Faced by a couple of big-spending, appealing, hard-working opponents almost surely more capable than he is, Donald Trump won big in the first Republican contest for president and then changed his personality, or so it initially seemed.

Grabbing 51% of the vote in Iowa while Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis were at about 20% each, Trump was not wild and mean and crazy like usual but kind and gentle and admiring in his early post-election comments. It almost sounded like he wanted to adopt these two accommodating losers and take care of them in their disappointments.

He had even sweeter things to say about Vivek Ramaswamy, who came in fourth, that brilliant, economically talented, young, self-made billionaire and obvious political novice with a mix of the peculiar and insightful describing his campaign. Whatever, he fared poorly and dropped out of the race, pronounced allegiance to Trump from now on and could end up a vice presidential nominee or a Cabinet member.

Who knows?

In his victory speech, Trump surely surprised some watching on the responsible TV channels that allowed his voice to be heard. “It is time for our country to come together,” he said, quite a contrast with President Joe Biden. Although the Democrat began his presidency with a speech calling for American unity, he has since vilified “MAGA Republicans,” those in the GOP supporting Trump, as “semi-fascists.” That loathsome, condescending, low-brow slur would apparently include the 74 million people who voted for Trump in 2020, a record only Biden himself has bettered on his way to being maybe the worst president ever.

The Trump win in Iowa was more than a win. It was a landslide in which he beat his closest opponents by a record 30% despite how incredibly much they spent and how hard they worked. But he captured 98 of 99 counties and would have won that lost county with just two more votes. He is now getting more support from the college-educated on top of his working-class base. That’s largely because his own mixed record as president was under constant, deceptive assault — but at least he avoided the catastrophic mistakes of Biden and advisers engaged in the current war against common sense.

Ah, but many Democrats have felt obliged to fight the good fight for Biden, preaching incessantly that the Republicans are trying to destroy democracy when that is profoundly what progressives themselves are up to, bringing four legal cases against Trump with a total of 91 criminal charges in an election year.

Meanwhile, Trump has restored his old personality, a crude, lewd, ignorant narcissist, as he has gone after the amazing Haley working hard to win the next primary in New Hampshire. His ridicule of her suggests contempt that is contemptible itself; it is aimed at her being the child of immigrants from India. She has a remarkable background as a governor and U.N. ambassador.

Iowa does not necessarily mean Trump will be president again, but the hope has to be that Biden will not be elected again, either.

Tribune News Service