Gus Van Horn blog Posted January 17 Report Share Posted January 17 Snatches of two bits of political commentary pretty well encapsulate my assessment of the "landslide" outcome in the GOP's Iowa caucuses the other day.First, Iowa hasn't exactly been predictive lately:In 2008, holy roller Mike Huckabee won the caucuses in the red-shaded Iowan counties shown above. (Image by Kroisaurus, via Wikimedia Commons, license.)[Nikki] Haley caught some flak from DeSantis when she told a group of New Hampshire voters that they "correct" Iowa's results, but her statement is supported by recent history. Remember Presidents Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum or Ted Cruz, the last three winners of the Iowa caucuses? Neither do the history books.One must travel back nearly a quarter-century to the year 2000 to find the last winner of the GOP Iowa caucuses who went on to secure the nomination. [bold added]Caucuses aren't polls of the general public, and whoever it is -- strong partisans, I presume -- who participate in the Iowa caucuses have been out of touch in the theocratic/social conservative direction lately.Trump is the man for that anti-freedom lot in this election.Second: 51%.That's all?I agree with Phil Boas, who argues in USA Today that this result is a weak showing, because Trump is, for all practical purposes, running as an incumbent. (And that would be true despite polling showing that 65% (!) of the caucus participants there are brain-dead enough to believe Trump actually won the 2020 election.) Taken together, the "not Trump" coalition of candidates won nearly half the vote in a state that ABC News calls "overwhelmingly white and rural." In other words, these were ideal conditions for a Trump landslide.But Iowa is not the national electorate. And Trump's Iowa triumph can hardly serve as a bellwether for the fall. [bold added]Boas notes a big incentive for independents who want a choice other than Trump or Biden to vote in New Hampshire's Republican primary at a time when polling shows Haley smoking Biden by 17% in a head-to-head matchup.Overall, while it was disappointing to see Trump run away with Iowa, his winning there was predictable. But his margin there -- under ideal conditions for him -- wasn't the catastrophe Democrats and Trump supporters were hoping for, albeit for different, co-dependent reasons.New Hampshire will give a better picture of whether Nikki Haley can topple Donald Trump.-- CAVP.S. One bit of good news out of the caucuses: DeSantis, who has come to represent a more competent (and therefore dangerous) version of everything bad about Donald Trump, may have fatally wounded his future political aspirations:The DeSantis campaign was fundamentally a product of a certain class of the GOP's elite: people who admired Donald Trump's willingness to break the traditional norms of American politics but saw him as basically déclassé or ineffectual. These are the sorts of conservatives who look admiringly at Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán, seeing his use of legalistic arcana to crush liberal opposition as a model for how to fight a culture war and win. [links omitted]This is the direction a significant part of the conservative movement has been headed for some time, and unless we get a "more competent DeSantis" in the near future, the Iowa caucuses may well have bought some time to fight for freedom.Link to Original Jon Letendre 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Letendre Posted January 17 Report Share Posted January 17 (edited) This contest, the Iowa Republican Caucuses, had a previous record-holding winner, Bob Dole, who beat his second-place contender by 13 percentage points. Trump beat his second-place contender by 30 percentage points, setting a new record. Trump didn't break the old record of dominance in this contest by a fraction of one percent, like new records in swimming, no, he beat the old record by 130%. Leave it to this Gus character to find a way of twisting these objective facts into "disappointment." What a complete joke. Edited January 17 by Jon Letendre Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tadmjones Posted January 17 Report Share Posted January 17 He also agrees that one must be 'brain dead' to see Biden's administration as illegitimate. He got 81 million legitimate votes and was surrounded by 30k federal troops as he was sworn in, now that is legitimate! This country is a democracy, not some conspiracy minded oligarchy that centralized power through DC, when are white rural voters gonna di.. I mean see things as they are ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Morris Posted January 27 Report Share Posted January 27 On 1/17/2024 at 2:07 PM, tadmjones said: was surrounded by 30k federal troops as he was sworn in This was necessary because the Trumpers had already demonstrated their willingness to use violence to overturn legitimate election results. Jon Letendre 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tadmjones Posted January 28 Report Share Posted January 28 (edited) Not to mention the decisive Battle of BLM Square on the 22nd when the Trumpist army lost most of their tanks and had to withdraw. Edited January 28 by tadmjones Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EC Posted January 28 Report Share Posted January 28 On 1/17/2024 at 2:07 PM, tadmjones said: He also agrees that one must be 'brain dead' to see Biden's administration as illegitimate. He got 81 million legitimate votes and was surrounded by 30k federal troops as he was sworn in, now that is legitimate! This country is a democracy, not some conspiracy minded oligarchy that centralized power through DC, when are white rural voters gonna di.. I mean see things as they are ! No, this country is a Constitutional Republic that uses properly limited democracy in the form of voting for elected officials and certain referendums. Pure "democracy" is defined as tyranny of the majority and obviously would result in mass rights violations. And no sane nor moral person would ever want that in any form. On an Objectivist forum we use properly defined terms not common mistakes that people incorrectly use while speaking colloquially, especially when it comes to a term that promotes tyranny and dictatorship as a "pure democracy" would and does. Jon Letendre 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EC Posted January 28 Report Share Posted January 28 Laughing at the truth about what the American Constitutional Republic actually is Jon? Why do you post on an Objectivist forum? You would have been properly banned long ago if the moderators were properly enforcing the site's rules still and hopefully will again so that this forum can be restored to premium status. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EC Posted January 28 Report Share Posted January 28 https://courses.aynrand.org/lexicon/democracy/ From the Lexicon explaining the proper definition of what is commonly/falsely termed "democracy" and a brief discussion of the American political system being actually a Constitutional Republic. "Laughing" at absolute facts of reality that are completely beyond any dispute would be like "laughing" at the fact that 2+2=4 or the fact that planets are round and not flat. It's childish, ridiculous, absurd, and makes absolutely no sense for any rational/moral person to ever do under any circumstances ever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tadmjones Posted January 28 Report Share Posted January 28 Or maybe I was being purposely obtuse, uber sarcastic , but you didn’t pick up on it? Do you think anyone posting here is confused by the structure of the government in the US? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EC Posted January 29 Report Share Posted January 29 1 hour ago, tadmjones said: Or maybe I was being purposely obtuse, uber sarcastic , but you didn’t pick up on it? Do you think anyone posting here is confused by the structure of the government in the US? Yeah, the Jon guy is. And if you were being sarcastic it's okay but never would have been allowed when this site was the premium Objectivist forum. Also with the nonsense that you hear spouted from politicians who should know better to even have gotten elected to office in the first place and everyone in the media and elsewhere falsely constantly claiming that we live in a "democracy" it's hard to know these days when people are actually just being actually just sarcastic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Letendre Posted January 29 Report Share Posted January 29 (edited) I think it's great that even people who struggle to interpret neurotypicals and who consequently post a lot of off-track material and comical misfires are welcome to post here. Edited January 29 by Jon Letendre Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EC Posted January 29 Report Share Posted January 29 5 minutes ago, Jon Letendre said: I think it's great that even people who struggle to interpret neurotypicals and who consequently post a lot of off-track material and comical misfires are welcome to post here. You definitely aren't a neurotypical like myself. I'm pretty sure you have some sort of autism or mental health issues and should see a psychiatrist. Some of the people visiting this site don't understand the purpose of this forum is supposed to be to educate non-Objectivists about Objectivism/reason/reality/rights/morality, via them asking honest questions without them ever promoting false/evil ideas in any manner or spouting random "opinions"/"views"/nonsense or false propaganda or whatever random irrational "thought" that pops into their minds via extremely negative cultural brainwashing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Morris Posted February 3 Report Share Posted February 3 On 1/28/2024 at 8:13 PM, Jon Letendre said: people who struggle to interpret neurotypicals and who consequently post a lot of off-track material and comical misfires Can you give further examples? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Letendre Posted February 3 Report Share Posted February 3 (edited) To what end, Doug? Edited February 3 by Jon Letendre Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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