Here we go ! The very long race for the White House is officially underway since Republican voters in the small state of Iowa met in caucus to choose their favorite candidate on Monday. And their preference is clear. Very clear.
Donald Trump, who had not been on a ballot since his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden, was the king of the evening. The Tsar. The Sultan. At the time of writing, he had received more than 50% of support. A sweep under the circumstances!
His closest rivals, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, received a fifth of the votes each. Enough to stay in the race, but above all to position yourself as the best spare wheel in the event of an accident for the main runner.
The contrast with the same evening in Iowa in 2016 is striking. In his first race for the Republican nomination, Donald Trump came second in the Midwest state, behind Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
At the time, the reality TV star – who few people believed could represent the Republican Party, let alone win the presidential election – acted like a gentleman. He congratulated the winner, who beat him by four points, and thanked the voters.
This moment of courtesy was short-lived. Two days later, candidate Trump accused the Texas politician of cheating. He even went so far as to ask for the results to be annulled.
It was the start of the marathon and already, Donald Trump was paving his political path with lies and bad faith. It was a bad omen for the future.
And here we are eight years later. Since then, Donald Trump has been president. A chaotic presidency during which he blew up bridges with his closest collaborators as well as with the main allies of the United States, in addition to being the subject of a first impeachment procedure for abuse of power, in a case which involved the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
PHOTO EVELYN HOCKSTEIN, REUTERS
Donald Trump, shortly after winning the Iowa caucuses
Defeated in the 2020 elections, Donald Trump did everything to cling to power, lying to everyone, twisting his arms, making his party swallow snakes, blocking the transition process. He was the subject of a second impeachment procedure, a week before leaving power, for calling for insurrection ahead of the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Since he said goodbye to the Oval Office, the businessman has been in the crosshairs of American justice, which is increasing the number of trials against him and raining down criminal and civil charges on the federal scene as well as at the state level.
And despite all this, Republican voters in Iowa who braved the cold to make their voices heard Monday evening were twice as numerous as in 2016 to place their trust in him. Twice more.
For what ? Candidate Trump is much the same as in 2016. He ridicules his political rivals, he makes false and alarmist statements about immigrants arriving in the United States, he accuses Joe Biden of all evils. It promises the grand return of a perfect country that never existed.
No, Donald Trump hasn’t changed, but the members of the Republican electorate in Iowa have. If 40% of them said they were very conservative in 2016, now 54% identify themselves this way, according to a recent survey.
Among those who came to the caucuses, 62% believe that Joe Biden stole the 2020 election. Roughly the same number think that Donald Trump did nothing wrong and that the legal proceedings which weigh against him are nothing more than a political machination of the democratic elite.
And there it is, the bad omen of Iowa. Not in the results of the caucuses which, in the entire Republican nomination, will count as much as a single grain of corn in a shepherd’s pie, but in the irrefutable demonstration of the impact that eight years of “alternative facts” have had on the American conservative electorate.