One good thing about Iowa’s lack of expected results is it lets us see how the candidates react to the unexpected, sort of a Rorschach test of their character, if you will. I’m not gonna comment on other campaigns: judge them as you will. But this, this is what I want from my next President, and I submit that maybe you ought to, too:
Seriously, what’s not to love?
First and foremost: There’s a paper trail — for the first time, btw, so put that in your pipe and (retrospectively) smoke it — so the results will come in, and probably be reasonably accurate. That they will be muddled because of how many ways the totals are gonna be split, and because — for some reason — they are reporting not one, not two, but three metrics by which a winner might be declared would have been the case even if things went smooth like butter.
Second, and I can’t stress this enough: Iowa doesn’t really matter! The state accounts for a whopping 1% of convention delegates, which is how the party decides who gets the nomination. In fact, the first four states (IA, NH, NV, and SC) only account for about 5% of delegates (the latter two were moved up to help counterbalance the, ahem, whiteness of the traditional first two). The media likes to pretend they matter more than they actually do, because it gives them fodder to create narratives (and winnow the field). But really, we’re not going to have a good idea who’s ahead, behind, or viable going forward til Super Tuesday, when about half the delegates will be allotted in one big day of primary voting.
Third: Of course the app went wrong. It’s a brand new piece of bespoke tech — developed for a complex, idiosyncratic process — that couldn’t be field-tested beforehand because how would you even do that? Add to that that rules were changed in the way the caucuses work (because this ain’t the first time they’ve had problems calling a winner the night or even the week of), and remember that the vast majority of poll workers are retiree volunteers who don’t know a whole lot about the cyber, and the likeliest — even inevitable — outcome is what happened.
Fourth, and really more of an aside: The changes that are fucking this all up were implemented after complaints from Sanders supporters in 2016, who wanted a more transparent process with a paper trail and yadda yadda yadda (instead of, you know, getting rid of these arcane, uninclusive, undemocratic rituals in favor of the simplicity of a primary vote). That these selfsame people — and the bots who love them — are making the biggest stink about what’s going down is both extremely on-brand and perfectly in tune with the tragilarious irony that has characterized this blighted timeline since the Large Hadron Collider was turned on and everyone lost their goddam minds.
Fifth: While the various conspiracies — Russian/Republican ratfucking, DNC scale-tipping against Bernie/Joe/Pete/whoevs — are not unplausible, I urge you recall Hanlon’s Razor, which says, simply:
So, deep breaths, everybody. Relax. For once, we’ve woken up the day after Iowa without a handy narrative to shape perceptions about the race going forward. The voting’s just started, the race is still tight. Which, you know, accurately reflects the reality.
This is a good thing.
It’s a tossup, right now, whether tonight’s app-related debacle for the Iowa Democratic party is the result of ratfucking — be it Republican or Russian — or just standard issue Democratic rake-stepping, or even just the semi-inevitable buggery when a new tech gizmo is deployed for the first time. Either way it’s giving all of us agita while we wait for the paper/pics of paper to be tallied. The whole thing is pretty on-brand for the twenty-first century.
But there is one silver lining, which is in every explainer published instead of the vote totals (or whatever) and what it all means analysis they all expected to go with, everyone’s finally admitting that Iowa doesn’t mean shit, delegate-wise, and is only important because the caucuses, simply by being first, help shape perceptions and narrative.
“Yet the power of the caucuses is that they can change that state of play. Based on Iowa’s results, candidates believed to be in the top tier can either solidify that status or stumble, and underdogs can either break out or fall flat. Iowa has this effect because it greatly influences the perceptions of the political world — the media, activists, party insiders, donors, the candidates themselves, and voters — about who can win.”
And that, my friends, is a righteous good thing.
All of punditry has been waiting for this night, when they can finally say who’s up or who’s down, who’s a contender, who beat or missed expectations, who should throw in the towel. Every four years, a few hundred thousand white people performing an arcane ritual that has people sorting themselves into physical groups and then performing arcane calculations to allocate delegates who will themselves meet later to perform calculations to allocate delegates, who will themselves blah blah blah so that, come June, 40-odd of 4000-odd delegates to the Democratic Convention can yell their candidate’s name. It’s a ridiculous, outdated process (I, myself, have attended two caucuses, which were such complete shit-shows that I ended up running both precincts because, well, someone had to), a relic from a bygone era of not picking candidates by popular vote. Which is not a good look for a party that takes its name from the word ‘democracy’.
Look, I got nothing against Iowans. But they aren’t even remotely representative of the people who make up/vote for the Democratic party. They’ve had a good thing going these last fifty years, what with the quadrennial boost to their economy. But a tiny, empty, rural state performing an outdated political ritual to allocate their near-inconsequential number of delegates isn’t much better than strange women in ponds distributing swords when it comes to picking a candidate for President.
It’s not like that’s a big secret. But it’s nice to see it said out in the open like that.
As you may or probably don’t know, last February for Black History Month I resolved to read only books by black authors. I read Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing, Ibi Zoboi’s American Street, Victor LaValle’s The Ballad of Black Tom, and Paul Beatty’s The Sellout, as well as extensive selections of James Baldwin’s non-fiction writings, including The Fire Next Time.
It was, as you might expect, a very affecting experience. Each of the books, in its way, dealt explicitly with American racism, and the overall effect was so profound I spent a whole writer’s retreat writing something my dear friend and occasional sensitivity reader SB gave me a nice attaboy for attempting before very gently and sensibly steering me back toward my own wheelhouse. I say that not to reprise the attaboy, but to (hopefully) illustrate how moving an experience it was to connect with those voices.
Suffice to say, I’m doing it again this month. In fact, I started a little early, since I finished the last book I was reading (Tamsyn Muir’s delightful and deservedly praised Gideon the Ninth) a couple of days before February. I am currently reading Victor LaValle’s award-winning The Changeling, and though I’m not that far into it, I’m enjoying the shit out of it so far, and would recommend it to anyone on the strength of what I’ve read so far and his previous work.
I challenge you to join me. Especially if you’re not someone who reads black authors that much. It doesn’t have to be all month, doesn’t have to be work relating to American racism or even American blackness. It doesn’t have to be fiction or non-fiction. It can be whatever you like. Just read one book by a black author.
You’ll be glad you did.
From the Nation:
“In my view, Warren offers a far more plausible and more detailed case for how the next president must run the government once in office. Her “I’ve got a plan for that” is actually true: She and her staff tapped first-class teams of advisers from nationwide networks of progressive lawyers, economists, techies, educators, medical and military personnel, and environmentalists. In each of her plans, she has adroitly analyzed key issues (in readable, nontechnical language) and stated what her administration would do to address them.
[…]
“In her skill and dedication campaigning for other candidates; in doggedly shepherding tough, controversial bills through Congress; and in constructing a significant federal agency from scratch, Warren has demonstrated her ability to both win elections and govern.
Just as important, in weaving together support across the Democrats’ diverse constituencies, she has shown herself to embody not just the prophetic but also the complex and very human mix of emotions most of us feel: indignation, empathy, hope, openness—the deep, abiding yearning to turn America in a new direction.”
https://www.thenation.com/article/warren-president-endorsement-2020/
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