I can’t remember a major news story that was at once so terrible and so boring. A suspenseless race has turned out more or less exactly as everyone expected; The Associated Press called Donald Trump’s victory a half-hour into the proceedings, well before voting had ended at many caucus sites.
Now I guess we’re supposed to pretend that there are important stakes in the contest for second place, but ultimately, I don’t think it matters any more than the outcome of the Trump-less debates did. Barring some spectacular deus ex machina, the primary contest is over, and now the nightmarishly long slog to the general election — enough time to conceive, gestate and give birth to a baby — begins.
Maybe it could have been different; a year ago polls showed that most Republicans wanted to move on from Trump. But that would have required the party to unite against the ex-president’s stolen-election conspiracy theories and to take seriously both his indictments and a jury’s finding that he committed sexual assault — risking the ire of his fanatical base.
Instead, Republicans did what they always do, indulging the MAGA movement while hoping some outside force would make Trump go away. Rather than take him on directly, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis spent most of their energy and resources attacking each other.
Then again, maybe there’s nothing Republicans could have done, because their despairing base loves drama and yearns for a strongman. The one thing that unites Americans of all political persuasions, after all, is the conviction that our democracy is failing and our country is going to hell. Tonight, Iowa’s Republican caucusgoers have sent it a little further on its way.
Now I guess we’re supposed to pretend that there are important stakes in the contest for second place, but ultimately, I don’t think it matters any more than the outcome of the Trump-less debates did. Barring some spectacular deus ex machina, the primary contest is over, and now the nightmarishly long slog to the general election — enough time to conceive, gestate and give birth to a baby — begins.
Maybe it could have been different; a year ago polls showed that most Republicans wanted to move on from Trump. But that would have required the party to unite against the ex-president’s stolen-election conspiracy theories and to take seriously both his indictments and a jury’s finding that he committed sexual assault — risking the ire of his fanatical base.
Instead, Republicans did what they always do, indulging the MAGA movement while hoping some outside force would make Trump go away. Rather than take him on directly, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis spent most of their energy and resources attacking each other.
Then again, maybe there’s nothing Republicans could have done, because their despairing base loves drama and yearns for a strongman. The one thing that unites Americans of all political persuasions, after all, is the conviction that our democracy is failing and our country is going to hell. Tonight, Iowa’s Republican caucusgoers have sent it a little further on its way.
