51% of 14% of 39% = 2.8%

...and this is a "historic win"?

So Donald Trump won the Iowa Republican caucus with what the mainstream media has called an “historic victory” because he won it by the largest margin ever in that contest. Trump, as well as his Texas lackey Ted Cruz, were ready to call the nomination contest over, saying it’s time for Republicans to unite behind Trump.

I am also resigned to the likelihood of a Trump nomination, but I’ll also call it BS to base such a judgement on the fact that Trump pulled off a “landslide” in Iowa.

Let’s do the math: on Monday night Trump received the “votes” of 2.8% of Iowa’s registered voters.

That’s right. 2.8%.

..as in:

.51 (of Republican caucus-goers) x .14 (the percentage of registered Republicans who turned out) x .39 (the percentage of “active” registered Iowa voters who register as Republican) = .028…or, 2.8%.

If you assume Trump is really an incumbent…

…as far as the Iowa Republican electorate is concerned, anyway, 51% is a paltry showing compared to the last Republican incumbent’s showing — that would be George W. Bush who garnered 98% in 2004.

What happened to previous winners of the R Iowa caucuses?

• 2016 winner was Ted Cruz

• 2012 winner was Rick Santorum

• 2008 winner was Mike Huckabee

Going back a little further:

• wackos like Pat Buchanan (1992) and Pat Robertson (1988) finished second

• George H.W. Bush beat Ronald Reagan in 1980 (while ridiculing Reagan’s “voodoo economics”)

Let’s also call it RIDICULOUS that a small, rural, lily-white, Evangelical-dominated electorate like Iowa’s should have an outsized influence on something this important.

Iowa is about as unrepresentative a sample of the American electorate that you could dream up. It’s outsize influence on presidential politics is also the reason that US taxpayers and consumers are burdened with billions of dollars each year in foregone tax revenue and higher food prices. Politicians with presidential aspirations fear doing the right thing on these outdated, wasteful subsidies lest it come back to bite them in a future contest.

…So here’s an optimistic way of looking at the Iowa results…

Turnout was light, though the frigid weather may have been a factor for sure…but Iowan’s are used to frigid…and used to their caucus as occurring in January. If one were to assume that the most rabid, most cult-gripped were the most likely to brave the weather….51% is not so much…

…especially for a candidate who for all intents and purposes was seen as an incumbent in the eyes of most of those who turned out.

…yet 49% wanted someone other than Trump.

As long as the legal system can keep functioning and making Trump’s perfidy apparent even to those whose only source of “news” comes from Fox and other right wing media, enough “sensible” Republicans and independents will peel off the Trump train.

We just need to be sure they take the next steps of realizing the importance of defending our democratic institutions despite policy differences they might have, and go to the polls.