So What...

Trump won the Iowa caucus last night. I mean, that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. I fully expect him to win the GOP nomination. They made their choice and because they've made him so important to their own self image they will have a very hard time breaking from that now. 

But...

There were 110,000 voters who made it out in the weather to caucus. I know the GOP is trying to frame it as a large number, such determination in this weather! But it was 110,000 voters. And he got 56,000 of those votes. 

So I'm not ready to panic that all is lost because out of the 752,000 Iowans registered as Republican, 56,000 of them think Trump is a great option. 

I have to believe that the people who did not vote for him last time are still not going to vote for him. I have to think that though his highly devoted base does not care at all about the 91 indictments, some of the people who voted for him in the past two cycles will not this time because they do care. He's still an absolute threat to the entire concept of democracy and I don't think the people who understand that have suddenly stopped understanding it. 

It's going to be a long year. There is going to be a huge (not even going to be, already happening) foreign influence to try and pit all of us against each other. To try and destabilize our country even more. If you are active at all on any of the social media sites you are seeing the start of the comments that are the same. Multiple people saying the exact same thing on multiple posts. Trying to stir up hate and discontent. 

And it will work. 

To a point anyway. 

I think we are all still pretty much in our hate and discontent mode that started in 2016 and has just settled into part of who we are now. 

We learned a lot about each other in that time period and then in the years that followed and a lot of it wasn't great. We lost a lot of respect for each other during that time period as well. So it's not that hard to believe the false posts put out there by the bot farms. (Bot farms is kind of misnomer, some are bots, but a lot are people who are just being paid to pretend to be Carl from Ohio who has deep state information to share or Suzi, I used to be a democrat until I found out about the groomers, from California)

And then once people decide to believe the false posts you see people you know talking nonsense like it's true. 

And you lose a little more respect. 

I know it's so fucking depressing, and I know it's hard to see when it ends and how we get back to a little better balance. 

And I'm not sure we do.

At least not in my lifetime. 

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe something happens and the scales fall from our eyes and we see clearly again. But people are pretty locked into who they are and what they believe. Not a lot of us out there willing to say, I don't know. Or I don't understand. Or this is a complicated issue with a lot of moving parts and though I have an opinion, I realize it's just an opinion and I could be completely wrong. 

I'm not worried yet about the election outcome in November. Not deeply anyway. I mean there is always the low lying dread that lives in my soul since November 2016. But I really don't believe he will win again. I just can't. 

And that's a big part of how I'm living this year. I just can't believe there are enough people out there that think he's a viable choice. If I thought that the majority of Americans (which he's NEVER won the majority vote. EVER) thought he was the best choice. Or even a choice they could hold their noses and make I'd be too angry for public consumption. 

So I'm going to live this year with a little bit of low lying dread, a little bit of willful delusion, and a giant portion of hope. 

As always...

Go Blue!