BLUE BAYOUS: Caucus goers favor Trump!

TUESDAY, JANUARY 16, 2024

But why did the goers do that? In what way is the NFL like our electoral process?

Consider what happened last weekend: 

The NFL presents a brilliant product all through its regular season. Then its playoff season begins, with teams suddenly forced to play in objectively dangerous weather conditions which may make normal play hard to achieve and defy all logic and reason.

Our election system, such as it is, is a little bit like that! Last night, Iowa's Republican voters said they favor Donald J. Trump to be the GOP nominee for the White House.

Rather, the former president was favored by the small percentage of Republican voters who were willing to risk life itself by venturing out into the cold to attend their party's Iowa caucuses.

Except as a possible way to reduce citizen turnout, the Iowa caucus system has never really made much sense. This year, the caucuses ran headfirst into winter weather which was exceptionally dangerous, even by Hawkeye standards.

Last night's caucus results were created by the roughly 14 percent of Iowa Republicans who were willing to head out into the cold. "Be sure to bring blankets," they were frequently told, "in case your car suffers a breakdown."

Fourteen percent turned out! Some stayed home to watch the NFL. Others stayed home because they were afraid to head out into the cold.

With that, this year's bizarre presidential election got its official start. This is the way we run our most important political systems here in our struggling nation.

This, of course, takes nothing away from the caucus goers who did turn out last night. Beyond that, it's clear that Republican voters, by and large, do in fact favor Donald J. Trump for their party's nomination.

Why do those voters favor Trump? It seems like an obvious question.

Last week, one well-known conservative Never Trumper said that we blue tribe voters need to think about that question a bit more. All of a sudden, several other Never Trumper / anti-Trump types have written similar columns. 

We think that first Never Trumper was basically right. We think attention should be paid to some of the things he wrote.

We'd prefer to write about our tribe's array of (what we'd call) blue bayous. But as this dangerous year begins, the opinion voiced by that Never Trumper is where we'll start tomorrow.

Regarding that Iowa weather: Regarding last evening's frigid caucuses, let's recall what the poet once wrote:

Keep cold, young orchard. Good-by and keep cold.

Dread fifty above more than fifty below.

We don't know what the poet meant. But that's what the poet once wrote.