Donald Trump is Still Boring

We all remember that feeling of excitement when you hear a favorite ar

tist’s new music for the first time. There’s the initial feeling of excitement that it’s coming, then the tendency to compare it to previous work, then appreciation for what’s new and different, and, finally, a desire to hear it again and again until the newness wears off.

When I was growing up, this anticipation could lead a fan to wait outside a record store or a box office for hours, lining up with other fans, basking in the togetherness of adulation. Technology has made the acquisition of the new easier, but the anticipation still remains. The desire to connect with other fans hasn’t abated.

When you love an act, you love hearing the old stuff, too. The oldies but goodies. But you don’t approach it with the same level of enthusiasm. The tenth time you’ve seen Bruce Springsteen is different than the first time you saw him. Harry Styles at the end of his tour is a milder experience than Harry at the beginning.

So it is with Donald Trump. Presidential political season is here, and Donald Trump is touring. Last night he won the Iowa caucuses, something he has never done before. Some press has covered it as a “landslide.” A resounding victory. After all, he received 30% more votes than the closest challenger, a majority of 51% total. 

But if you look past the headlines, you can tell that you’re not seeing The Beatles in 1963 when everything was fresh, new, and revolutionary. You’re seeing them in 1966 when the world is already moving on and they’re still wearing their little suits and singing I Want to Hold Your Hand. The act is getting thin. Even The Beatles were getting bored.

So it is with the Maga movement. Sure, their candidate still packs ‘em in at the rallies. Sure, he is polling far ahead of the Republican opposition. But something has changed. Something is missing. There is less “there” there.

It’s not just that he’s a convicted rapist or a prospective felon indicted on 91 counts in four separate trials. That should only add to the bad-boy image of a candidate who thrives on disrupting the “deep state.” Most Iowa Republican caucus voter groups cast their ballots for him in greater numbers than in 2016. 

Center for Politics at UVA (@Center4Politics) on X

But attendance at the caucuses was down. Way down. Down 40%. Not a great sign for a disruptive movement. 

Steve Bannon realized a key fact that the pundits who urged more post-mortems in the wake of Romney’s defeat to Obama in 2012: if you can get racists angry, you can turn them out in record numbers. If more than half of most voters sit out most elections, and the majority of those voters are white and less educated, you can whip up a slurry of lies that can get them to the polls and give them an identity they’ve never had before. When you hitch a tireless huckster like Donald Trump to that wagon, you’re going to create a white-identity movement that this country has never seen before.

Been there, done that, got the red hat.

Attendance was down. And, in a collection of voters who overwhelmingly believe that Biden stole the election, making Trump essentially an incumbent in their minds, he barely cracked 50%. Imagine Biden getting 51% in the first primary of the year. How is this different?

More bad news for Trump. About a third of Republican voters say they won’t vote for him if he’s convicted of a felony. Rachel Maddow said on MSNBC last night: “Folks, he going to be convicted.” Losing a third of an already reduced group of voters who barely gave him the nod is a death knell. He’s toast.

Naturally, you won’t read this from the access journalism outlets. They need their exclusive access to key Republican pundits and players. They need their features. They need their horse race. That’s sad. And an abrogation of their responsibility to maintain and strengthen American democracy. 

So the predominant story out of Iowa will be that the race is on, Trump is winning, he is vanquishing opponents, and Big Mo is on his side. Those may be the facts, but they’re not the truth.

The truth is that a very old grifter is slogging through his final grift. It is a pathetic and depressing sight. Whether the right-wing amplification system will be successful in getting him across the finish line with their patented mixture of lies, provocations, and doom remains to be seen. Lots can happen between now and election day. Having an unfit proto-fascist on the other side in a system that begins essentially at 50-50 is irresponsible and dangerous. But it's the system we have.

So let’s call Trump's Iowa triumph what it was—sad, lame, pathetic. A multiple-time loser limped in first in a field of even lamer losers. The grift will live to see another day.