Entering the Bitter Season
Amid sub-zero weather, tonight's Iowa caucus ushers in a new phase in Donald Trump's campaign of crime and punishment
In the bitter, sub-zero cold of Iowa, the bitterest candidate made clear to anyone who’s paying attention what matters most to him. On Sunday before tonight’s GOP caucus, Donald Trump—who’s pledged for months he’s out for retribution against his enemies this year and every year that follows—said this to his rally audience in Indianola: “These caucuses are your personal chance to score the ultimate victory over all of the liars, cheaters, thugs, perverts, frauds, crooks, freaks, creeps and other quite nice people. The Washington swamp has done everything in its power to take away your voice. But tomorrow is your time to turn on them….”
This is the Republicans’ leading candidate, ladies and gentlemen, the criminal defendant and pathological liar who has stripped away the last vestiges of decency and principle in the former Grand Old Party—what was one of the country’s two major parties that, while holding different ideas about policy, attempted small-d democratic governance and accepted its responsibility to serve the country’s interests. As much as that often-thin veneer covered a deep and mean streak of racism and hostility toward the most vulnerable among us, there was a lingering notion that it was necessary to portray a belief in creating a better America.
Not anymore. Not with their leading candidate and almost certain nominee continuing to lie about the outcome of the 2020 election and insist the indictments against him represent political persecution caused by political rivals rather that the wheels of justice performing their duty. Not with the angry desire for revenge fueling this sordid campaign.
Don’t doubt that Trump’s venom is poisoning more than the already committed MAGA cult. While the final Des Moines Register/ NBC News poll before today’s caucus tallied 20 percent for Nikki Haley and 16 percent for Ron DeSantis, Trump is likely to gain support from more than 50 percent of the caucus participants—which would be a first in a contested Republican caucus.
In his piece published yesterday, New York Times reporter Michael Bender contends that Trump is benefitting from the return of college-educated conservatives after their “years of wariness” toward him, “unnerved by his 2020 election lies and his seemingly endless craving for controversy.”
Why? In addition to many thinking he’s the candidate most capable of winning in November, Bender writes, “Many were incredulous over what they described as excessive and unfair legal investigations targeting the former president.” (As for others Bender interviewed, well, they want to de-emphasize the focus on foreign relations and are “frustrated with high interest rates.”)
It’s not hard to figure out from where their skepticism toward the investigation of Trump’s criminality emanates. “These caucuses are your personal chance to score the ultimate victory over all of the liars, cheaters, thugs, perverts, frauds, crooks, freaks, creeps….” It’s a theme, with some slight variations into virulent talk of vermin and the like, that these voters have been hearing repeatedly during their regular consumption of Fox News and other far-right media.
The propaganda is working. A Suffolk University/USA Today poll released on Jan. 4 found that a stunning 85 percent of Republicans said “the legal actions against Trump were inappropriate and should be reversed.” In addition, the poll found that more than half of Trump supporters and nearly half of all registered Republicans doubted that 2024 ballots will be accurately counted and reported, a grim foreshadowing of the likely refusal once again to accept the outcome of the 2024 election if Joe Biden wins.
The Associated Press interviewed a 44-year-old public utility worker at Trump’s Indianola rally who mirrored Trump’s anger. “I’m here in part out of spite,” he said. “I can’t abandon him. After what they did to him in the last election, and the political persecution he faces, I feel like I owe him this. He’s our only option.”
Adding to this mix is the fact that Christian evangelicals—most of whom strongly back Trump, convinced in many cases that he and his candidacy is ordained by God—will likely comprise a majority of the Iowa caucus attendees. (They represented two-thirds of the GOP caucus in 2016.) Never mind his terrible, criminal behavior: His insistence that he’s facing political persecution resonates.
“In several ways,” The Washington Post reported yesterday, “Trump is an unlikely hero for those who identify as deeply religious Christians given his history of committing adultery, promoting falsehoods, and uttering vulgar comments and insults about women and people who cross him. But many have overlooked these indiscretions and questionable morals.”
Frankly, this willingness to overlook Trump’s degradations and desecrations by registered GOP voters from across the spectrum—people who refuse to take legitimate legal inquiries into his behavior seriously—makes this election season feel surreal. While much of the traditional political media is busy analyzing polls and assessing the candidates’ performances, they’re missing the real story. Trump is not really running for president: Rather, this criminal defendant is exploiting the political system to seek immunity, delay his trials until after the election and exact retribution against his enemies. This is not politics as usual, but fundamentally a crime story.
Yes, Trump is both a criminal defendant and a candidate for the nation’s highest office. That requires us to pay attention to the results in Iowa to remain informed. This dual track of Trump necessitates that we stay focused on how to keep him from succeeding at the ballot box. In fact, his abuse of our democratic and judicial systems—which is propelling his rise now—makes our responsibility more urgent than ever.
So let’s not get pulled into the horse race mentality that typically defines the presidential election season. While far too many of our fellow citizens refuse to accept the gravity of Trump’s legal and moral violations, I still believe we can make increasingly clear in the coming months how grim America’s future will be if Trump retakes the levers of power. The bitter, sub-zero cold of Iowa is a useful reminder of the cruel conditions that four more years of Donald Trump—and “beyond” as he ominously told an Iowa audience—portends.
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Excellent piece!
Trump training his base and society generally to accept his victimhood and violence as normal. Media is lazy and complicit.
I agree...it IS surreal. If I keep responding to your excellent posts, it’s because I am trying to understand the trauma I am again experiencing due the elevation of Trump in our country’s politics and political psyche. I always thought that my fellow countrymen and women could be trusted to choose right and integrity over moral depravity and degradation. After President Biden’s election in 2020, I dared hope that they knew the difference plainly and that the choice (almost in as stark terms) between good and evil would always result, of course, in our choosing someone like Biden who is ‘good to the bone’. But is it so? I almost cannot bear the thought that a man so evil could AGAIN run the country...and I do mean run...into ruin and into a snapshot of his moral turpitude.
I seek reassurance that there is still hope, but I feel that the howling winds of winter carry my hope with them. I suppose I believe that to be an American is to also believe steadfastly in our ability and desire to hold on to what is right and just and fair for all, but is it true?