Trump and DeSantis aren't on the ballot in Iowa — we are

It’s time again for Iowa to become the center of the political universe and set the stage for all that is to come in 2024 by picking whoever “muh polls” and the Fox News-BoomerCon establishment tell us to. And that means going with the guy who says he’s up 30 points but still spends all his money obsessing over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

Except that’s not remotely how Iowa has done things in the past when it told America that, no matter who won in the end, it was important to hear more from people like Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio. The latter duo in 2016 collected a majority of the vote in the Iowa caucuses compared to Donald Trump’s 24% in a record-setting turnout.

But if your response is to remind me that none of those men became president, let me remind you that neither did John McCain or Mitt Romney, whom Iowa rejected multiple times but the Fox News-BoomerCon brain trust wanted desperately to win.

Let me further remind you that nobody ever elected Anthony Fauci president, either. And yet Donald Trump effectively made that demonic dweeb commander in chief during his final year in office.

So now, as Iowans prepare to brave what are expected to be record-cold temperatures on caucus night while trudging through the more than 12 inches of snow that have fallen in the past week, it is vital to put into context what makes us tick in a state that has always taken its outsized role in the process very seriously.

Gaslighting Iowans

Never confuse “Iowa nice” with a willingness to polish your stupid idol.

For example, when Trump engaged in a sociopathic level of gaslighting during his Fox News town hall last week by saying DeSantis was more in love with Fauci than he was, that’s just the kind of disrespectful mistake that would have guaranteed a caucus upset in the past.

As dutiful citizens and not merely modern-age consumers of whatever political showbiz is forced down our throats, Iowans have simply refused to let their employees — and that’s exactly what elected or appointed officials at every level of government are — lie to our faces like that.

At that same town hall, Trump responded to a question about his mounting pro-life equivocations since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade by saying Republicans need to get more savvy about winning elections.

Yes, please, Mr. Trump! Enlighten us on how to win elections, by golly! Because we’ve been getting our tails kicked in every election since you narrowly became our standard-bearer. Meanwhile, the guy in Florida you love to trash so much gave his state the red wave your candidates across the country could not. How is Senator Mehmet Oz working out so far?

Iowans have smelled this cologne before on the likes of Mitt McCain and sent them packing. Iowans won’t be your plebes or your pawns. We enjoy reminding our employees of the order of things.

As you may have noticed, many of our public-sector employees don't hold themselves accountable very well. That's why they have bosses. Those bosses are supposed to be us. And for the life of me, I can’t understand why I have to explain this to Trump’s most zealous supporters. Do you even populist, bro?

It is flat-out abusive to let someone lie to you like that. Especially because it wasn’t the avocado toast-obsessed, suburban progressive wannabe do-gooder who can work from home forever who was hurt by Trump’s lockdowns and was never, ever going to vote for him, was it? No, it was the 10,000 small business owners who were ruined by Trump's lockdowns he refuses to apologize for while lying about his COVID accomplishments.

It wasn’t Biden voters who were tortured by the mandate of the poison poke Trump remains proud to have authored. They’re the fools still playing Russian roulette with the never-ending boosters to show their total devotion to the total state. No, it was mostly Trump voters who were coerced to inject an experimental toxin in order to keep their jobs and their livelihoods.

Trump's surrender to the scamdemic hurt his own voters financially, legally, psychologically, biologically, and generationally. The cost was dear, and we’ll pay it for the rest of our lives.

The data on the poison poke continues to pour in, and it continues to be awful. A new study published in Turkey, for example, found Trump’s beloved Operation Warp Speed resulted in a shot that “significantly alters gene expression” and displays “a profound impact on key neurodevelopmental pathways.” The result “exhibited pronounced autism-like behaviors” in lab rats.

And there's a lot more where that came from. Operation Warp Speed is one of the worst crimes against humanity in history. And all for a shot that doesn’t even work.

Will Iowa lose its way?

But come Monday night, we may learn we are no longer Iowa. We no longer take this process seriously. We no longer care when our job applicants treat us like schmucks and lie to us and gaslight us — and that’s when the candidates are not ignoring us and barely going through the motions of a campaign.

In other words, we’ll learn Iowa is just like the rest of this dying country.

I honestly don't know what will happen. This is the most peculiar cycle I have ever seen. But I do know this: Ron DeSantis stood up to the Spirit of the Age when Trump fumbled. If not for DeSantis, the scamdemic would have terrorized us all much worse and for much longer. DeSantis has turned the swing state of Florida redder than Texas. That’s the fulfillment of all the conservative books I’ve both written and read, as well as all the conservative talk shows I’ve both listened to and hosted.

No one is attacking DeSantis’ record. Not even Trump’s bought-and-paid-for grifter corps can touch it because there is nothing to attack. My colleagues who have sold out to Trump and suddenly forgotten all the times they had me on to talk about Trump and Fauci and the poisonous jab know it, too. That’s why they’ve chosen to pretend DeSantis was Thanos-snapped out of existence to avoid their own consciences.

DeSantis and Trump aren't on the ballot Monday in Iowa. We are. Will we do a last dance with BoomerCons’ generation-losing tropes, or will we finally give our kids a fighting chance with a proven warrior instead of a shameless self-promoter?

Either we will turn the page to a new generation, or our page in the history book will be turned on us.