The Iowa caucus fiasco is a metaphor for the state of US democracy

It was always likely to require an event of epic oddity to turn Bernie Sanders into the world’s oldest and most Jewish Will.i.am tribute act. That event (more precisely, that non-event) duly arrived in Iowa a few hours ago.

Bernie had a feeling, he told supporters in an inter-caucus debacle speech, that tonight’s gonna be a good night. A good good night.

Whether the day after justifies that optimism remains, at the time of writing, unknown. But hypernerds like me who devoted that entire night to listening to CNN’s capacious panel of talking heads talking about nothing will wearily assume that in no way was this a good night for anyone other than Donald Trump.

If this majestic display of Democratic cluelessness points towards anything, it isn’t the identity of the party’s presidential candidate. It is that, barring a pandemic economic virus ravaging the US economy between now and November, that candidate will lose to the incumbent.

The hope that Trump would be the first one-term president since Bush the elder had sharply receded as it was. Stubbornly buoyant job figures, rising stock markets and the failure of the impeachment show trial to move public opinion combined to make his re-election probable. In recent weeks, his chances in the betting markets rose from 40 to 60 per cent. The likely psychological impact of Iowa on the wavering voter’s consciousness lends it a blood-freezing air of semi-inevitability.

For the orange kraken and his West Wing confederacy of white supremacist dunces, this was manna from heaven. While the precinct captains of Iowa were being informed as they tried to ring in the results, the candidates gave the most bizarre sequence of election night speeches yet heard.

Bernie at least managed to feign wry amusement when he talked about his feeling. Former small town mayor Pete Buttigieg summoned more chutzpah than sense in emulating Obama’s portentous history-changing tone, on the early 2008 night he won Iowa, by claiming victory.

Joe Biden – the only rival Trump fears – limited his bullishness to the expectation of receiving his “share of delegates”. Judging by that, he will trail in a pitiable fourth or fifth if and when a result is declared. Elizabeth Warren chose to make Pollyanna-on-uppers look like Cassandra in the grip of eruptive piles, by reassuring her fans that they had moved a step closer to beating Trump.

Trump himself was understandably relishing a level of chaos that might make him look almost presidential – well, OK, less rancidly unpresidential – when he gives the State of the Union address later today. From several thousand miles’ remove, the state of the union looks even grimmer than it did yesterday. And it didn’t look too peachy then.

The Democrats have had three years to find someone capable of beating the least popular president since approval ratings began. The shortlist on which they settled, though diverse and interesting, was hardly unflawed. When the field for the most gruelling electoral race on the planet is led by a heart-attack victim pushing 80, and his closest rival is a man of similar age with the energy levels of an embalmed kestrel, you’re in something of a pickle as it is.

Already saddled with the “Morton’s fork” of Sanders and Biden, the Democrats elected to squander time and energy on an impeachment trial with a predetermined result that served only to underscore the sense of Trump’s invulnerability.

Still, they always had Iowa. How and why a small and insignificant midwestern state acquired the power to shape the entire primary season by coming first in the calendar is a mystery. But whatever the explanation, at least the Dems could bank on the results from those feverishly awaited caucuses generating priceless excitement and publicity.

Well, one out of two ain’t bad.

It’s calamitous. There is a torrent of publicity, every droplet ingraining the notion of Democrats – their candidates, by unfair association, as well as their electoral organisers – as hapless amateurs who couldn’t oversee a church tombola without recourse to legal action.

Whether or not anyone goes to law over this, the conspiracy theories are already spreading their tentacles across social media. Was this in some outlandish way the work of Hillary Clinton? Did the Democratic National Committee, which appreciates the Corbynesque risks in running a socialist firebrand to lead a centre-right nation, orchestrate it to slow Bernie’s charge? Is it significant that Mayor Pete, self-proclaimed victor on a night with only losers, contributed money to the firm that developed the failed app?

If the taste for recrimination infects the candidates, if they devote these days of maximum potential impact on internecine squabbling, Trump might as well give his second inauguration speech before February is out.

As a metaphor for the state of US democracy, the fiasco must be congratulated. Two decades after the tragedy of the hanging chads, history farcically repeats itself with a changing fad. The collision between the quaintly archaic caucus system and supposedly cutting edge smartphone tech leaves America and the world more than ever at the mercy of a tyrannical lunatic to whom the very idea of democracy falls somewhere between a needless inconvenience and a hideous abomination.

Perhaps it’s the sleep deprivation talking here. But after last night, you can’t help feeling he has a point.​