DL Open Thread Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024
I mentioned this the other day: The media is more interested in narrative than facts. The Iowa caucuses provide a perfect example.
Donald Trump won. That’s news, but of the dog bites man sort – everyone knew he would. But that’s not a very compelling narrative, so political reporters gave us others, based mostly on what the candidates themselves wanted printed.
Ron DeSantis eked out second place, so he proclaimed, “We’ve got our ticket punched out of Iowa.” The translation: He won’t fold his campaign before New Hampshire, where voters are more likely to punch him, not his ticket (he’s polling at 6%).
Nikki Haley’s third-place finish with 19%, about 2,000 votes behind DeSantis, prompted her to say it was now a two-person race. She counts herself as one of them, which shows that math isn’t her forte, and the “mainstream Republicans,” at least those willing to put in the effort, are outnumbered 4-1 by MAGAts. She’s polling well in New Hampshire, though, so they’ll ignore that until Southern states voters make it undeniable.
Those narratives aren’t interesting, either, but they have the benefit of requiring no effort to assemble. So let me help them out. Here are my two takeaways from the 2024 Iowa caucuses.
1) Trump’s two main rivals split the rest of the vote almost equally, which means half the non-Trumpers want a less alienating, more “normal” candidate, while the other half want someone even more alienating than Trump. If they report that, though, they won’t be able to write their “why Trump keeps winning among Republicans” thumb-suckers
2) Donald Trump won the caucuses with 56,260 votes. No, there’s no missing sixth digit. That’s it, not even 60,000 people. Everyone else split an even smaller number.
Iowa’s population is about 3.2 million. About 110,000 of them participated in the caucuses. That means a paltry 3.4% of the state’s populace took part. Sure, the weather played a role, but the most votes ever cast in the GOP caucuses was 187,000 in 2016. Granted, the caucuses are a time-consuming nuisance – you have to sit there and listen to people tell you why you should back this person or that before you can vote, which surely cuts down on participation – but that’s no reason to downplay the real story: MOST IOWANS DIDN’T GIVE A FUCK.
At least a little good news came out of the frozen cornfields: Pestiferous pipsqueak Vivek Ramaswamy “suspended” his campaign. The bad news: Some of the reporters on the Ramaswamy beat will probably be reassigned to pestiferous nepo baby RFK Jr.
If anything else happened yesterday, it was buried under large drifts of the obvious.
The floor’s yours.
Biden was supposed to be a bridge out of the trump delusion, not a two-term candidate. I’m with REV on this one – as a Delawarean, I don’t need to give a fuck either. I’m staying home on Election Day. Dems have made it clear they don’t want my vote
Since you’re in Delaware they don’t need it, either.
You’re not going to vote in any local elections?
My local rd/sd isn’t under threat. The only race of substance is governor; so I’m waiting to see whether BHL drops out. If she drops it’s O’mara, if she stays it’s going to meyer
I hear you. I find it’s more important in Delaware to vote in the Democratic primaries than the general elections, except I live in Mike Smith’s district, so I gotta vote in the general, too.
Democrat “staying home” allowed Republican presidents and Republican Senates to build a long-term MAGA Supreme Court.
Critics on the left who want more results need to focus on delivering a solidly Democratic Congress every cycle. Not on “staying home” to send some kind of virtue-signaling message to yourself.
More and better Democrats.
Point taken that my vote for President in Delaware hardly matters.
My peronal breaking point was the Clinton impeachment, when I first understood how irrationally evil and corrupt Republicans are. Up until then I had occasionally split my vote, being naive.
But after the impeachment I resolved to vote for every Democrat to send a message. Even in Delaware where it doesn’t matter, and even in local races.
True, there were a few times when the Dem was so bad I left the line blank. But looking back that was a pointless protest.
I’m pretty much the same.
In terms of narrative, it is very strange to listen to the network coverage and not hear that Trump’s only fully articulated policy objective is to end the constitutional republican and replace it with personal rule.
Odd silence given such a zesty narrative. Maybe they are waiting in vain for Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis to bring it up?
Both the House and Senate have cancelled session for today in Dover.
Which is for the best–wasn’t much going on in either Chamber today.
“pestiferous pipsqueak”
No matter what side you are on, you should read this whole article. The NYT has published the most detailed description yet of the tunnel network under Gaza. Of course the journos were escorted by IDF to see only what they wanted them to see. But even allowing for some bias, the account has some amazing and undeniable descriptions.
You’re very interested in the prison camp Israel put the Gazan refugees in, that’s cool. How did they get there and why couldn’t they leave?
I like your little caveat “some bias.”
Lawmakers ink a bipartisan tax deal to expand the child tax credit
I haven’t yet figured out if this was done with the blessing of “Dark Brandon” or “Feckless Joe.”