This week, I have gotten a pretty continuous stream of good-natured ribbing from family and friends about my oft-stated, years-long, seemingly seriously misguided doubts about Green Bay Packer Quarterback Jordan Love’s ability to be the Green and Gold’s leader of the future. It’s obviously been easy to take the happy joshing.
I can think of no unequivocal pronouncement I have made or will ever make in these pages for which I more fervently hope to be proven wrong, and to hereafter be derided unmercifully for my lack of perspicacity, than this:
Former President Donald Trump is going to be the Republican Party’s 2024 Presidential Nominee.
As all who care are aware, Mr. Trump trounced the field in Monday’s Iowa Republican caucuses. More importantly, in what was an admittedly light turnout due to the extreme weather, the former President’s total (51%), taken together with the totals of Trump-lite Candidates FL Gov. Ron DeSantis (21.2%) and Vivek Ramaswamy (7.7%), meant that the MAGA movement claimed 79.9% of the vote, while former SC Gov. and U.S. UN Amb. Nikki Haley totaled 19.1%.
In other words, Donald Trump beat Ronald Reagan in Iowa on Monday, 80% – 20%. One could argue that the margin was actually greater, since it seems fair to assume that a good share of Ms. Haley’s vote was from Independents or Democrats, masquerading as Republicans for a night, who bitterly oppose Mr. Trump. (Had I been an Iowan, there is no cold I would not have braved to register as a Republican for a night to vote for Ms. Haley, and against Mr. Trump.)
An NBC poll of caucus goers indicated that 65% would still consider Mr. Trump fit for the presidency if he is convicted of crimes in the coming months; only 31% indicated that they would then consider him unfit. Only 29% of caucus goers consider President Joe Biden the legitimate president; 66% believe that the 2020 election was stolen from Mr. Trump. One has to assume that the vast majority of the 31% and 29% were Haley voters, and that a significant percentage of these were faux Republicans.
Although one might assert that my pronouncement is both premature and exaggerated based upon the votes of 100,000 Iowans, I would counter that the Iowa Republican profile doesn’t seem to be different from the profile of the Republican electorate in the vast majority of states. As a political handicapper, I really liked Ms. Haley (I certainly devoted a long enough post to her and her potential prospects 😉 ); but her inability to polish off Mr. DeSantis in Iowa seeming leaves the two squabbling over Mr. Trump’s table scraps, with no state in which either has a realistic hope of defeating the former president (save, perhaps, New Hampshire for Ms. Haley – a state whose Republican demographic deviates markedly from the norm).
I was struck by a sign I saw wielded by an Iowan Republican at some candidate’s rally which declared, “God over Government.” MAGAs no longer trust government. They trust what they believe God wants. We have heard Evangelicals supporting Donald Trump use the phrase that has become a cliché – “That I wouldn’t vote for him for Pastor, but I will for President.”
All this is so seemingly absurd that one can’t entirely get rid of the notion that the good people in our rural and remote regions who make up the bulk of Mr. Trump’s support – perhaps frustrated with their situations, or angered at what they see as our mainstream culture’s contempt for their values, or worried about their futures, but not rioters; good neighbors — will suddenly wake up, will snap out of their alternate reality in the manner to which we’ve become accustomed in Star Trek happy endings, will see the former president for who he is. One doesn’t have to favor progressive policies to realize that Mr. Trump is personally unfit to lead our country.
It is what it is. Donald Trump is the MAGA Messiah.
There is one part of me that finds the early clarification regarding Mr. Trump’s impending Republican anointment a relief, to be able to dispense with any uncertainty as to what we face. Since we started with a football reference, let’s end with one: We know what teams will face off in November. To preserve democracy, it’s time for both the Biden Campaign and us to strap on our helmets, and start to play.
We can only hope that winning will be enough; but one step at a time.
McCoy's Noise 