February 4, 2020
The epic disaster of Iowa’s “non-results” in yesterday’s caucuses cannot be exaggerated. The first contest of what is the most important election in American history was so badly bungled that results were still unavailable as of 8:00 a.m. this morning (Source: “2020 Iowa Caucus Updates: Delayed Results Lead to Confusion,” by The New York Times, 2/4/20).
Evidently there were “inconsistencies” in the vote tallies precipitated, in part, by a brand new app that had never been used in an election before! As it is, Iowa’s privileged place as the first Democratic contest of the primary season has never made sense. It is a small, overwhelmingly homogeneous state. 90.7% of its residents are white. Its total population of 3.1 million residents is less than the city of Los Angeles (Source: Census.gov). That the Democratic Party would compound these intrinsic flaws by trotting out untested technology is stark proof that they gravely underestimate the peril of this moment.
Just Friday, Senate Republicans destroyed any lingering illusion that they serve the American public by voting to block witnesses in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump. That deeply cynical, craven decision will unleash the power- mad Trump, who has never felt constrained by decency in the best of circumstances, to indulge his most sadistic and authoritarian impulses.
Vanity Fair has already reported that even before the likely acquittal vote, Trump has been pressing his aides to draw up an enemies list, with Bolton at the top, (Source: “‘It’s Payback Time’: With Acquittal Certain, Trump Plots Revenge on Bolton, Impeachment Enemies,” by Gabriel Sherman, Vanity Fair, 2/3/20).
We are living through the reign of King Lear, dinner theater edition, and this is no time to do things the way we always have. You don’t fight white supremacy by launching your nomination contest in one of the whitest states in the nation. You don’t respond to Russian hacking by implementing an untried new technological tool in a consequential caucus. After all, nothing says folksy nostalgia more than HANDMARKED PAPER BALLOTS!!! Jeez, this isn’t hard.
What does this mean for the rest of us? It means that any illusion that we were living in a democracy was shattered on Friday. Last night’s Iowa clusterf—k shows that the official apparatus of the Democratic Party is woefully ill-equipped to the task at hand.
We should not despair. Remember that it was our work, our relentless canvassing, phone banking, postcards parties and protests, that secured the Democratic House majority that brought Trump’s crimes to light and led to impeachment. What the last week has shown us is that, If democracy in this country is to be saved, we will be the ones to save it. The countdown to November 2020 has begun and we don’t have time to panic. Time to get to work.