We are all now living in a reality Donald Trump is creating, evidenced by his thumping victory in the Iowa Republican caucus.
It’s a place where the tools of reason — fact, logic, data, consequences, accountability — aren’t always useful currency.
Those of us who live in the “reality-based community” may find that difficult to comprehend but we are witnessing the fulfilment of a prophecy made in Washington two decades ago.
The term “reality-based community” comes from a 2004 article by journalist Ron Suskind in The New York Times magazine. This quote in it was attributed to an “anonymous aide” working for then President George W. Bush:
“The aide said that guys like me were ‘in what we call the reality-based community’, which he defined as people who ‘believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality’ … ‘That’s not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors …and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do’.”
At the time, that quote caused jaws to drop en masse in Washington. It seemed shockingly megalomaniacal, but it was also incomprehensible that a senior White House official could believe that facts and objective reality didn’t really matter (the source was rumoured to be Bush’s chief-of-staff Karl Rove, something Rove has denied).
Twenty years later, with Donald Trump all but set to clinch the Republican party’s nomination for President — for the second time — the only shocking thing about that quote is how stunningly prescient and insightful it was.
Since 2016, Trump has been creating his own realities, one after another.
The outcome in Iowa shows that many Americans are still here for it.
Polls line up with voters
Iowa is important in every US election cycle for only one basic reason: it’s first on the calendar.
No matter what voters may have been telling pollsters or television cameras about who they will back to run for the presidency — and going into Iowa, polls had Trump at about double the support of his nearest rivals — you can never be quite sure what will happen until people show up and put pen to paper.
Would ordinary Americans really vote for the return of a politician currently facing 91 criminal charges covering everything from conspiring to obstruct the 2020 election results to accusations that he kept top-secret government documents in his home?
For a man who could be a convicted criminal by the November general election?
For a candidate who has openly indicated that in his second term, the US Justice Department will exist to impose his will, not act as an independent body upholding the rule of law?
For a person who was found to have made 30,573 “false or misleading claims” during his four years in the White House, according to a Washington Post deep dive?
For a leader who during the pandemic, a crisis of historic proportions for America, ignored or contradicted advice from health officials?
Thanks to Iowa, we have the answer from Republican voters and it is a resounding yes.
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Trump once again turns negatives to his favour
What the Iowa result also tells us is that the tools used by the “reality-based community” — fact, reason, logic, data — are insufficient in the 21st century to stop a politician with a message that appeals to a powerful, vast and potentially growing support base.
In his campaign, Trump is turning what would normally be negatives for any candidate into positives that resonate with his MAGA base.
The 91 criminal charges? That’s the Washington Elite, trying to stop him from Making America Great Again!
States such as Colorado and Maine ruling him ineligible to be listed on the Presidential election ballot paper? That’s the Establishment again, hard at work conspiring to hold him and ordinary Americans down!
Why do those messages land?
Because many Americans feel — justifiably in many cases — that “The Elites”, “The Establishment”, the economy, major political parties and the way money and power are distributed in America do not work for them.
There is ample evidence that in recent decades the gap between the “haves” and the “have-nots” in America has widened.
Add to that the recent challenges of rising prices caused by inflation, higher petrol prices, supply chokeholds caused by COVID, rising rates of so-called “deaths of despair” (suicide, drug addiction and alcohol) and you can see why Trump’s reality holds magical appeal, regardless of whether it’s based in truth and regardless of whether it’s achievable.
When the fact-based reality is hard-going, why wouldn’t you try something different?
Instead of asking, “How could Americans possibly opt for a second term of Trump?”, a more useful but challenging question is possibly, “What has happened that has made life so difficult for such a huge cohort of Americans that they would consider this their best option? How has it come to this? And what needs to change?”
Those are not questions with easy or palatable answers.
Not good news for Trump rivals
Along with his Iowa victory and the momentum it will deliver Trump going into the next Republican primary in New Hampshire on January 23, there’s another indicator that points to his likely elevation to GOP nominee: the amount of money he’s been able to raise for his campaign so far.
Trump has captured $US60 million, according to the US Federal Election Commission which releases this data on a quarterly basis.
Compare that to his two key rivals: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has raised $US31 million and former US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has $US18 million.
What cements Trump’s dominance even further is that he isn’t having to spend at the rate of his rivals. To date, Trump has used only about a third of his war chest. DeSantis has burned through two-thirds of his and Haley almost half of hers.
Within the Republican party, there will now be pressure on either DeSantis or Haley — along with the other stragglers — to drop out as soon as possible so that all available funds and resources are concentrated behind a sole non-Trump alternative.
Haley will be reluctant to quit before next week’s New Hampshire primary, as she is polling competitively there with Trump.
Even once the field inevitably narrows to two, few people believe anything can loosen Trump’s stranglehold on the Republican nomination from here. And that’s actual reality.