structure, mission, and camaraderie. He stated that he attempted to reenlist, but that the Marine Corps was not accepting prior enlistments at the time, so he joined the army instead. Sage served in the army from 2008-2013 and was sent to Iraq for the third time in 2010. He called this deployment the hardest, because it forced him to go months without being able to talk to his two year old daughter.
Sage stated that he wasn’t different from anybody else and joined the military to give himself a better opportunity. He explained that, after leaving the army, he used his GI bill to get a degree in journalism and mass communications, then got a job working in radio advertising, where he saw the struggle business owners were having to keep the lights on. He stated this was part of the same struggle he faced as a kid.
“You look back at my life, and you look at my dad just trying to put food on the table, and you realize, and this is when I start getting very angry, you realize very quickly that the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and most of us are literally fighting over the scraps,” Sage said. “They have us divided and fighting over the scraps. When 60% of our population is living paycheck to paycheck, and 60% of our population doesn’t even meet the minimum quality standard of a country as rich as ours, something is entirely wrong. And the way I look at it is Washington D.C. is made up of 98% generational wealth, and only 2% come from the working class. The reason the laws and things are not working our way, are going our way, is because the people that are there are there to make profits over people. They’re backed by corporations. They’re backed by billionaires. They’re backed by people that don’t give a crap about anybody in this diner. And I think that’s inherently wrong. We have to do something about it. So I, standing up and fighting for our country three times in Iraq, sitting on the yellow footprints at MCRD San Diego, taking an oath and saying ‘I swear to defend and support the Constitution against enemies, foreign and domestic,’ and I meant it. I’m here to fight. I’m the candidate in this that was willing to lay down my life for this country. I think that’s what we need more than anything in this world. We need people willing to fight for Iowans. Fight for us, instead of the corporations and the billionaires and the money.”
Sage stated that we need to overturn Citizens United, ban congressional stock trading, and get billionaire-fed special interest groups out of Washington. Sage stated that his friends struggle to pay their rents and put food on the table. He noted that he was working class and that his wife worked at True Value. Sage brought up Iowa’s high cancer rates, and stated that both his parents died of cancer. He brought up his opponent, Ashley Hinson, claiming that, when she started her campaign, she talked about how loyal she is to Donald Trump, but never mentioned Iowans. He stated that Republican politicians were fighting for tax cuts for billionaires so they would keep getting paid by those billionaires and didn’t care about medicaid being ripped away or rural hospitals closing.
Sage theorized that politicians were ripping away Medicaid, to force rural hospitals to close and make their employees leave town and their kids leave the school district, so they can then close down and consolidate those schools, causing rural communities to evaporate away, forcing people into metropolitan areas where they can be controlled better, while rich people profit off the land.
“We’re seeing people that have more money than God,” Sage said. “I grew up, I know must of us, we watched Robin Hood and it was steal from the rich to give to the poor, and here we are stealing from the poor and taking every opportunity away from them, and then being like, ‘Well, they’re the ones that are doing it.’ I’m so tired, I get mad. Pointing down at people saying, ‘Well, it’s because they’re brown, it’s because they’re women, it’s because they’re LGBT,’ it’s whatever it is that they’re the reason why we have the problem, when actually, it’s the people that thumb on the scale at the top that are controlling all of them. They control literally everything in our everyday life, and we’re sitting here, again, fighting over things and fighting for the scraps of a world that doesn’t work. All of us here have been lied to and left behind by politicians that don’t care.”
Sage criticized Democrats, stating that they didn’t have backbones and were sending strongly worded memos when they should be fighting back against Republicans.
“I’ve been fighting my whole life to survive. I fought in Iraq to give myself a better opportunity, and now it’s time to fight for people that are just trying to make it in this world,” Sage said.
A retiree at the meet-and-greed told Sage that, instead of sending money overseas, like to Argentina, the government should put it back into Social Security, where it came from. Sage agreed and said that they need to take the cap off social security, fund it properly, and make sure rich guys pay more than their fair share instead of raising the the retirement age. He stated that it’s insane that people are having to work harder just to retire while rich people are buying more yachts. Another attendee stated that the cost of living keeps going up, while Social Security stays low. Sage stated that, last quarter, 33% of homes sold in the U.S. were bought by private equity firms who jack up rent, making it impossible for people to live in this world.
One attendee stated that more kids need to go into the trades. Sage stated that there needed to be a national blueprint showing the paths people take to get to high-paying jobs, paths that often don’t include college and instead feature apprenticeship programs or training schools. Sage stated he was tired of watching kids get out of college strapped with debt from high interest loans they took to get an education, leaving them unable to have a family or buy a house. He stated that the average age for a first time home buyer was 28, that the median age was 56.
“The cost of housing has risen,” Sage said. “I think it’s the highest it’s ever been in our history. People can’t afford life. They can’t make it, and here we are just like ‘Oh, yeah, well it’s their fault. They took out a loan.’ Yeah, they took out a loan because they’re trying to get an education. Because you told them, ‘If you got an education, you get a high paying job, and they could afford life.’ And that’s not the way the world’s working for them anymore. It seems like we’ve all been lied to and scammed.”
The retiree stated that they took money out of Social Security when he was a teenager and never put it back, and stated that they needed to, or his grandkids would never have anything to bank on. Sage stated that, when Franklin Roosevelt established Social Security, the corporate tax rate was in the 80s, compared to the current rate of 15%. He stated that Roosevelt knew that the top was getting so big and that they needed to redistribute wealth back to the working class. Sage stated he felt they were in the same place in history and needed programs to make the country more affordable if people were going to be able to keep living in the U.S. He stated that they needed to lower healthcare costs, raise the federal minimum wage, and get rid of healthcare middle managers so they could negotiate lower prices.
One attendee stated that we needed to get rid of the electoral college; Sage stated he would love to look into getting rid of it. One attendee criticized private prisons, stating that former inmates face the same lack of structure and camaraderie Sage faced when he left the military. She stated she has seen firsthand how prisons suck money out of families. Sage claimed that rich people are trying to privatize everything they can make money off of and would come for schools next. He claimed they were paying politicians to destroy the Department of Education so they could then privatize schools.
One attendee said that Sage wasn’t the first politician to say he would fight for people, and that others had changed when they went to Washington. She asked how to keep Sage accountable. Sage said to vote him out. Sage stated that he never had money and that all he wants is a small acreage, with a two-bedroom house and a two-car garage, in the middle of nowhere, where he and his wife can walk outside naked and no one can see them. Sage stated that he doesn’t own a house and that his parents are dead, so all he has is his wife and kids. He stated that they needed politicians who weren’t in it for the money and that he wanted to leave the world better and give his kids actual opportunities. Sage stated that, as someone who served this country, he can’t believe that they live in a world where Roe v. Wade was overturned. He stated that he had a lot of female staff sergeants and commanders in the military and that it was insane that they were treated like second-class citizens. Sage stated that LGBTQ rights were also being taken away and that he was realizing they aren’t rights, but privileges.
One attendee stated that he was concerned about “authoritarian rule” and that it wasn’t coming, but was already here. Sage stated that democracy was hanging in the balance. The man stated that it was already over. He called Donald Trump an authoritarian surrounded by sycophants that make things happen. Sage called Trump an “addict surrounded be enablers.” The man stated that he didn’t think the election mattered, because Trump controls the Supreme Court and military.
Sage stated that he felt hopeful after watching military commanders sitting stoically at Trump’s “clown show,” stating that this gave him faith they would fight for the Constitution. One attendee noted that most of the military upper brass are republicans. Sage stated that, when he was in the military, this was because the Republicans spend more on the military. He stated that a lot of the soldiers at the bottom are working class and a lot of them are immigrants who send money back to their families. He said that they can’t do that if there isn’t good leadership. He stated that soldiers see the writing on the wall and have realized that, at the end of the day, they can’t keep following this if they want any chance in this world. Sage compared Trump and Hegseth to children “playing with G.I. Joes.”
Sage stated that Trump won Iowa because he said he would lower the cost of groceries and make more affordable, things people want regardless of party. He stated that it wasn’t about Democrats and Republicans, but about Washington being only 2% working class.
“This is about us taking our damn country back. We the people,” said Sage.
Sage stated that people voted for Trump because they thought he would break the system, and that they system needed to be broken, but that Trump just broke the system so he could rerig it for himself.
An attendee stated she was surprised Iowa was so hateful and that that they didn’t hate people when she was a kid. Sage stated that this was a population control tactic to keep people divided. He stated that social issues pop up around elections to divide people and make them angry so politicians can push their agendas forward. He stated that the corporations that run this country own the media and social media and that that’s why there’s so much hate. He stated we needed to put our phones down, talk to our neighbors, touch grass, and do community events again. He stated that, when they bring people together, they realize they’re all in the same community and can have real conversations.
Sage stated that, if Iowa didn’t have immigrants, the state’s population would be steadily declining. He stated that his wife was Mexican and that her father, a Trump-loving Republican, was now worried about his grandchildren being kidnapped off the street by ICE. Sage stated that people who had been here for 40 years were part of our communities and part of our families and should be treated as such. He stated they needed an actual way for people to become citizens that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg or take 20-30 years. He stated that he served in the military with immigrants who joined because they believed it would be a faster way to become a citizen, and were still rejected for citizenship after serving multiple tours in Iraq. Sage criticized arresting immigrants who go to courthouses to try and apply for citizenship, saying immigrants were “damned if you do damned if you don’t.” He stated that people come to the U.S. for opportunities to give their family a better life and that we should give them the opportunity to actually be citizens.
