The Obligatory Post about the Iowa Caucuses

 

Trump won the Iowa caucuses. It wasn’t close, and it all came out pretty much as the polls predicted. There was no race on the Democratic side. 

Pity the poor media, who have to make it sound exciting; for them, no news is bad news.

And now, already, both the Republican and the Democratic nomination races seem to be over. That leaves a big hole in the prospective news year. 

I am troubled by the bad blood evident among the Republicans: how everyone is sliming Nikki Haley, how Ron DeSantis is crying foul because the media called the race too soon. It’s dumb, now that the nomination is pretty much decided and nothing much is at stake. It starts to look like a circular firing squad. Nikki Haley is not a real threat to the MAGAnauts, she was a good governor; and DeSantis would never have won if the media had held off. Moreover, his platform and Trump’s are barely distinguishable.

I lament the lack of civility and decorum; it is one of the great problems with America today. It is profoundly unhealthy when politics becomes such a consuming passion.

And no, Trump is not to blame for this; populism is not to blame for this. Trump and populism are a reaction to this failure of civil discourse, not its cause.