DES MOINES, Iowa — A 90-times-criminally indicted and confirmed sexual abuser, Donald Trump, won the Republican caucuses in Iowa last night leaving far behind spineless rivals who never once during the campaign posed any kind of challenge to him or his ideas.
The media this morning are blasting from the rooftops the alleged “historic” nature of his win, heralding that he bested his nearest rival, Ron DeSantis, by 30 percentage points.
They are ignoring entirely the fact that Trump, and most other Republicans, for that matter, are leading an attempted fascist takeover of the United States. And they are ignoring that all the elements of a broad coalition, literally an anti-MAGA majority, are battling that fascistic effort tooth and nail.
They are not focusing on the fact that the Iowa Caucus last night was the smallest in a quarter century. Instead they shout out the results of entrance polls that showed 65 percent of voting Republicans last night saying they will back Trump even if he is indicted.
Yet, worrisome for Trump and cheering for Biden should be what the media are ignoring: the 32 percent who said that if he was indicted they would not vote for him in November. If the anti-Trump numbers are that high even among the most dedicated right-wing Republican voters who turned out in a deep freeze, Trump is clearly in trouble.
He cannot afford to lose a single vote from his ginned-up base. His troubles are even deeper before you even get to all the court cases he faces.
His endorsed candidates have lost the great majority of elections over the last few years, and in state contests from one end of the country to the other voters have rejected right-wing MAGA initiatives, particularly on the issue of abortion rights. The 2022 midterms, which pollsters said would be a Republican blowout, failed to materialize.
The media, hungry for advertising money, ignore the fascist threat and instead are trying to breathe drama into decidedly dull facts. He surpassed the 13-point Iowa caucus win of Robert Dole by 13 points, the AP noted this morning. That is an embarrassment for a person who has already held the office of president of the United States. Besting Robert Dole, plus $2.25, gets Trump on the CTA in Chicago but certainly not anywhere near the White House.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis finished a distant second, just ahead of former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.
Vivek Ramaswamy, who came in an even more distant fourth, pulled out of the race altogether.
The media reported that DeSantis and Haley have to grapple now with how they could continue to challenge Trump. The problem is that they both functioned as “Trump Lites” throughout the campaign. It’s a bit late to start challenging him now.
Differ little on issues
The three top finishers—Trump, DeSantis, and Haley—differ little if at all on issues. DeSantis and Haley are silent so far about Trump’s declaration that he would rule as a dictator on Day 1 if inaugurated in 2025, suspending the U.S. Constitution. Virtually no analyst believes he’d stop being a dictator after Jan. 21, 2025.
About the only difference is that Haley started taking potshots at Trump, declaring the front-runner would repeat the “chaos” of his first four-year term in the White House if he wins in November.
By contrast, Trump’s likely 2024 foe, Democratic incumbent Joe Biden, who beat Trump in 2020, has said he’ll make preserving the Constitution and democracy here in the U.S. his top issue on the campaign trail.
That contrasts with his strong Cold War-style backing, including billions of dollars in military aid—which gratifies U.S. weapons manufacturers—for undemocratic regimes in the Ukraine and Israel.
In Iowa, DeSantis tried to out-Trump Trump on the campaign trail and poured people and money in. He campaigned in all 99 counties and won none. Haley won one, by one vote. Trump won the rest.
The GOP contest moves to New Hampshire in a week, and then to South Carolina. DeSantis trails badly in both states, while Haley is gaining on Trump in New Hampshire. South Carolina polls show Trump with a 30-percentage point lead there over Haley in her home state.
The positions and records of Haley and DeSantis are close to Trump’s, including on workers’ issues.
Trump set out to wreck federal employee unions and his minions gleefully chortled behind closed doors when the Trump-named justices of the U.S. Supreme Court ruled OSHA overstepped its mandate when combatting the coronavirus pandemic, just to give two examples. And his right-wing aides wanted to privatize the VA hospital system and the Postal Service, too.
Haley lobbied for Boeing to expand aircraft production at its North Charleston, S.C., plant—which it did strictly to escape the Machinists in Everett, Wash. She also appointed a union buster as her state Labor Commissioner. During her reign, IAM had to pull its Boeing organizers out of South Carolina when they received death threats.
In Florida, DeSantis and the GOP-gerrymandered supermajority in the legislature made teachers and their unions their political piñata. Anti-worker laws in the Sunshine State include a notorious “don’t say gay” law applied to public schools and the elimination of tenure protections in state colleges.
Also enacted “paycheck protection”
DeSantis and the lawmakers also enacted “paycheck protection,” eliminating dues checkoffs, and now require public worker unions to be recertified yearly by getting 50%+1 “yes” votes from all workers in a bargaining unit, not just a majority of those voting. Iowa has a similar law.
And both Florida and South Carolina, like other “red” Republican-run states, enacted various forms of voter repression laws, after the GOP-named Supreme Court majority opened the door to such measures a decade ago. Both have also restricted the right to abortion after the High Court threw out that federal constitutional right in 2022.
In what would be a hit in the Theater of the Absurd, DeSantis said last night, “Because of your support, in spite of all of what they threw at us, we got our ticket punched out of Iowa.”
Haley, who never seriously challenged Trump, says she plans to compete “vigorously” in New Hampshire, where she hopes to be more successful with the state’s independent voters.
She continued her appeals to racism in Iowa by claiming she was in the race to prevent Vice President Kamala Harris from becoming President, her assumption being that Biden would die in office and Harris would become president.
Harris laughed off the attacks saying, “Let’s see what the people of Iowa do for her. And, regardless of who wins the Republican nomination, we are going to win the election.”
Trump will be in court today in New York where a jury will determine additional damages he must pay for sexual abuse and defamation directed at a columnist in New York who had already won $5 million in a suit against him.
The shamefulness of the Trump campaign is reflected in how he is grandstanding in court, making the legal system in the country part of his campaign.
One huge weakness for Trump, reflecting anger over his role in killing Roe v. Wade, is that in the suburbs last night only 4 in 10 Republicans who voted backed him. That will also hurt him in a matchup against Biden.
But Trump’s victory also reflects the effects of his campaign of fear and threats against anyone opposing him, locking the GOP into support for himself.
The U.S. Supreme Court is deliberating on whether states can block Trump from the ballot for triggering the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol. And he’s facing criminal trials in Washington and Atlanta for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Trump has increasingly echoed fascist leaders and called his campaign a push for retribution. He has spoken openly about using the power of government to pursue his political enemies. He used the language of Adolf Hitler to argue that immigrants entering the U.S. illegally are “poisoning the blood of our country.” And he recently shared a word cloud last week to his social media account highlighting the words “revenge,” “power” and “dictatorship.”
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