I took a road trip in September 2024 to remember the country where I grew up. After the West I ended in Iowa, among the farms and farmlands I recall so clearly, the gently rolling hills of central-eastern Iowa as you near the Mississippi. While much has changed--the big equipment, the huge fields, the little towns that have gone quiet--this scene and others like it took my breath away, for this is still the heartland, where farmers work hard to produce feed for animals and food for people. There's a simplicity and clarity about life here that this scene reminded me of, and for a moment it was possible to set aside the political implications of any of this and remember that Americans have always been workers, that my ancestors were among those first farmers, who had such hopes for the future and for the country they helped settle and build.