“It was a great victory,” former president Trump’s son informed me moments after his father’s Iowa victory was introduced.
“He is feeling great. We crushed it tonight,” Eric Trump mentioned.
And crush it, they did.
It was exceptional and has no comparability in Iowan caucus historical past.
It’s all of the extra exceptional as a result of Donald Trump has no comparability in American political historical past – a person with 91 felony fees hanging over him.
But in church buildings and sports activities halls throughout this midwestern state, Republican voters had overwhelmingly concluded, on this frigid Iowan evening, that Trump was their man.
I watched as conservative Iowans filed, from minus 20 temperatures, into group hubs to take part within the purest, easiest type of democracy.
The course of is fascinating. At 1,600 precincts throughout the state, they gathered to hearken to surrogates for the Republican candidates telling their mates and neighbours why their candidate is the one.
The course of is natural, with folks arriving undecided, and there’s jeopardy too.
The Trump surrogate on the sports activities corridor we visited flipped on the final second, upset {that a} native political superstar hadn’t turned up. Another Trump supporter stepped in and appeared to win over the group.
After listening to the three-minute stump pitches, it was time to decide on.
On slips of paper, they wrote down their chosen candidate. Then on a desk in the course of the sports activities corridor, the slips have been totted up. It was that straightforward.
Why Trump for therefore many?
Well, they have been in no way all devotees. I spoke to lots with reservations about his rules and his fashion.
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It was about power for all of them – power to face as much as the “establishment”, power to show America away from President Joe Biden, and power to face as much as Putin and Xi.
For them, it was all about safety: border safety (the Mexican border), nationwide safety (Ukraine, the Middle East, China) and monetary safety (inflation).
There is an irony {that a} candidate accused of ripping American democracy aside prevailed from a course of that was democracy at its very easiest.
Source: information.sky.com”