There’s several storylines going on as the Iowa caucuses open today, Monday: - How dominant is Trump in the GOP? Will this put him on the path to be only the third person to be a major party nominee for a third time? - Haley and DeSantis battle for second. - will this chase any candidates from the race? - it’s ridiculously cold in Iowa at the moment
Trump tells Iowa voters to get out in the cold and vote for him even if they're "sick as a dog." He says, “Even if you vote and then pass away, it’s worth it.” Worth it to Trump, of course, the only person in his world who matters. After they vote, he wouldn’t give a damn who dies. But you can bet there are people who would actually die for him. Remember the Jonestown cult mass suicide? Analysis: How Iowa became a chaotic curtain-raiser for a fateful political year | CNN Politics
Beautiful clear blue skies here in northern MN today. -30 windchill when I took the dog out this morning. She wore booties and a coat. I closely resembled . . .
I'm heading to Vermont this weekend. Current low of 0. No clue on wind chill. It's gonna be a fun day on the slopes for this Florida boy, followed by the best IPAs in the country.
Trump figuratively said a vote for him is worth dying over. What kind of Dark Triad Narcissist BS is this? Why are Republicans so mad at the world that they would still support this whacko? Just like dear leader Trump, Republicans are a bunch of pissed off egomaniacs with inferiority complexes. Why are they so mad?
He didn't figuratively say that. He literally said that. Even if voting for him will kill you, you should turn out and vote for him.
I heard a number of Iowa Republicans being interviewed saying they support Trump because "he shares our values." That's tells you all you need to know about Iowans' "values" - they have none.
Not sure how that helps the dialogue. I have spent a lot of time in Iowa, they are good people. What the non-Trump world still doesn’t get is that his supporters feel railroaded by a government who has no idea how they live or what they care about. For all of Trump’s faults, he yells the loudest on their behalf. It’s why his support is so enduring and becomes self enforcing. Every attack on him they see as an attack on them. The way to separate Trump from his voters isn’t by pointing out his flaws, it’s by showing them how he isn’t really helping them or doesn’t care about them. None of the pub candidates ever really got that either.
gotta teach at 8 tomorrow, low of -15. I love it! Just gotta dress for success. My daughter is riding in 16" of pow as I type.
Honestly, once you get past the generalized hand waving, there isn't much there to the whole "We feel railroaded stuff." Democrats regularly appoint people who know plenty about "how they live." Over the last 11 years under Democratic Presidencies, there has been one Secretary of Agriculture: the former Governor of Iowa. Hard to argue that the guy from some small town in Iowa has no idea how rural Iowans live (to be fair, he also was raised in the Pittsburgh area and went to college in upstate New York, two other places that "coastal elites" apparently don't like either). There are a lot of effects that cause Trumpism. Mostly, it is a weird amalgamation of retirement, boredom, access to extremist online communities, withdrawal from more traditional communities (i.e., religious, work, or other communities), a generations-long attempt to "work the refs" in regards to the media and other institutions by the Republican Party, which has backfired, to some degree, on them, and decades-long breakdowns in racial/gender/sexual hierarchies. The most likely Trump supporter is not some struggling laborer. It is actually a person with a HS education but good income who has never left their hometown, who is religious but not highly connected to church communities, a divorce or more and strained family relationships, and who is border-line retirement age.
Even if it’s someone from Iowa, they are implementing the policies of the dem admin. And agriculture generally had never been a big fight anyway, with Iowa first for many years in the primaries ag always won. The exception is tariffs, which Trump fought for loudly. Read around on how much that voice meant in the Midwest. I won’t go through all the other things they care about, but their world view is far more aligned to the things Trump talks about than what Biden does. Side note, I read one time that Trump literally went to pollsters when he started running and said “tell me the three things conservatives care about most”, and that’s what he has focused on since 2016. Building that loyalty has paid massive dividends for him.
And he had to redistribute money to Iowa to make up for the damage those tariffs caused them. Again, his supporters aren't laborers working for $50k at some job saved by a tariff (which cost the rest of us a lot more than $50k total). Trump talks mostly about Trump. Trumpism isn't about policy. It isn't about differences in values. It is about boredom, community, anxieties, and smoldering resentments. None of which are solved by traditional policies. Trump gives a bored person drama on their TVs, phones, and computers. He provides community for those disconnected from their communities, for one reason or another. And he provides them somebody to blame for why they aren't happy despite having some cash and a decent career. What traditional pundits have never understood is that you don't build loyalty through policy. You build it by hitting deeper psychological motivations.
