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In this edition:
WpGet the full experience.Choose your planArrowRight- No surprise, but Iowa’s GOP primary voters really love Trump
- At the Washington National Cathedral, learning to see our full history
Trump + Iowa GOP 4eva
Good afternoon, and snowy greetings from the “rat-infested, graffiti-infested s---hole” of Washington, D.C., as GOP front-runner and former president Donald Trump recently described the fair city he is mystifyingly determined to return to one year from this Saturday. On Monday, the Republican primary season kicked off with the Iowa caucuses, and based on his showing there — news outlets were calling the state for Trump within half an hour — the man doesn’t seem to have much primary competition to worry about.
In Iowa, Trump drew more than 50 percent of the vote, coming in almost 30 points ahead of second-place finisher Ron DeSantis. “It turns out — who knew? — that cowering in Trump’s giant shadow is not a formula for success,” Karen Tumulty observes in a column on the unsurprising, definitive results. If there were any surprises, it was in the graciousness of Trump’s victory speech, in which he spoke kindly of his rivals (even Vivek Ramaswamy!), his family (including Melania) and Iowa officials.
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Amid Trump’s workaday life of court battles, flame-throwing rallies and key advisers promising mass deportations to begin on Inauguration Day, it can be easy to forget that he has this speed, too — the confident winner doing normal things such as praising his opponents. But Iowa’s GOP voters, at least, have that presidential-enough Trump in their mind’s eye.
Dana Milbank, who spent time in Iowa leading up to caucus night, sees how the former president is resonating there: “I used to think there was a large enough anti-Trump contingent in the Republican electorate that, if given a clear alternative to the demagogue, they would take it. But in Iowa, the voters had such a chance — and stuck with Trump.”
As Dana points out, it’s not for lack of challengers. “Is there nobody who actually offers an alternative to Trump? Why, yes there is. Unfortunately, he was assaulted over the weekend by a giant carrot,” Dana reports. That would be former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, who announced on Tuesday, though not because of the carrot, that he was out of the race. Also out as of Monday night: Ramaswamy. DeSantis and Nikki Haley are sticking around for the next battle, in New Hampshire. Anyway, respect to all the candidates, caucus-goers and reporters for braving temperatures in Iowa that are currently hovering around 6 degrees (it feels like minus-11!), and we’ll see you for the next round a week from today.
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Chaser: Alexandra Petri imagines the indignant fury of a DeSantis who “did everything right” and was still miles behind.
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Learning to see ourselves
Monday was not just the Iowa caucuses but also the birthday of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. In a guest essay, Harvard professor Sarah Lewis writes about the deeply American diptych that can be seen at the Washington National Cathedral, where King spoke mere days before his assassination in 1968. There, new civil-rights-themed stained-glass windows commissioned to replace ones from the 1950s honoring the Confederacy now sit within sight of the tomb of Woodrow Wilson, a president whose “achievements … came alongside an easy disregard of racism,” Lewis writes.
That this tension shows up within the visual realm is not a coincidence, Lewis writes. After the Civil War, “visual representation of all kinds — from images to performances — became central for showing the blind spots in norms and laws that did not honor the full humanity of all in the United States.” Today, we are still learning how to align our vision to grasp the fullness of our history — in this place where King spoke and was later memorialized, and across the nation.
Smartest, fastest
- In a striking photo essay by Too Young to Wed founder Stephanie Sinclair, Afghan brides under the age of 11 and their families talk about the decision to sell these girls into matrimony — and in some cases how the organization helped pull them back from the brink to continue their educations.
- Could lawmakers actually be about to do something good — namely, make a deal that lowers child poverty, gives tax breaks to businesses and reduces tax fraud? Believe it or not, Catherine Rampell writes, the answer is yes.
- The great thing about good data, writes our AI columnist Josh Tyrangiel, is that it lets scientists predict exciting stuff like when you are likely to die — at least in a nice homogenous country such as Denmark.
It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s … the Bye-Ku.
People who love Trump
Don’t vote for Nikki or Ron
Let X equal X
***
Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/compliments/complaints. We’ll see you tomorrow!
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You’re reading the Today’s Opinions newsletter. Sign up to get it in your inbox.
In this edition:
Good afternoon, and snowy greetings from the “rat-infested, graffiti-infested s---hole” of Washington, D.C., as GOP front-runner and former president Donald Trump recently described the fair city he is mystifyingly determined to return to one year from this Saturday. On Monday, the Republican primary season kicked off with the Iowa caucuses, and based on his showing there — news outlets were calling the state for Trump within half an hour — the man doesn’t seem to have much primary competition to worry about.
In Iowa, Trump drew more than 50 percent of the vote, coming in almost 30 points ahead of second-place finisher Ron DeSantis. “It turns out — who knew? — that cowering in Trump’s giant shadow is not a formula for success,” Karen Tumulty observes in a column on the unsurprising, definitive results. If there were any surprises, it was in the graciousness of Trump’s victory speech, in which he spoke kindly of his rivals (even Vivek Ramaswamy!), his family (including Melania) and Iowa officials.
Amid Trump’s workaday life of court battles, flame-throwing rallies and key advisers promising mass deportations to begin on Inauguration Day, it can be easy to forget that he has this speed, too — the confident winner doing normal things such as praising his opponents. But Iowa’s GOP voters, at least, have that presidential-enough Trump in their mind’s eye.
Dana Milbank, who spent time in Iowa leading up to caucus night, sees how the former president is resonating there: “I used to think there was a large enough anti-Trump contingent in the Republican electorate that, if given a clear alternative to the demagogue, they would take it. But in Iowa, the voters had such a chance — and stuck with Trump.”
As Dana points out, it’s not for lack of challengers. “Is there nobody who actually offers an alternative to Trump? Why, yes there is. Unfortunately, he was assaulted over the weekend by a giant carrot,” Dana reports. That would be former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, who announced on Tuesday, though not because of the carrot, that he was out of the race. Also out as of Monday night: Ramaswamy. DeSantis and Nikki Haley are sticking around for the next battle, in New Hampshire. Anyway, respect to all the candidates, caucus-goers and reporters for braving temperatures in Iowa that are currently hovering around 6 degrees (it feels like minus-11!), and we’ll see you for the next round a week from today.
Chaser: Alexandra Petri imagines the indignant fury of a DeSantis who “did everything right” and was still miles behind.
Monday was not just the Iowa caucuses but also the birthday of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. In a guest essay, Harvard professor Sarah Lewis writes about the deeply American diptych that can be seen at the Washington National Cathedral, where King spoke mere days before his assassination in 1968. There, new civil-rights-themed stained-glass windows commissioned to replace ones from the 1950s honoring the Confederacy now sit within sight of the tomb of Woodrow Wilson, a president whose “achievements … came alongside an easy disregard of racism,” Lewis writes.
That this tension shows up within the visual realm is not a coincidence, Lewis writes. After the Civil War, “visual representation of all kinds — from images to performances — became central for showing the blind spots in norms and laws that did not honor the full humanity of all in the United States.” Today, we are still learning how to align our vision to grasp the fullness of our history — in this place where King spoke and was later memorialized, and across the nation.
It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s … the Bye-Ku.
People who love Trump
Don’t vote for Nikki or Ron
Let X equal X
***
Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/compliments/complaints. We’ll see you tomorrow!
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