“Non-liquid gold. You know where it was? Iowa. It’s called corn. They have, it’s non-liquid, that’s my thing, you have more NON-LIQUID gold. They said what is that? I said corn, we love that idea, you know it’s a pretty cool thought isn’t it? That’s a nickname in its own way, but we came up with a new word, a new couple of words, for corn.”
This was part of a speech Donald Trump gave in New Hampshire last week, just after he’d won the Iowa primary. He went on for more than an hour, free-styling, feeling the flow, singing the song of himself, like Walt Whitman on Adderall: “We’re going to place strong protections to stop banks and regulators from trying to debank you from your — your political beliefs, what they do. They want to debank you. We’re going to debank — think of this — they want to take away your country. Electric cars!”
They want to debank your electric cars! Or something! Wake up, Sheeple! Also, “non-liquid gold”? Isn’t there a name for that already? Like, um, gold?
According to news reports, people began edging out of the room after 40 minutes, leaving The Donald to wander on unescorted through the echo chambers of his brain for another half hour. In a speech four days later, he repeatedly confused GOP opponent Nikki Haley with former Speaker Nancy Pelosi. If your elderly uncle were talking like this, you’d recognize that he’s tired and sundowning and that you needed to get him back to his assisted-living facility. Trump’s people? Not so much. They understand all too well that Trump babbling incoherently is like Trump shooting a man on Fifth Avenue. His hardcore base will lap it up and still follow him anywhere. They’re like Deadheads, only stupid.
Look, fatigue can get to anyone. Trump had just spent a week in frigid Iowa, putting in long days of shaking hands, schmoozing, and speechifying. He’d also made an appearance in New York at his rape/defamation trial, where he muttered and scowled and ticked off the judge. Then he’d traveled to Florida to attend his mother-in-law’s funeral, before then flying to New Hampshire to shake hands, schmooze, and speechify some more. That kind of schedule would exhaust any normal human, much less an out-of-shape 77-year-old facing four looming court dates and 91 felony charges while trying to run for president in his spare time.
It’s all so absurd. Iowa’s primary is essentially meaningless. So is New Hampshire’s. Here are a few numbers to consider: Iowa has 2.1 million registered voters, including 631,689 Democrats and 718,901 Republicans. Around 110,000 Republican voters participated in the caucuses. Trump won 56,260 votes — 51 percent of Republicans who voted — or a whopping 2.6 percent of Iowa’s registered voters.
Here are some of the next day’s Big Media headlines: “Trump Gets Blowout Win in Iowa!” “Record Winning Margin for Trump!” “Trump Trounces Rivals!”
We’re being played, my friends — hustled for clicks, views, engagement. The Iowa Republicans who caucused are 98 percent white. Fifty percent were older than 65. Fifty-one percent were born-again Christians or evangelicals, and two-thirds (66 percent) believed Joe Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 presidential contest. Sixty percent favored a nationwide ban on abortions.
The Iowa caucuses are not a “barometer” of anything except what a tiny handful of old, white, rural Midwesterners want. Don’t believe me? Just ask President Cruz, who won Iowa in 2016, or President Santorum (2012), or President Huckabee (2008).
And New Hampshire is just more of the same — 94 percent white, mostly rural, and with even fewer voters than Iowa. But the national media will have spent countless hours of airtime and created millions of words of reportage, conjecture, and spin on this meaningless ritual by the time you read this. President Bernie Sanders would like a word.
It would all be comic opera, if it weren’t so terrifying. A presidential candidate from one of the two major political parties is clearly morally and mentally unqualified to hold the office, and the national media treat the situation as though it were politics as usual. If Trump is reelected, an entire administration, an entire country, and the rest of the world, will all be trying to do a work-around, pretending like Trump’s impulsive blather is coherent and meaningful.
“Yes, Mr. President, we’ve informed the British prime minister and his wife that we’ll be serving the president’s favorite dish — non-liquid gold on the cob.”