A Brief in Book Seven: Reconstruction 2020

Can’t write much at the moment. Morning looks to be productive but the same can’t be said confidently about this afternoon. So may write more later.

But bloody hell! If I was embarrassed of Iowa for being fuck all backwards in their ardent support of Trump, King, and Reynolds… the Democrats last night proved why the state that was once FIRST IN THE NATION on issues of racial segregation, LGBTQA marriage rights, and used to be the pinnacle of education has now become a bastion of the KKK, ardent defenders of Massive Criminal Penalties for Marijuana, and has been rapidly losing education ranking for the last 30 years. Because if the assholes cutting taxes, supporting corporate welfare, and spending tax payer money on Anti-Abortion Bills instead of Paying Teachers… you can’t rely on them. And the Democrats resolutely proved their disorganization, ill-preparedness, and bafflement at basics last night!

First, let us briefly discuss the obvious. IF a precinct had a tie between two candidates, Iowa State Law requires that precinct to resolve the tie. The same number of delegates cannot be awarded to each candidate. Therefore, the Iowa State Law to determine which candidate receives more delegates states the winner must be determined BY A COIN TOSS. We’re deciding electoral nominations in the same way the Super Bowl decides who kicks the ball first!

Second, let us briefly discuss the facts of the confusion::: The Iowa Democrat Party tried to push for “enhanced involvement” this year and proposed things like virtual caucusing. This would have allowed Iowa Citizens who were on vacation, at college, or spend the winter in Arizona to still caucus. Sounds laudable. However, this “virtual caucus” was going to be achieved via cell phone voting. Without verification of sender. So everyone said… that seems DEEPLY flawed and easy to exploit. So no. Then the Iowa Democrat Party said, “But we need to add digital involvement somehow or people will think we’re stone age.” SO, they bought an APP for $65,000 that would allow precincts to enter the information and immediately upload to a state wide counter. HOWEVER many precincts could not use that app due to (1) internet access being dodgy or non-existent in some rural areas; (2) issues inherent to the app itself. In fact, one of the attorneys I work with is a State Democrat Representative… and he couldn’t access the app to report last night! So… yeah. Shit was doomed from the start on a statewide level.

But really? I could have told you that without hearing anything at all from the rest of the state. My precinct was a right bloody mess the entire time!

First, as people registered and signed their names, they were supposed to get a voting card. 90% of the people (including me) did not receive this card. Strike One. Then, it was explained to us that we were all to sit in a designated area indicating our preference for candidate. Fine. Then, it was said that if your group does not have 15 people sitting in it, your candidate was considered non-viable and you would have to move. Fine. Amy Klobuchar had 9 people; Yang had 3 people; Bernie had 12 people. Klobuchars people moved to different areas and Yang’s people joined Bernie’s people to make Bernie viable. THEN they handed out the cards. Not entirely a strike, but a foul ball surely. Then they told us all to write our candidate on the card and then sign the card.

Simple?

EXCEPT THERE WAS A PROBLEM BECAUSE THEY HAD DONE IT WRONG!

Technically, the FIRST ROUND was supposed to be writing down the candidate of your preference. THEN they would be deemed non-viable. THEN you would move to a viable candidate group. And you could only move if your FIRST ROUND candidate was made non-viable. THAT is what was supposed to happen.

So, myself and several other Amy supporters go to the man in charge and request new cards to write things on because we needed to re-do our cards if we were to do this whole thing the proper way. The man in charge scoffed and asked us all why we were idiots. Myself and a few of the others explained to him the rules and he called everyone’s attention asking them all to return to their original candidate position before discussion of non-viable. So we resumed our seats and wrote Amy Klobuchar in our cards. THEN we all redistributed to the viable groups again to write THOSE candidates on our cards. Except there was another problem.

According to the rules, once your candidate is considered non-viable, your candidate cannot become viable. So if Bernie’s people couldn’t convince the Yang people to join them before the First Round… neither Yang nor Bernie were (by the rules) allowed to be a second round choice. This created an impassioned argument between the Bernie group and every single person in the room. Because it was all a DNC Conspiracy to keep Yang and Bernie from being on the ticket. And there was a 30 minute argument about how this was all still anti-Bernie shit. Except… as I explained previously… it wasn’t anti-Bernie. The guy running things clearly didn’t know what the fuck he was doing. And like every other Round Robin Tournament… once your team is knocked out, you can’t get back in the game. HOWEVER to “avoid more trouble” the man in charge just said it was okay and counted Bernie as having 15 votes.

That was just my precinct. 100 people. And there was THAT much problem. BTW: The true delegate winner for our precinct was Mayor Pete in a landslide. But… just in our little precinct? Complete failure of process, Bernie getting “his way” because of rule breaking, and an absolute cluster fuck from beginning to end. We… really proved that we don’t deserve to Caucus and we should just hold Primaries like the rest of the freaking country. Why don’t we? Because if Iowa switches to a primary system (or ANY system that makes sense) we would lose our First in the Nation Status. And apparently, the only thing Iowans care more about than Pro-Life is our First in the Nation status.