Dakota Beacon

This week the months of speculation on the famous Iowa Caucus were settled and Trump won with results as follows:  Trump - 51%, DeSantis - 21.2%, Haley - 19.1%, Ramaswamy - 9.7(+/-).  In most analyses Trump did as expected while DeSantis over-performed and Haley under-performed.  Ramaswamy seriously lost.  Now it’s time to sit back and figure out what it all means at this point.

The first thing to remember is that this was the kick-off of the 2024 campaign.  Just the kick-off, not the whole game.  Trump can be satisfied with his progress so far but he has NOT WON the nomination yet.  Unfortunately a lot of pundits - Fox News personalities as well as independent commentators have been running with this as though it were actually the culmination of the Republican nominating convention.  There is a lot of rough sea between January 15 and that event.  Coming up are many state caucuses, conventions and primaries.  The field has shrunk to three now - Trump, DeSantis and Haley.  But what did we learn - if anything - from Iowa?

The first take-away here is that a majority of Republicans are not accepting the “victory” of Joe Biden in 2020. They see it, with good reason, as an insurrection that took place in November of 2020.  The illegal lawfare being used now to “hobble” Trump is another sore point.  Half of those participating in Iowa were so emphatic about these issues that despite his age (77) and despite many serious shortcomings of his presidency, including the disastrous handling of “covid”, they were willing to overlook them all and board the Trump train to wherever it may go.  Some of them just won’t support anyone else.  It is interesting to observe that whenever Trump is arrested or his home is raided, or any charges against him are announced his poll numbers skyrocket.  When you see this, it suggests to some of us that there is some sophisticated manipulation going on.  Could be.

Apparently the Trump faction is firmly holding the blinders in place when it comes to “covid”.  If we are honest and look at the history, it was Trump, not Biden, not the governors, certainly not DeSantis, who were forcing the various “covid” measures.  Now, Trump just blatantly lied about this during his many “town hall” conversations, soft-ball interviews with Fox and other outlets, slandering others - notably DeSantis - and trying to smear them with what he did himself.  Now we could put this on the shelf in the history books and say, “so what?”, but for one haunting fact.  The next pandemic is already in the launching stage.  A high-security chemical warfare plant in Oxford, England, is developing another “vaccine” for something they claim they cannot identify yet.  Does this raise any red flags?  We are all well aware of the criminal Bill Gates, pursuing development of a “vaccine” (for whatever) which will not need needles to administer.  Presumably this will be something much more difficult for us doubters to refuse - it will probably be in the air we must breathe.  Forced vaccination.  Now, with this in mind, think long and hard on this one:  would you rather have a repeat of Trump’s horrific bungling/mismanagement of this next pandemic?  A return of Fauci or someone like him?  Trump basically abdicated domestic policy to that mountebank.  Or would you rather have someone who saw through the first one and acted with greater caution and responsibility, keeping in view the sanctity of the U.S. Constitution.  If you think you’d rather go with the Constitution, you had better support DeSantis.  We have a record of both of these men’s responses to all kinds of crises and a pandemic is no exception.  David Knight has some interesting comments on the “covid” response.  Worth hearing and considering.

Most conservatives - indeed, perhaps even most Republicans in general - are hopeful for cuts in federal spending.  They should not look to Trump for any relief.  His dream of using our tax dollars to build “beautiful” cities “on the frontier”.  Presumably 15-minute cities (which, if you want to learn more about them, check with residents of Oxford, England).  These are designed to exert absolute control over people’s mobility.   And his latest is this:  a “new, beautiful FBI building in Washington, D.C. down the street from the Capitol”.  What??? The last thing we need is a new FBI building - especially in Washington, D.C.  Is this guy as mentally debilitated as our present resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?  Wasn’t it the FBI that suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop?  Wasn’t it the FBI that waged Russia-gate against him throughout his entire presidency?  Wasn’t it the FBI that crashed through the door of his palace at Mar-a-Lago and went through his wife’s underwear?  DeSantis sees things differently.  His plan involves de-centralizing the FBI, firing those in leadership/administration positions and replacing them and overall downsizing the FBI.  He wants the FBI out of Washington and away from politics.  Which guy do you think has this right?  

If you are not okay with men posing as women or with transitioning abuse of minors, you need to know and remember that Trump was a pioneer in this.  He was just about the first to promote men posing as women and competing against them.   In 2012 he overruled Canada’s policy to allow only biological women to compete in his Miss Universe contest.  He forced the change in that policy to allow a biological man to compete.  He sold the company in 2015.  He should have absolutely no credibility with those who object to the promotion of transitioning (as in sterilizing) kids and allowing men to compete with women in sports events.  DeSantis has taken several actions (not mere positions) to stop this in Florida.  And remember - Florida has a relatively diverse population.  

His good policies - and there were some - were all short-lived because he elected to use his proclamations and executive orders to effect them rather than doing the hard work of gaining support in the legislature - where our policies really should be formulated.  DeSantis, on the other hand, got things done in cooperation with his legislature and got his policies enacted into law.  Now, the next guy in the Governor’s Mansion won’t simply delete them.  He, too, will have to convince the legislature.  This is how our government is intended to be administered.

The nub of the issues on which Trump’s supporters have acted is the shattered election of 2020.  Most of us understand what happened there.  It was rigged and fraudulent.  Much of the rigging was approved by Trump himself, through his disastrous “CARES Act”.  Along with promoting phony hospital records and statistics in exchange for huge amounts of government money and grants,  he also funded the mail-in voting which made it almost impossible for an honest candidate or campaign to fight.  In the four years since he was cheated, he has done nothing, he has said almost nothing.  Maybe he should speak up, even at the risk of joining his unfortunate followers in prison.  DeSantis did some things - he got rid of the “Zuckerbucks” - the unconstitutional corporate funding of the election process, he cleaned up the poll books - eliminating the ineligible and the dead voters - and he got rid of mail-in voting.  It’s a good start.  If he were to prevail and become president, more could be done to protect our election process.  

DeSantis is well-aware of the dangers of digital currency and has promised to take action to protect citizens from this.  He has in Florida already.  It doesn’t seem to be on Trump’s radar.  I’d love to hear someone ask him a hard question about this and demand an answer.  It is telling that he gets very unchallenging questions in all of his town hall interviews.  It’s why he doesn’t want to enter a debate where another candidate will ask them.  The issue of digital currency alone would enslave us.

One problem that may outlive Trump’s campaign and maybe Trump himself, is his unhealthy ego problem.  Every time someone supports a different candidate or fails to endorse and praise him, he runs out and tries his best to find and fund someone - a RINO, an Independent, even a Democrat - to run against him and try to put out of office people who have been loyal and patriotic conservatives, such as Chip Roy.  This does not bode at all well, depending on his success in this, for the future of our Congress.  It is another disastrous aspect of Trump’s personality.  It can drag us all down the drain.  Does everyone really owe absolute allegiance to Trump?  For those who think DeSantis should “wait his turn”, you might as well say that the guy who sees the fire start just wait his turn and wait for someone to put it out who isn’t about to.

Perhaps the biggest problem Trump has is that he is apparently physically incapable of admitting that he has ever made a mistake.  Most of us are able to do this.  We all make them and most of us are able to say we have and take some responsibility.  We need to hold all of our leaders and candidates accountable.  We are all accountable in our lives for our choices, decisions, actions.  All except Trump.

So what does this all mean?  Well Trump won in Iowa.  Either he or Haley will win in New Hampshire.  South Carolina is less certain.  But few of the Iowa Caucus winners have gone on to win the Republican nomination.  One way or another, this will soon become a two-way competition between Trump and DeSantis.  If Trump should win, there might well be a large number of conservative Republicans and Libertarians who will support RFK, Jr., instead of Trump due to the “covid” disaster.  The thing about the “vaccination” is that its effects will continue to be experienced - we see a heartbreaking rise in fast-acting cancers.  No one seems able to explain it.  But it is said that 75% of Americans took Trump’s “vaccine”.  It is significant that uptake of the newest booster is only about 3%.  But as people begin to lose loved ones to the effects of these poisonous “vaccines” and as Trump persists in promoting them, some of his fevered support may wane.  

Trump began as a Democrat.  He once said if he ever ran for President he would run as a Republican because they are the “dumbest people on earth”.  He ran his administration mostly as a big-government operation, like a Democrat would.  He has little to no criticism of the Democrat philosophy - his barbs have mostly been focused on ridiculing Biden for his senility.  If he were to be elected for another term (and he is unlikely to be) he can be expected, based on the past and on his statements currently, to veer sharply to the Left.  The press seems enthralled with a Trump candidacy and is suspiciously unwilling to recognize that he has not yet won the nomination.  Democrats have little to fear.  If they have a candidate they like better than Trump they will find a way to keep him locked up behind bars or in the dock in court and ultimately crown another Democrat President.  The first level of their plan is to keep Trump off of the ballot in key states needed to secure the November election.  

We should all be watching this quirky nominating process closely and evaluating the options.  The next person in the White House will have a host of critical issues - from war in the Middle East and Ukraine to a rising threat in China to economic implosion at home to the looming pandemic being cooked up as this is written.  We will be faced with the possibility of losing our liberty to a digital currency, watching what remains of our educational system dissolve into weird drag queen events and trans counseling.  All the while we will be having the heartache of the planned die-off from the Trump-era "covid" pandemic and his lethal "vaccine".  We will surely need someone in the White House who still remembers the Constitution, who knows our history and thus can help guide our future in a sane and free pathway.  That looks more like the sane and steady DeSantis than the ego-driven dreamer, Trump.  And while Iowa is the first look at the 2024 campaign and the first real gauge of public sentiment, it is not the world.  In fact, many would be hard-pressed to recall the winners of the last several Iowa caucuses.  The idea that it is time for DeSantis to fold his tent and silently steal away is absurd on its face.  Who else has won there besides Trump?  Well, Cruz, Santorum, Huckabee, to name but a few.  And none of them went on to win even the nomination.  There is a long road ahead and we should start paying attention and weighing our choices carefully.

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