Iowa Reveals a Hidden Truth
1. An Impatient People
As everyone knows by now, the 2020 Democratic Presidential primaries got off to a farcical start in Iowa early in the month with the failure of a software system which took the rest of the week to straighten out.
Because of this uncertainty about the results of the caucuses, critics jumped in almost immediately with calls to do away with them entirely and the whole Iowa mystique with them. Why should Iowa, with a disproportionately elder population about 90 per cent white and using a backwards system on top of it, lead off this great nation’s Presidential voting season?
I don’t know. Maybe because it is backwards, 90 per cent white, and traditionally has become the prelude to the nation’s Presidential election. I don’t see any reason for the caucuses to be blamed or Iowans to be shamed by the “failure” of technology to produce the results within minutes of their final tabulation. It seems the caucuses worked. The technology didn’t.
Nevertheless, by the next morning Iowa was the laughing stock of American politics. By that evening, with results still unavailable, the laughter had turned harsh. By Wednesday morning…