Let me say this first: I actually live in Iowa. I’ve been here steadily since 2008. I’ve participated in the Iowa caucus system. And people, I’m telling you it’s worthless.

Wait, that’s not entirely true. The Iowa caucus has value…to the news/entertainment media. Why? Partly because it’s quirky and quaint; it’s basically a 19th century system. Partly because it gives the media good visuals; you get to see candidates visiting farms and small town diners and county/state fairs. You get to see photos of them eating a corn dog or standing by a cow or smiling at somebody wearing bib overalls. And it has media value partly because it’s the first contest of the ridiculous process the US has for nominating presidential candidate. The news media has made the Iowa caucus ‘important’ because it thinks…and perhaps they’re right…that viewers love this stuff.

But except as a form of news entertainment, the Iowa caucus system is a pretty shitty way to select a nominee to represent a political party in a campaign for POTUS. It’s shitty in several ways.

• It’s shitty because it’s held in fucking January, when it’s almost always bitterly cold. That discourages participation.
• It’s shitty because it’s held in the evening and requires people to attend physically. If you work the second shift, you can’t attend. If you have child care issues, you may be unable to attend (although some parents do bring their kids…who then have to sit through what is often a long process that’s excruciatingly boring to kids). If you don’t have reliable transportation, if you’re elderly, if you’re disabled, you may be unable to attend.
• It’s shitty because it can take a long time. People gather at the caucus site (which might be a church or a school or even somebody’s house) then listen as somebody representing each candidate (and sometimes there are several candidates) tries to convince the attendees to support their candidate. After those speeches, people physically separate themselves in groups. I’m NOT making this up. Candidate A supporters go to that corner, Candidate B’s people to another, and so on. If a candidate doesn’t have enough supporters to be considered viable, there’s a period of persuasion in which the more popular candidate’s supporters try to get them to join. There’s a whole supporter-poaching system in place. After all that physical shuffling around is done, they physically count the number of supporters in each group, and apportion delegates based on that.
• It’s shitty because this unwieldy process happens in EVERY precinct of each of Iowa’s 99 counties. And they’re almost all run by volunteers. In other words, this is largely an amateur hour process.
• It’s shitty because the population of Iowa is…well, not representative of the US as a whole. There are about three million people living in Iowa. About 85% of them are white; 7% Latino; 5% Black. Do the math.

So what we’re talking about here is an antiquated, inherently unfair system that doesn’t represent the nation as a whole and is conducted largely by amateurs, but is massively promoted as important by the news/entertainment media. It’s also worth mentioning that the Iowa caucus system isn’t very predictive. Since 1972, it’s basically been a coin toss whether the caucus winner became the actual nominee. Only 55% of the Democratic Iowa caucuses winners became the party nominee; 43% of GOP winners became the Republican candidate. (I should also point out that the Iowa Democratic Party has mostly abandoned this system; they’ll still hold a physical ‘caucus’ but will also allow mail-in and early voting.)

The success rate since 2008, when I moved back to Iowa, has been pretty accurate for Democrats, but absolutely dismal for Republicans. Democratic caucus winners were Obama (2008 and 2012), Clinton (2016), and a tie between Buttigieg and Sanders (2020). GOP caucus winners were Mike Huckabee (2008), Rick Santorum (2012), Ted fucking Cruz (2016), and Trump (2020).

You’ll notice that the Iowa GOP has consistently chosen evangelical Christians as candidates. Or at least candidates who claim to represent evangelical Christians, because Trump? C’mon. What that suggests (or screams out loud) is that evangelical Christians aren’t really that interested in Christianity. They’re less concerned with spirituality and morality, and more concerned with racist and sexist ideology. It’s not about religion; it’s about willfully blind obedience to a cult leader.

My point, if you can call it that, is that Trump’s massive victory in yesterday’s Iowa caucus isn’t terribly meaningful in terms of who’ll win the 2024 election. Notice that every GOP Iowa caucus winner since 2008 LOST in that year’s election.

I’m not saying we should shrug off Trump’s win. It’s evidence that the GOP has solidified itself as an authoritarian, anti-democratic, Christianist political party rooted in racism and sexism rather than conservative principles or policies. The fact that they represent such a large chunk of the US population is fucking terrifying.

But I think it’s important to remember that Trump’s power is a product of hate, resentment, and fear fueled in large measure by a news and entertainment media more interested in marketing than in reportage. Half of his power is a media-fostered illusion. The way the GOP Iowa caucus is reported feeds that illusion.

So don’t disregard the caucus result any more than you’d disregard the alarm on the smoke detector in your home. It could be a legit warning. But it’s more likely to mean the battery needs to be changed. Pay attention to what happens in Iowa, but don’t let it panic you. It’s mostly just noise leading to anxiety.

Wait. That’s my point. I knew I had one. I’m glad it snuck in at the end.

EDITORIAL NOTE: Just another reminder that we must burn the patriarchy. Burn it to the fucking ground, gather the ashes, piss on them, douse them in oil and set them on fire again. Burn the patriarchy, then drive a stake directly through the ashes where its heart used to be, then set fire to the stake and burn the fucker one more time. And keep burning it, over and over. Burn it for generations. Then nuke it from orbit. Then drink whiskey and have wild monkey sex.