Lockard is an Iowa resident who regularly contributes to regional newspapers and periodicals. She is working on the second of a four-book fictional series based on Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice."
There is nothing like the Iowa caucuses. “Grassroots” doesn’t even begin to describe the process; it’s the very foundation of democracy. Registered party members, divided by voting districts, gather in a school, a public facility or a church basement with their neighbors, friends, employers, teachers, etc., anyone in the same party, precinct and ward. Then, once the party roster has been checked, the real “partying” begins.
The Democrats break into camps, divided by the candidate they support, a newcomer welcomed into the fold like a long-lost relative. Recruiting undecided voters, supporters wander from camp to camp, advocating for their candidate. Hands are raised, votes are counted, the top vote-getters move ahead. After a wild dance and much shuffling, realignment takes place, the field is whittled, at last the final results are tallied.
The Republican caucus is more traditional, using a secret-ballot vote, with the winner taking the state. In both caucuses, the parties discuss the national platform, what to support, oppose, challenge. Strong opinions swirl, arguments ensue, everyone is invested, everyone cares.
Iowans have held tremendous influence in the past with their Big Show, the first-in-the-nation caucuses. The caucuses are politics at its best, as Iowan as the famous butter cow at the state fair. Every citizen of the state has the opportunity to meet and assess the presidential candidates. Ninety-nine counties, and the candidates are everywhere.
At least the Republican candidates are here this year, as their in-person caucus has survived.
The Democrats, not so much. This is largely because they bungled the results of the 2020 caucus while trying out a new app designed to glean additional information. It turned out the app didn’t give much information at all, including the identity of the winners. The world waited and watched and waited some more, but in the end Iowa had no timely or tangible caucus results to report.
So, the Big Show is not as big this year, as roughly half of prospective caucus-goers are not traditionally caucusing. The Democrats are conducting their first-ever mail-in caucus, with “preference” cards sent out starting Jan. 12. They will still hold a “traditional Caucus,” but to discuss party business only. The results of this mail-in caucus will be announced on March 5, aka Super Tuesday, basically treating the caucus as one of many primaries that day.
Lest Republicans think they are above such snafus, let us remember 2012 when they, too, muddled their reporting and also threatened the legitimacy of Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status. They could not declare a winner, waffling between Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, who each garnered about 25 percent of the vote. In a preliminary report, they declared Romney the winner. Two weeks later they announced the contest was, in fact, a draw. After that, they reversed themselves, and declared Santorum the winner. What?!
Yet, they held on. And on Monday, Jan. 15,, all registered Republicans will have a chance to again caucus in person. This is great news, not only for Iowa but for the election process.
Because those caucus gaffes were simply aberrations, not indications of the system itself. They were not the result of fraud or attempts at disenfranchising the voting process. Ultimately, they were the result of Iowans trying to be utterly thorough and fair in their caucus reporting.
Of course, every person, in every state, has the privilege of becoming involved, not just Iowans with their caucuses or those in early primary states. And involved not just in this election, but in all which impact us as citizens and the issues and people we care about. Engaging in our own life and times and caring enough to affect positive change in the world changes it already.
Iowa’s status has been challenged. It should not be.
Iowans get out, often in “stay at home” weather, to meet the candidates, listen to them, evaluate them. They take their “work” seriously. On Nov. 5, when we vote to choose the best person for arguably the most important job on the planet, thanks Iowans, who will have laid the groundwork.
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.