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Who is Joni Ernst? Iowa Senator mocked for fake ‘sex blimps’ and ‘abolish lasagne’ poster as she targets Dems

Complaining about the far left, Ernst brought up a strange poster and Twitter quickly morphed it into something even funnier

Iowa Senator Joni Ernst has become the latest butt of jokes on social media after she unveiled a rather strange infographic. In a speech at the Senate on April 28, Ernst was slamming President Joe Biden for only listening "to the far-left progressives within the Democratic party". She accused the progressives of living "on their own liberal fantasy island".

At that point, Ernst brought up an infographic with the title 'liberal fantasy island'. We have seen strange infographics from Republicans in the past, but this is truly something outlandish. The poster had a wide variety of labels, such as 'abolish ICE', 'tax increase' and 'defund the police'. Within minutes, that clip went viral on social media. It's got many people talking about the Senator, and got us asking — who exactly is she? Here's everything we know about Ernst, and how she ended up being today's troll victim. 

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Who is Joni Ernst?

The Republican politician has been serving as Iowa's Senator since 2015. Prior to that, she served in the state senate between 2011 and 2014. Unlike some of her colleagues, she has a working-class background rather than being a career politician. Ernst served in the Iowa Army National Guard from 1993 to 2015, before returning as a lieutenant colonel. Since her foray into politics, Ernst has been turning quite a few heads.

First, she was considered a long shot to win the Senate seat in 2014 but managed to do so thanks to the support from Kochs brothers. On the campaign trail, Ernst drew a lot of attention to her strange ad, where she said "I’ll know how to cut pork" in reference to cutting wasteful spending. Once she was elected, Ernst continued to draw media attention for her antics, more than her bills. She was extremely critical of then-president Obama during the ebola outbreak of 2014. Ernst stuck to Republican talking points so frequently that she was even considered at one point to be Trump's running mate in 2016.

“In the summer of 2016, I was interviewed by Candidate Trump to be vice president of the United States. I turned Candidate Trump down, knowing it wasn’t the right thing for me or my family," she said in her divorce filing. That divorce was finalized in January 2019 after Ernst alleged that her husband had verbally, mentally and physically assaulted her. She married Gail Ernst in 1992, and the couple has one daughter, Libby. The couple has also accused each other of infidelity but denied the accusations. 

'Who gave Joni Ernst the Antifa Vision Board?'

As the clip of Ernst went viral, one enterprising user quickly photoshopped her infographic to include more odd labels, like 'sex blimps', 'abolish lasagna' and 'Marvelous Mes. Masel'. It's unclear who exactly created the morphed version, but we managed to trace it back to Keaton Patti, a writer and comedian. Patti tweeted, "wtf even are some of these???????" and shared the morphed image.

It didn't take long for the fake image to go more viral than the original. One person responded, "I mean, first season of Marvelous was fantastic. I watched it while on a sex blimp. In DC. While refusing to eat lasagna." Another user joked, "I’m starting a new side project called Sex Blimps and we’re only gonna sing songs about how dumb Joni Ernst is." Another said, "Folks, Joni Ernst is a lot of things, but clever enough to think up something like "sex blimps?" No." 

One user said, "I hope Biden spends some time on the sex blimps tonight." Another person joked, "Aim Marjorie Taylor Greene's Jewish Space Lasers at Joni Ernst's Sex Blimps to blow them up. Then we'll all go downtown to celebrate with Lasagna for the last time!" One person mocked, "Who gave Joni Ernst the Antifa Vision Board?" Another user joked, "I've been saying Joni Ernst needs to transition to prop comic since she first did that pig castration material."

Another person addressed the GOP habit of making posters, tweeting, "I just can't understand why conservatives are so hell-bent on showing up to Congress with these third grade poster presentations..." And naturally, Matt Gaetz found himself dragged into the meme-fest with one user tweeting, "If there’s a sex blimp, Matt Gaetz has been on it."

Unfortunately for those who've enjoyed mocking Ernst, we have bad news. The 'sex blimps' poster is fake. The original one is far less controversial, but equally amusing nonetheless.