Welp: That Was the Worst-Case Scenario

Everything that could go wrong did, and so did some other stuff

Photo from Scott Olson via Getty.

I suppose it’s hyperbolic to call what happened in the Iowa caucus “the worst case scenario.” After all: There was no mass suffering, and no-one died. To my knowledge, no new super-viruses were released last night. Trump didn’t take the stage wielding the Morgul Blade and promise a thousand years of darkness, nor did Vivek Ramaswamy announce that he’ll be bringing his signature blend of Harvard dickishness and dark web conspiracy mongering to your living room every night as the new host of Jeopardy. None of those things happened. But short of those things happening, last night was probably the worst-case scenario for anyone who wants Trump to lose.

It started with the weather. Iowa in January is always pinch-a-pocket-hand-warmer-between-your-buttcheeks cold, but yesterday’s deep freeze went a step beyond that. The people least deterred by such weather are presumably zealots with poor planning skills, which happens to be Trump’s main constituency. On NBC, Chuck Todd said that “No one was hurt more by the weather than Nikki Haley.” And sure: That statement blithely ignored the suffering of livestock destined to become beefsicles on the midwestern tundra, but as far as humans go, Todd was probably right that no one was hurt more by the weather than Haley.

Trump won 51 percent of the vote. My math skills tell me that 51 is more than 50 (Virginia public schools for the win!), and 50 percent was a sort-of-important barrier. If Trump fell short of 50, it would be easier to image that if you fused all the non-Trump candidates together like the Autobots forming Optimus Maximus, Trump could lose. A sub-50 result would also marginally reduce the thunderousness of the inevitable “TRUMP VANQUISHES ENEMIES, DRINKS MEAD FROM THEIR SKULLS” headlines. But Trump cleared 50 percent, so his victory felt total.

But it gets worse: No clear challenger emerged. Ron DeSantis got second, but DeSantis will probably get as many votes as you or me in the next three states. DeSantis is as popular as pubic lice in New Hampshire, Nevada’s convoluted system heavily favors Trump, and South Carolina is Nikki Haley’s home state. The only real shot for DeSantis before five states vote on March 2¹ is the US Virgin Islands. And “I won the US Virgin Islands!” is not the rallying call of a future president. Recall that in 2020, Michael Bloomberg won American Samoa and Tulsi Gabbard got second, so a strong performance in a small US territory appears to be a stepping stone to irrelevance and/or total lunacy, not the White House.

But it gets worse: Haley — who could win in New Hampshire and South Carolina — got third. And third place gets you zero momentum. Second is first in the “non-Trump” category, and it also earns you softish headlines with an “Okay Lady Experiences Non-Embarrassment” vibe. Instead, Haley’s headlines range from starkly negative (“Haley’s Missed Opportunity: Iowa Slows Her Roll Into New Hampshire”) to slightly mocking (“Nikki Haley, After Finishing Third in Iowa, Calls It a Two-Person Race”). Haley is also being labeled a “LOSER” in every publication’s “Five Winners and Losers” article, and having your name appear next to the word “LOSER” a billion times is not the type of subliminal messaging that most campaigns covet.

But it gets worse: Vivek Ramaswamy dropped out and endorsed Trump. Ramaswamy has always been a weird little Trump clone, a guy running for Vice President or better yet: a talking head gig on NewsMax. Ramaswamy only mattered in that: 1) He siphoned a few votes from Trump, and 2) Haley and DeSantis seemed more likeable by comparison just by standing near him. And now he’s out, which benefits Trump.

But it gets worse: Trump didn’t commit some huge verbal gaffe to distract from his win. And that’s always a possibility with Trump, especially since he certainly isn’t becoming more mentally acute. But, it didn’t happen. And sure: Trump did shit all over Jimmy Carter, who is on his deathbed. Trump absolutely did do that when he took a detour in his victory speech to imply that Carter is the second-worst president of all time. But shitting on a 99 year-old ex-president who is in hospice care is nothing by Trump’s standards, and it received almost no coverage.

Last week, I wrote that I could see a not-fantastical path to Trump losing if one candidate (probably Haley) quickly emerged from the Haley/DeSantis pile. I don’t think I see that path anymore. Maybe there’s a route if Haley wins New Hampshire, but I said “non-fantastical path”, and that path seems strewn with fairies and leprechauns to me. The polls look accurate and Trump’s dominance looks real; if this race has hidden facets, they didn’t make themselves known on Monday night. Maybe New Hampshirites will burnish their reputation as obdurate bastards and prolong the contest next week, and if that happens, then, okay, we’ll see what happens in South Carolina. But if you’re looking for signals from last night — and I certainly was — then I think all those signals point in the direction of Trump rolling to the nomination.

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1. Michigan has a Byzantine two-step process which means that technically, they vote on February 27 and March 2. Also, I’m counting DC as a state when I say “five states”.