OA357: Ok, WTF Iowa?

No argument there.

Opening Arguments

It's winter, so I'm behind on podcasts. Unfortunately, this is the last one I'm going to get, apparently, since I can't find the mp3 files on Patreon anymore. Before I go, though, I thought I'd comment on this one. It was great, as always, but I think you missed why Iowa isn't going to give up their first in the nation caucus: money. Sure the status is great. And I'd certainly like MY primary vote to actually matter sometime. Those are all important reasons. But like most things in America, money trumps (somehow, that's a particularly appropriate word here) everything. The campaigns spend a LOT of money in Iowa. The attention brings in a ton more money. Every four years, they get a windfall. And wherever Iowans stand on politics, they're pretty much universal when it comes to liking money.

Bill Garthright

Sorry to hear that. I do think we've been clear that Iowa was terrible and they clownhorned up the whole process. It's just distressing to see our side sinking so quickly to conspiracy-theory nonsense and this show has an educational mission, you know?

Opening Arguments

I was super disappointed with some portions of this episode. Normally, Andrew makes such a point of steel-maning positions, as well he should. But while he takes the trouble to steel-man much more obviously ridiculous positions, here, he failed to even slightly acknowledge that there might be any legitimacy to criticisms of the Iowa party leadership for the failure here or that there might be any value in the caucus system. I am not a Bernie bro, and I'm not salty because I didn't like the results. And of course its foolish to amplify Russian claims of election tampering. But I'm upset because the Democratic party(s) is(are) currently the hope of the future, and, in Iowa at least, they are clown-horning it up. We knew it was going to be important to avoid signs of funny business, and they dropped the ball. Regarding the discussion of the caucus, the complete dismissal of the other side was a fault. While all of Thomas' criticisms are definitely things to be concerned about, he portrayed the discussion as a debate between ridiculous reenactment type dinosaurs vs all of us non-racists over here, and that is completely unfair. On balance, the caucus may be the wrong way to go, I don't know, but they muddied up the discussion, not clarified it. There is value in people talking together in places (see Booker on Ezra Klein's podcast for a well elucidated discussion of this), and other pros of the caucus system. I'm not at all sure those values overbalance the problems, but I'm not sure those problems can't be addressed either, and I think the discussion is worth having. Again, this isn't a Biden supporter just being salty here - before this episode I was about as friendly an audience as you could want. I'm hugely supportive of the show's mission, and I greatly appreciate A+Ts contribution to the political dialogue. But Thomas and Andrew fell short of the standards of discussion they have set in this episode.