vox--2020-02-03--Donald Trump will be acquitted. American politics will be convicted.

Senate Republicans are preparing to acquit President Donald Trump — and convict the American political system .
Trump was never really on trial in the Senate .
Not in the sense of a true trial , where the objective is to understand the truth .
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made that clear from the outset .
“ Everything I do during this I ’ m coordinating with White House counsel , ” he said .
“ There ’ ll be no difference between the president ’ s position and our position as to how to handle this.
” Rather , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that faced the true trial .
And the truth was revealed .
Let ’ s start with where the Senate ’ s impeachment trial effectively ended : Sen. Lamar Alexander ’ s ( R-TN ) announcement that he ’ d vote against calling witnesses .
Alexander is retiring this year .
He ’ s a member of the Republican old guard , an elected official who remembers the Senate before it was broken by polarization , who yearns for the way things used to be .
It was the combination of institutional memory @ @ @ @ @ @ @ made Alexander such a closely watched vote .
That is , itself , an unsettling fact : that retirement was necessary to even imagine the independence necessary for a typical Republican to break with party .
Pause to note the strangeness of the situation : Why should a vote to simply hear Bolton ’ s testimony be understood as a break with the Republican Party ?
Viewed from another , more principled , angle , to vote to hear Bolton should have been understood as loyalty to party .
Bolton had proven himself @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years of service .
He ’ s been a far more loyal soldier in the Republican trenches than Trump .
But even that wasn ’ t enough .
It is worth parsing Alexander ’ s reasoning for voting against witnesses closely .
In a long series of tweets , he laid out his argument .
It rests on two main points .
In other words , we don ’ t need to know what Bolton knows because we already know enough , and what we know is that Trump is guilty , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ impeachable .
The problem here is obvious : This is an argument for voting against conviction , not for voting against witnesses .
We do not truly know what Bolton knows until we hear from him .
So why not hear from him ?
What is Alexander doing this week that is so important he can ’ t spend a few days hearing first-hand testimony ?
I want to say this as clearly as I can : This is not an argument against impeaching Donald Trump , or calling witnesses .
This is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the impeachment power so long as the president ’ s party can maintain discipline .
The Founders didn ’ t believe there would be a partisan impeachment because they believed America would resist political parties altogether .
But the Founders weren ’ t naïve .
They understood that American society would see factions , and those factions would engage in politics .
In Federalist 65 , Alexander Hamilton writes that impeachment “ will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community , and to divide it into parties more or less @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ In many cases it will connect itself with the pre-existing factions , and will enlist all their animosities , partialities , influence , and interest on one side or on the other ; and in such cases there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties , than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.
” In joining his Republican colleagues to vote against witnesses , to say nothing of conviction , how is it possible to avoid the conclusion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the comparative strength of parties , rather than real demonstrations of innocence or guilt ?
His argument sets up a closed loop of partisan tautology : No Republican can or should vote for impeachment because no Republican is voting for impeachment .
Bipartisanship isn ’ t a condition external to Alexander ’ s decisions .
It is a condition that will be decided by Alexander ’ s decisions .
He is making impeachment more partisan on the grounds that others made it more partisan before him .
Alexander goes on to say : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ perfect .
Alexander is voting for a shallower , more hurried impeachment trial partly on the grounds that the process has been ... shallow and hurried .
The revealed nature of the Republican Party At times , impeachment has felt like an experiment in which we keep layering on more absurd conditions to see what the Republican Party will accept .
What if Trump releases a call record in which he said Biden ’ s name repeatedly , directly to Ukraine ’ s president ?
Not enough ?
Okay , What if we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to investigate Biden on TV ?
How about if we have a series of Republican foreign policy appointees testify to the House that he did it ?
Okay , how about this : We get John Bolton , hero of the American right , scourge of liberals , to say that he will testify , under oath , that he personally heard Trump say the aid was contingent on Ukraine going after the Bidens , and that he heard Trump say it earlier than anyone has yet known .
And still , nothing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ron Wyden ( D-OR ) put it , in response , Senate Republicans effectively voted to put cotton into their ears , so they wouldn ’ t have to hear what Bolton said .
What this reveals is that , in 2020 , loyalty to Trump is what defines a Republican .
It is also what defines a conservative , as CPAC , the leading conservative conference , made clear after Sen. Mitt Romney ( R-UT ) voted to hear Bolton ’ s testimony : Richard Nixon wasn ’ t impeached over Watergate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he resigned is that two Republican senators , Barry Goldwater and Hugh Scott , alongside John Rhodes , the leader of the House Republicans , told him his party wasn ’ t going to stand by him .
Buried in this story is a fundamental reality about our political system : there is nothing automatic in our system of constitutional accountability .
Nixon ’ s misdeeds did not automatically trigger impeachment , and it was not even the technical impeachment process that removed him from office .
Our system is driven by what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ So let me ask a question : does anyone honestly and truly believe that if Watergate happened today , with this Republican Senate , that Nixon would ’ ve been forced to resign ?
Even Fox News doesn ’ t think so .
Recall what Geraldo Rivera told Sean Hannity : If you look at charts of party polarization in Congress , the Nixon impeachment comes near a low point in party polarization .
American politics was not split between two parties that were internally united but divided against each other .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and so able to work with each other .
In my book , Why We ’ re Polarized , I tell the story of how that changed .
But for our purposes here , the point is it did change , and we are now at a historic high point in party polarization .
That our system worked to stop Nixon is part of our national mythology .
It is part of the story of American politics as successfully self-correcting .
But if that story is no longer true , then what does @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is built atop the belief that Congress would be offended , as an institution , if the president were abusing power to amass power .
It has no answer for a president abusing power in a way that amasses power not just for himself , but for his congressional allies .
It has no answer for a political system in which a congressional majority recognizes it may lose power , even lose the majority , if they hold a president accountable , and so refuse to do anything of the sort .
Because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the last threat our system will face , and he is not the worst .
He is clumsy and distractible .
His moral compass is sufficiently broken that he can not tell the difference between corruption and competition , and so he blurts out his schemes , believing them “ perfect.
” And yet , the centrifugal pull he exerts on his party let his lawyer argue , in the well of the Senate , that so long as Trump believes that his reelection is in America ’ s interest , nothing he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : That moment should have been a wake-up call to Senate Republicans .
To hear the president ’ s hand-picked lawyer make a case for functional despotism , a case that it is clear the president himself believes , should have shocked them into realizing what it is they were permitting .
But the fact that it did not shock them does not mean it can not shock us .
The Constitution ’ s framers did their job , in their time .
They designed a system of government that worked to call @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and all our potential for greatness , into being .
But they did not design a system of government that is working in our time .
That is our job .

Vox’s Ezra Klein also discusses the implications of President Donald Trump’s likely acquittal on the most-recent episode of the podcast Impeachment, Explained. You can listen to it here.
Senate Republicans are preparing to acquit President Donald Trump — and convict the American political system.
Trump was never really on trial in the Senate. Not in the sense of a true trial, where the objective is to understand the truth. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made that clear from the outset. “Everything I do during this, I’m coordinating with White House counsel,” he said. “There’ll be no difference between the president’s position and our position as to how to handle this.”
Rather, it was America’s political system that faced the true trial. And the truth was revealed.
Let’s start with where the Senate’s impeachment trial effectively ended: Sen. Lamar Alexander’s (R-TN) announcement that he’d vote against calling witnesses.
Alexander is retiring this year. He’s a member of the Republican old guard, an elected official who remembers the Senate before it was broken by polarization, who yearns for the way things used to be.
It was the combination of institutional memory and the freedom offered by retirement that made Alexander such a closely watched vote. That is, itself, an unsettling fact: that retirement was necessary to even imagine the independence necessary for a typical Republican to break with party.
Pause to note the strangeness of the situation: Why should a vote to simply hear John Bolton’s testimony be understood as a break with the Republican Party? Viewed from another, more principled, angle, to vote to hear Bolton should have been understood as loyalty to party. Bolton had proven himself to his fellow Republicans through years and years of service. He’s been a far more loyal soldier in the Republican trenches than Trump.
But even that wasn’t enough.
It is worth parsing Alexander’s reasoning for voting against witnesses closely. In a long series of tweets, he laid out his argument. It rests on two main points.
First, Alexander says:
I worked with other senators to make sure that we have the right to ask for more documents and witnesses, but there is no need for more evidence to prove something that has already been proven and that does not meet the U.S. Constitution’s high bar for an impeachable offense.1/15 — Sen. Lamar Alexander (@SenAlexander) January 31, 2020
In other words, we don’t need to know what Bolton knows because we already know enough, and what we know is that Trump is guilty, and what he is guilty of is not impeachable.
The problem here is obvious: This is an argument for voting against conviction, not for voting against witnesses. We do not truly know what Bolton knows until we hear from him. So why not hear from him? What is Alexander doing this week that is so important he can’t spend a few days hearing firsthand testimony?
This tees up Alexander’s deeper argument:
The framers believed that there should never, ever be a partisan impeachment. That is why the Constitution requires a 2/3 vote of the Senate for conviction. Yet not one House Republican voted for these articles. 12/15 — Sen. Lamar Alexander (@SenAlexander) January 31, 2020
I want to say this as clearly as I can: This is not an argument against impeaching Donald Trump, or calling witnesses. This is an argument that nullifies the legitimacy of the impeachment power so long as the president’s party can maintain discipline.
The founders didn’t believe there would be a partisan impeachment because they believed America would resist political parties altogether. But the founders weren’t naive. They understood that American society would see factions, and those factions would engage in politics. In Federalist 65, Alexander Hamilton writes that impeachment “will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused.”
“In many cases it will connect itself with the pre-existing factions, and will enlist all their animosities, partialities, influence, and interest on one side or on the other; and in such cases there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.”
In joining his Republican colleagues to vote against witnesses, to say nothing of conviction, how is it possible to avoid the conclusion that Alexander is regulating the process through the comparative strength of parties, rather than real demonstrations of innocence or guilt?
His argument sets up a closed loop of partisan tautology: No Republican can or should vote for impeachment because no Republican is voting for impeachment.
Bipartisanship isn’t a condition external to Alexander’s decisions. It is a condition that will be decided by Alexander’s decisions. He is making impeachment more partisan on the grounds that others made it more partisan before him.
Alexander goes on to say:
If this shallow, hurried and wholly partisan impeachment were to succeed, it would rip the country apart, pouring gasoline on the fire of cultural divisions that already exist. 13/15 — Sen. Lamar Alexander (@SenAlexander) January 31, 2020
As a kicker, this is darkly perfect. Alexander is voting for a shallower, more hurried impeachment trial partly on the grounds that the process has been ... shallow and hurried.
The revealed nature of the Republican Party
At times, impeachment has felt like an experiment in which we keep layering on more absurd conditions to see what the Republican Party will accept.
What if Trump releases a call record in which he said Biden’s name repeatedly, directly to Ukraine’s president?
Not enough? Okay, What if we also have him tell Ukraine and China to investigate Biden on TV?
How about if we have a series of Republican foreign policy appointees testify to the House that he did it?
Still nothing? Wild.
Okay, how about this: We get John Bolton, hero of the American right, scourge of liberals, to say that he will testify, under oath, that he personally heard Trump say the aid was contingent on Ukraine going after the Bidens, and that he heard Trump say it earlier than anyone has yet known.
I mean, surely?
And still, nothing. Worse than nothing. As Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) put it, in response, Senate Republicans effectively voted to put cotton in their ears, so they wouldn’t have to hear what Bolton said.
What this reveals is that, in 2020, loyalty to Trump is what defines a Republican. It is also what defines a conservative, as CPAC, the leading conservative conference, made clear after Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) voted to hear Bolton’s testimony:
BREAKING: The "extreme conservative" and Junior Senator from the great state of Utah, @SenatorRomney is formally NOT invited to #CPAC2020. pic.twitter.com/f35tYy73V1 — Matt Schlapp (@mschlapp) January 31, 2020
Polarization vs. the American political system
Richard Nixon wasn’t impeached over Watergate. He resigned. And the reason he resigned is that two Republican senators, Barry Goldwater and Hugh Scott, alongside John Rhodes, the leader of the House Republicans, told him his party wasn’t going to stand by him.
Buried in this story is a fundamental reality about our political system: There is nothing automatic in our system of constitutional accountability. Nixon’s misdeeds did not automatically trigger impeachment, and it was not even the technical impeachment process that removed him from office. Our system is driven by what political parties choose to do.
So let me ask a question: Does anyone honestly and truly believe that if Watergate happened today, with this Republican Senate, that Nixon would’ve been forced to resign? Even Fox News doesn’t think so. Recall what Geraldo Rivera told Sean Hannity:
Geraldo telling Hannity he’s the difference between Trump and Nixon pic.twitter.com/BFzTuPvzRn — Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) October 2, 2019
If you look at charts of party polarization in Congress, the Nixon impeachment comes near a low point in party polarization. American politics was not split between two parties that were internally united but divided against each other. It was split between two parties internally divided and so able to work with each other.
In my book, Why We’re Polarized, I tell the story of how that changed. But for our purposes here, the point is it did change, and we are now at a historic high point in party polarization.
That our system worked to stop Nixon is part of our national mythology. It is part of the story of American politics as successfully self-correcting. But if that story is no longer true, then what does that mean for American politics?
Impeachment is built atop the belief that Congress would be offended, as an institution, if the president were abusing power to amass power. It has no answer for a president abusing power in a way that amasses power not just for himself, but for his congressional allies. It has no answer for a political system in which a congressional majority recognizes it may lose power, even lose the majority, if they hold a president accountable, and so refuse to do anything of the sort.
Because make no mistake. Trump is not the last threat our system will face, and he is not the worst. He is clumsy and distractible. His moral compass is sufficiently broken that he cannot tell the difference between corruption and competition, and so he blurts out his schemes, believing them “perfect.” And yet the centrifugal pull he exerts on his party let his lawyer argue, in the well of the Senate, that so long as Trump believes that his reelection is in America’s interest, nothing he does to secure it can be impeachable:
Pres. Trump's counsel Alan Dershowitz: "If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment." https://t.co/8eDXJbxaT6 pic.twitter.com/SXR2Ms69Mi — CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) January 29, 2020
That moment should have been a wake-up call to Senate Republicans. To hear the president’s handpicked lawyer make a case for functional despotism, a case that it is clear the president himself believes, should have shocked them into realizing what it is they were permitting.
But the fact that it did not shock them does not mean it cannot shock us.
The Constitution’s framers did their job, in their time. They designed a system of government that worked to call the country, with all our flaws and all our potential for greatness, into being. But they did not design a system of government that is working in our time. That is our job.
Listen to Impeachment, Explained
This episode, likely the final episode of Impeachment, Explained, is a bit different: It’s a look not just at what happened this week, but at the deep lessons of impeachment, and the unresolved conflicts and contradictions we’re left with. Put simply, the Senate will acquit Donald Trump. But in refusing to even hear witnesses, they have convicted American politics.
Subscribe to Impeachment, Explained wherever you get your podcasts, including: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, and Pocket Casts.


vox--2020-02-03--Why the Iowa caucuses matter

Why the Iowa caucuses matter

Joe Biden has led national polls of the Democratic presidential race for the past year — and though other candidates have surged and fallen , they haven ’ t been able to supplant him as the frontrunner .
But this Monday , all that could change when Biden faces his first electoral test : the Iowa caucuses .
The results in Iowa — the first time a state ’ s actual voters weigh in in the presidential nomination contest — can make the national contest turn on a dime .
Barack Obama won Iowa in 2008 , and he suddenly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Clinton in national polls .
John Kerry came out of nowhere to win Iowa in 2004 , and the presumed leader , Howard Dean , collapsed with astonishing speed .
But let ’ s step back for a minute , and ask : Why do the quirky Iowa caucuses have this tremendous impact on the race , anyway ?
The state is small .
Its population is overwhelmingly white .
Turnout for the caucuses is absurdly low .
Democrats don ’ t even get a secret ballot .
They ’ ll also report @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which can make determining a “ winner ” even murkier .
But vanishingly few of the delegates who will actually determine each party ’ s nominee at the national conventions will be from Iowa .
So why do we care so much about who wins ?
As I ’ ll explain , Iowa became super important because we — the media , party insiders , activists , the candidates themselves , and even voters to an extent — gradually decided to make it so important .
These key players think the caucus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ candidates can win elections elsewhere , and the contest for Iowa isn ’ t really a contest for delegates — it ’ s a contest to look good in their eyes .
But does Iowa ’ s prominence make sense ?
Or could the obsession with its results from the media and insiders alike be a tremendous overreaction , bordering on a bizarre mass delusion — one that could end up distorting who gets nominated for president ?
” What is the difference between first place and third place in Iowa going to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s like a student body election , ” Stuart Stevens , who was Mitt Romney ’ s chief strategist , told me back before the 2016 caucuses .
” You have to respect the absurdity of it , ” he continued .
“ Or it ’ ll drive you crazy.
” 1 ) What are the Iowa caucuses ?
The Iowa caucuses are the first time actual voters all across any US state get up and go say who they want to be president .
And these voters do literally have to “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an in-person event , held at a specific time in the evening , at one of 1,678 precincts across the state or one of over 90 “ satellite caucus ” sites .
The caucuses are administered separately by each major party , and Republicans and Democrats have quite different rules .
The GOP contest is far simpler , with an ordinary secret ballot vote on presidential candidates and a statewide tally .
The Democratic caucuses are far more complicated — they ’ re rowdy public affairs , with back-and-forth debate among attendees who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with other supporters of their preferred candidate .
There ’ s no secret ballot , and if a Democratic candidate doesn ’ t get enough supporters in a precinct ( 15 percent of attendees in most precincts ) , he or she is eliminated .
( For more details on the mechanics of how the caucuses work in practice , check out my article at this link . )
2 ) Why should I care who wins the Iowa caucuses ?
Like it or not , the Iowa results appear to be hugely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ presidential nominees will be — particularly when considered alongside the impact of fellow early state New Hampshire .
• Every winner of a competitive major party presidential nomination contest since 1980 except one started off by winning the Iowa caucuses , the New Hampshire primary , or both .
( The sole exception is Bill Clinton in 1992 — an odd year where most candidates didn ’ t contest the Iowa caucuses because Iowan Tom Harkin was running . )
• Two of our three most recent presidents — Barack Obama and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ primary season by winning Iowa ( and each survived a subsequent loss in New Hampshire ) .
Trump did the reverse — he lost Iowa , but won New Hampshire and then the nomination .
And , importantly , even if the Iowa victor doesn ’ t end up winning the nomination in the end , the state ’ s results can dramatically shake up the presidential contest — knocking some candidates out of the race entirely , while elevating others to top-tier status in the eyes of political elites and future voters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , does this small-time contest affect the larger race so much ?
Like you and I , the political world is obsessed with the question of who can actually win in each presidential nomination race .
And a large part of that world has come to believe that the caucus outcomes help shed some important light on that question .
Remember , before Iowa , assessments of who can win are mainly based on polls — and polls , of course , can be wrong .
It ’ s pretty weird : Essentially @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the media , the candidates , and the political world more broadly all treat their results as greatly important in determining who can win .
And this plays out in several interacting ways : • The media hypes up the Iowa results , branding candidates as winners and losers based on how they performed there .
So the winners get tons of excited coverage , but the losers become afterthoughts .
And , particularly in multi-candidate fields , winning media coverage is hugely important .
• Donors and activists , too , look @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the candidates they ’ re supporting are still viable .
A poor Iowa performance will likely mean fewer campaign donations and endorsements , which make it more difficult for a candidate to stay in the race .
• Voters in other states — especially those trying to make sense of complex , multi-candidate fields — can take the Iowa results ( and the media coverage of those results ) as cues about which contenders can actually win .
Accordingly , poll results in other states can change quickly after the Iowa results sink @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all this into account , and so many of them invest huge amounts of time and money to try to do well in Iowa .
And when the results come in , candidates who do poorly often take the hint and quit the race ( spurred by donors who will no longer fund their campaigns , media outlets who no longer cover them , and subsequent polls showing they ’ re performing poorly elsewhere ) .
This shrinking of the field is a process known as winnowing .
• And all of these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ candidates further assures the media that the caucus results are really important , which justifies even more coverage of Iowa .
“ It ’ s a symbiotic relationship , ” says Goldford .
“ So long as the candidates think the caucuses are important , the press will think the caucuses are important .
And vice versa.
” All of these dynamics , it should be noted , also apply to New Hampshire ( and , to a decreasing degree , to other states as the process continues ) .
The media , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a certain extent voters elsewhere all act on the signals they believe Iowa and New Hampshire are sending them .
And that ’ s how these early state contests dramatically reshape the nomination landscape long before the vast majority of the American people get to weigh in .
4 ) That ’ s pretty abstract .
Could you give me some examples about how Iowa has shaken up past contests ?
The earliest case in which Iowa changed everything was little-known former Georgia Gov .
Jimmy Carter ’ s victory in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the second time Iowa went first , and Carter calculated that if he won there , he ’ d get so much media coverage that he ’ d be catapulted from obscurity to national fame .
So Carter essentially camped out in Iowa for a year , and his strategy worked like a charm when he won .
His subsequent media-driven poll surge helped him narrowly carry New Hampshire and then 11 of the next 12 contests , followed by the nomination and the White House .
Barack Obama , too , relied @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his campaign against Hillary Clinton in 2008 .
On the day of the caucuses , he trailed Hillary Clinton by more than 20 points in national polls .
But days after he won there , he shot up to within 5 points of her .
Obama ’ s win there made him surge to within striking distance of Clinton in national polls , and far above her in another important early contest , South Carolina .
Even when the Iowa winner doesn ’ t end up winning the nomination ( as with Mike @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Cruz , the three most recent GOP winners ) , the caucus results can shake up the race by elevating them , rather than other candidates , to prominence in the contest .
But it ’ s important to understand that not every candidate is affected equally by the caucuses .
Iowa matters primarily because of how it changes the perceptions of the political world .
And candidates are , in large part , judged by whether their caucus performance meets the expectations of the media and political elites .
For instance , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Romney came in second and John McCain came in fourth .
Yet Romney was portrayed as a big loser , since he had been campaigning hard in Iowa and had once seemed the favorite to win .
McCain , meanwhile , hadn ’ t really been trying to win Iowa and was focusing instead on doing well in New Hampshire , so his fourth-place finish wasn ’ t interpreted as a stunning setback for him .
5 ) This is a bizarre way to pick a president .
Why has Iowa been granted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ moved its caucuses to the front of the line at the perfect moment .
It happened back in 1972 , just while the Democratic Party was overhauling its nomination process to give actual voters , not just party bosses , more of a say .
That ’ s how the presidential nomination system we know today — the months-long sequence of staggered primaries and caucuses in every state and territory — came about .
( Republicans adopted very similar reforms soon afterward . )
But for 1972 — the first nomination contest under @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their usual caucuses for the unusually early date of January 24 .
People offer various different explanations for why they did so : a deliberate effort to help a favorite son who was considering running for president , an arcane party rules change that required that 30 days pass between various state and local events , or even that a lack of available hotel rooms in Des Moines that summer necessitated an earlier state convention date ( which then necessitated an earlier caucus date ) .
Whatever the reason , the Iowa Democratic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ primary , which had traditionally been the nation ’ s first .
At first , few people outside Iowa noticed or cared , and the 1972 caucus results got little attention nationally .
But in retrospect , after George McGovern shockingly won the Democratic nomination , insiders second-guessing about why they failed to predict his rise concluded that they should have paid more attention when he finished a surprisingly strong second in Iowa .
They thought Iowa ’ s results , in retrospect , told them something .
Savvy Iowans of both parties @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Iowa was an early bellwether .
Democrats arranged the event so top-line “ results ” could be easily reported to the national press , and Republicans moved their caucuses to the same day to create a unified event that would get lots of media buzz .
As Tom Whitney , then state Democratic chair , later told Iowa Public Television : So Carter ’ s victories in Iowa and the general election weren ’ t just great for him — they ended up being great for Iowa , which could now claim to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ both parties spent more time and money there , and the national press started regularly covering the results as a major event .
Party insiders and voters in other early states began taking Iowa ’ s results more and more seriously , too .
Ever since , the state parties have tenaciously and successfully fought to keep their caucuses first , helped by the new “ precedent ” they had set , as Brookings fellow Elaine Kamarck chronicled in her book Primary Politics .
6 ) And everyone is just okay with giving @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Not at all !
Many critics , including Vox ’ s Dylan Matthews , argue that Iowa ’ s population is unrepresentative of the country as a whole — the state is much more white and more rural , and has fewer foreign-born people .
Others criticize the caucus setup itself : The events take a long time , they ’ re scheduled at a specific time and place in the evening .
all of which depresses turnout and could make it even more unrepresentative .
( Four out of five registered party @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of independent voters there usually don ’ t show up . )
Furthermore , Democrats don ’ t even get a secret ballot , which means social pressure could skew their results .
And presidential candidates of both parties have long felt compelled to voice fealty to powerful interest groups in the state .
Finally , it seems just plain unfair to a lot of people in other states that Iowa gets such power .
Caucus defenders respond by saying that Iowa does skew the results — positively .
They say it ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one-on-one interactions with voters , rather than simply big money and ad buys , matter .
Defenders also claim Iowa voters have shown that they don ’ t just follow the prevailing national winds — they ’ re more willing to give little-known and poorly funded challengers a chance , which helps ensure a more opencontest overall .
In any case , every attempt to supplant Iowa has failed , because neither national party can agree on who else should be first in line , or on an alternative way to do things @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to “ jump the line ” — like Louisiana in 1996 — have had their contests boycotted ( at Iowa pols ’ behest ) and deemed meaningless by national elites and the press .
Eventually , the national parties accepted that Iowa and New Hampshire were hell-bent on going first and second — and that the vast majority of other states didn ’ t care all that much .
So the parties began harshly penalizing other states that tried to move their own nomination contests too early .
Accordingly , nobody even bothered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ around .
7 ) Okay , so we ’ re stuck with Iowa going first for now .
Tell me about how it ’ ll affect this year ’ s race .
Once again , it ’ s the lessons the political world takes away from the caucuses that are really important — not how the delegates end up allotted .
Everyone is anxious to see how the actual Iowa results measure up to their expectations , to help them better understand who can actually win .
And for Democrats , they ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ things .
First — how will Biden do ?
He ’ s been the frontrunner all year , but there have been doubts about his strength in Iowa .
( Some speculate that other candidates have more enthusiastic supporters and better turnout organizations , both of which matter a great deal in the caucus format . )
A mediocre finish for Biden is probably survivable , but a surprisingly poor finish would likely sow doubts about his campaign .
And if he manages to win the caucuses , that will be taken as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ win the nomination .
Second — who will be the main alternative to Biden ?
Right now , the polls suggest it will be Sen. Bernie Sanders , who has led several recent polls in Iowa and is on the rise nationally .
Caucusgoers could either confirm that perception and pave the way for a Biden-Sanders showdown — or shake it up by elevating Elizabeth Warren , Pete Buttigieg , Amy Klobuchar , or someone else with a surprisingly strong performance .
It ’ s odd that you need a decoder ring of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s results .
Indeed , no one sat down and designed our bizarre presidential nomination system — even Iowans admit that no one would ever sit down and design this exact system from scratch .
But candidates keep investing their time and money , the media keeps giving saturation coverage to the results , and political elites keep on believing that Iowa matters .
So Iowa just keeps on mattering .
A version of this article was originally published in 2016 .
It has been updated for the 2020 caucuses .

Former Vice President Joe Biden has led national polls of the Democratic presidential race for the past year — and though other candidates have surged and fallen, they haven’t been able to supplant him as the frontrunner.
But this Monday, all that could change when Biden faces his first electoral test: the Iowa caucuses.
The results in Iowa, the first time a state’s voters weigh in on the presidential nomination contest, can make the national contest turn on a dime. Barack Obama won Iowa in 2008, and he suddenly shot up to become competitive with Hillary Clinton in national polls. John Kerry came out of nowhere to win Iowa in 2004, and the presumed leader, Howard Dean, collapsed with astonishing speed.
But let’s step back for a minute and ask: Why do the quirky Iowa caucuses have this tremendous impact on the race, anyway?
The state is small. Its population is overwhelmingly white. Turnout for the caucuses is absurdly low. Democrats don’t even get a secret ballot. They’ll also report three different types of results this year, which can make determining a “winner” even murkier. But vanishingly few of the delegates who will actually determine each party’s nominee at the national conventions will be from Iowa.
So why do we care so much about who wins?
As I’ll explain, Iowa became super important because we — the media, party insiders, activists, the candidates themselves, and even voters to an extent — gradually decided to make it so important. These key players think the caucus results reveal a great deal about which candidates can win elections elsewhere, and the contest for Iowa isn’t really a contest for delegates; it’s a contest to look good in their eyes.
But does Iowa’s prominence make sense? Or could the obsession with its results from the media and insiders alike be a tremendous overreaction, bordering on a bizarre mass delusion — one that could end up distorting who gets nominated for president?
”What is the difference between first place and third place in Iowa going to be, 4,000 votes? It’s like a student body election,” Stuart Stevens, who was Mitt Romney’s chief strategist, told me back before the 2016 caucuses.
”You have to respect the absurdity of it,” he continued. “Or it’ll drive you crazy.”
1) What are the Iowa caucuses?
The Iowa caucuses are the first time actual voters across any US state get up and go say who they want to be president.
And these voters do literally have to “get up and go” — to an in-person event, held at a specific time in the evening, at one of 1,678 precincts across the state or one of more than 90 “satellite caucus” sites.
The caucuses are administered separately by each major party, and Republicans and Democrats have quite different rules. The GOP contest is far simpler, with an ordinary secret ballot vote on presidential candidates and a statewide tally.
The Democratic caucuses are far more complicated — they’re rowdy public affairs, with back-and-forth debate among attendees who have to go physically stand or sit with other supporters of their preferred candidate.
There’s no secret ballot, and if a Democratic candidate doesn’t get enough supporters in a precinct (15 percent of attendees in most precincts), he or she is eliminated. (For more details on the mechanics of how the caucuses work in practice, check out my article at this link.)
2) Why should I care who wins the Iowa caucuses?
Like it or not, the Iowa results appear to be hugely important in determining who the major parties’ presidential nominees will be — particularly when considered alongside the impact of fellow early state New Hampshire.
Every winner of a competitive major-party presidential nomination contest since 1980 except one started off by winning the Iowa caucuses, the New Hampshire primary, or both. (The sole exception is Bill Clinton in 1992 — an odd year where most candidates didn’t contest the Iowa caucuses because Iowan Tom Harkin was running.)
Two of our three most recent presidents — Barack Obama and George W. Bush — kicked off their primary season by winning Iowa (and each survived a subsequent loss in New Hampshire). Trump did the reverse: He lost Iowa, but won New Hampshire and then the nomination.
And, importantly, even if the Iowa victor doesn’t end up winning the nomination in the end, the state’s results can dramatically shake up the presidential contest — knocking some candidates out of the race entirely, while elevating others to top-tier status in the eyes of political elites and future voters.
3) But why, exactly, does this small-time contest affect the larger race so much?
The political world is obsessed with the question of who can actually win in each presidential nomination race. And a large part of that world has come to believe that the caucus outcomes help shed some important light on that question. Remember, before Iowa, assessments of who can win are mainly based on polls — and polls, of course, can be wrong.
It’s pretty weird: Essentially, the Iowa caucuses are important because the media, the candidates, and the political world more broadly all treat their results as greatly important in determining who can win. And this plays out in several interacting ways:
The media hypes up the Iowa results, branding candidates as winners and losers based on how they performed there. So the winners get tons of excited coverage, but the losers become afterthoughts. And, particularly in multi-candidate fields, winning media coverage is hugely important. Donors and activists, too, look at the Iowa results to judge whether the candidates they’re supporting are still viable. A poor Iowa performance will likely mean fewer campaign donations and endorsements, which makes it more difficult for a candidate to stay in the race. Voters in other states — especially those trying to make sense of complex, multi-candidate fields — can take the Iowa results (and the media coverage of those results) as cues about which contenders can actually win. Accordingly, poll results in other states can change quickly after the Iowa results sink in. The candidates naturally take all this into account, and so many of them invest huge amounts of time and money to try to do well in Iowa. And when the results come in, candidates who do poorly often take the hint and quit the race (spurred by donors who will no longer fund their campaigns, media outlets that no longer cover them, and subsequent polls showing they’re performing poorly elsewhere). This shrinking of the field is a process known as winnowing. And all of these amplify each other: This behavior from candidates further assures the media that the caucus results are really important, which justifies even more coverage of Iowa. “It’s a symbiotic relationship,” says Goldford. “So long as the candidates think the caucuses are important, the press will think the caucuses are important. And vice versa.”
All of these dynamics, it should be noted, also apply to New Hampshire (and, to a decreasing degree, to other states as the process continues). The media, the candidates, political elites, and to a certain extent voters elsewhere all act on the signals they believe Iowa and New Hampshire are sending them. And that’s how these early state contests dramatically reshape the nomination landscape long before the vast majority of the American people get to weigh in.
4) That’s pretty abstract. Could you give me some examples about how Iowa has shaken up past contests?
The earliest case in which Iowa changed everything was little-known former Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter’s victory in the 1976 Democratic caucuses. This was only the second time Iowa went first, and Carter calculated that if he won there, he’d get so much media coverage that he’d be catapulted from obscurity to national fame.
So Carter essentially camped out in Iowa for a year, and his strategy worked like a charm when he won. His subsequent media-driven poll surge helped him narrowly carry New Hampshire and then 11 of the next 12 contests, followed by the nomination and the White House.
Barack Obama, too, relied on Iowa for his first victory for his campaign against Hillary Clinton in 2008. On the day of the caucuses, he trailed Hillary Clinton by more than 20 points in national polls. But days after he won there, he shot up to within 5 points of her. Obama’s win there made him surge to within striking distance of Clinton in national polls, and far above her in another important early contest, South Carolina.
Even when the Iowa winner doesn’t end up winning the nomination (as with Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, and Ted Cruz, the three most recent GOP winners), the caucus results can shake up the race by elevating them, rather than other candidates, to prominence in the contest.
But it’s important to understand that not every candidate is affected equally by the caucuses. Iowa matters primarily because of how it changes the perceptions of the political world. And candidates are, in large part, judged by whether their caucus performance meets the expectations of the media and political elites.
For instance, in the 2008 GOP caucuses, Mitt Romney came in second and John McCain came in fourth. Yet Romney was portrayed as a big loser, since he had been campaigning hard in Iowa and had once seemed the favorite to win. McCain, meanwhile, hadn’t really been trying to win Iowa and was focusing instead on doing well in New Hampshire, so his fourth-place finish wasn’t interpreted as a stunning setback for him.
5) This is a bizarre way to pick a president. Why has Iowa been granted so much power?
Essentially, Iowa moved its caucuses to the front of the line at the perfect moment. It happened in 1972, just while the Democratic Party was overhauling its nomination process to give actual voters, not just party bosses, more of a say. That’s how the presidential nomination system we know today — the months-long sequence of staggered primaries and caucuses in every state and territory — came about. (Republicans adopted very similar reforms soon afterward.)
But for 1972, the first nomination contest under the reformed system, Iowa Democrats slated their usual caucuses for the unusually early date of January 24. People offer various explanations for why they did so: a deliberate effort to help a favorite son who was considering running for president, an arcane party rules change that required that 30 days pass between various state and local events, or even that a lack of available hotel rooms in Des Moines that summer necessitated an earlier state convention date (which then necessitated an earlier caucus date).
Whatever the reason, the Iowa Democratic caucuses moved ahead of the New Hampshire primary, which had traditionally been the nation’s first.
At first, few people outside Iowa noticed or cared, and the 1972 caucus results got little attention nationally. But in retrospect, after George McGovern shockingly won the Democratic nomination, insiders second-guessing about why they failed to predict his rise concluded that they should have paid more attention when he finished a surprisingly strong second in Iowa. They thought Iowa’s results, in retrospect, told them something.
Savvy Iowans of both parties worked hard to promote this idea that Iowa was an early bellwether. Democrats arranged the event so topline “results” could be easily reported to the national press, and Republicans moved their caucuses to the same day to create a unified event that would get lots of media buzz. As Tom Whitney, then the state Democratic chair, later told Iowa Public Television:
Basically after the ‘74 elections, we organized a very, very significant kind of effort to convince first the candidates that they ought to be in Iowa because the national press was going to be here, and then to convince the national press that they should be in Iowa because the candidates were going to be here.
So Carter’s victories in Iowa and the general election weren’t just great for him — they ended up being great for Iowa, which could now claim to be a kingmaker. Future candidates in both parties spent more time and money there, and the national press started regularly covering the results as a major event. Party insiders and voters in other early states began taking Iowa’s results more and more seriously, too.
Ever since, the state parties have tenaciously and successfully fought to keep their caucuses first, helped by the new “precedent” they had set, as Brookings fellow Elaine Kamarck chronicled in her book Primary Politics.
6) And everyone is just okay with giving Iowa so much of a say?
Not at all! Many critics, including Vox’s Dylan Matthews, argue that Iowa’s population is unrepresentative of the country as a whole — the state is much more white and more rural, and has fewer foreign-born people.
Others criticize the caucus setup itself: The events take a long time, they’re scheduled at a specific time and place in the evening. all of which depresses turnout and could make it even more unrepresentative. (Four out of five registered party members in Iowa and the vast majority of independent voters there usually don’t show up.)
Furthermore, Democrats don’t even get a secret ballot, which means social pressure could skew their results. And presidential candidates of both parties have long felt compelled to voice fealty to powerful interest groups in the state.
Finally, it seems just plain unfair to a lot of people in other states that Iowa gets such power.
Caucus defenders respond by saying that Iowa does skew the results — positively. They say it’s a state where retail campaigning and one-on-one interactions with voters, rather than simply big money and ad buys, matter. Defenders also claim Iowa voters have shown that they don’t just follow the prevailing national winds — they’re more willing to give little-known and poorly funded challengers a chance, which helps ensure a more open contest overall.
In any case, every attempt to supplant Iowa has failed, because neither national party can agree on who else should be first in line, or on an alternative way to do things. And states that have tried to “jump the line” — like Louisiana in 1996 — have had their contests boycotted (at Iowa pols’ behest) and deemed meaningless by national elites and the press.
Eventually, the national parties accepted that Iowa and New Hampshire were hell-bent on going first and second — and that the vast majority of other states didn’t care all that much. So the parties began harshly penalizing other states that tried to move their nomination contests too early. Accordingly, nobody even bothered to try to leapfrog Iowa this time around.
7) Okay, so we’re stuck with Iowa going first for now. Tell me how it’ll affect this year’s race.
Once again, it’s the lessons the political world takes away from the caucuses that are really important — not how the delegates end up allotted. Everyone is anxious to see how the actual Iowa results measure up to their expectations, to help them better understand who can actually win. And for Democrats, they’ll be looking for two major things.
First, how will Biden do? He’s been the frontrunner all year, but there have been doubts about his strength in Iowa. (Some speculate that other candidates have more enthusiastic supporters and better turnout organizations, both of which matter a great deal in the caucus format.) A mediocre finish for Biden is probably survivable, but a surprisingly poor finish would likely sow doubts about his campaign. And if he manages to win the caucuses, that will be taken as a good sign for his chances to win the nomination.
Second, who will be the main alternative to Biden? Right now, the polls suggest it will be Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has led several recent polls in Iowa and is on the rise nationally. Caucus-goers could either confirm that perception and pave the way for a Biden-Sanders showdown — or shake it up by elevating Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, or someone else with a surprisingly strong performance.
It’s odd that you need a decoder ring of sorts to make sense of Iowa’s results. Indeed, no one sat down and designed our bizarre presidential nomination system — even Iowans admit that no one would ever sit down and design this exact system from scratch. But candidates keep investing their time and money, the media keeps giving saturation coverage to the results, and political elites keep on believing that Iowa matters. So Iowa just keeps on mattering.
A version of this article was originally published in 2016. It has been updated for the 2020 caucuses.


vox--2020-02-03--Why Little Women and The Witcher are kind of the same

Over the holidays , I had a truly unexpected realization : People were having the same major complaint about Netflix ’ s weirdo fantasy The Witcher as they were about director Greta Gerwig ’ s sweet-tempered adaptation of Little Women .
Despite the former garnering incredibly mixed reviews ( though solid viewership , at least according to Netflix ) and the latter becoming one of the most beloved movies of the year ( by critics and audiences ) , it wasn ’ t hard for me to find folks on social media asking just what was going on in either @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of this confused reaction , which makes sense .
It is , after all , based on a beloved American novel that had been adapted numerous times before Gerwig ’ s movie .
But even with that in its corner , the movie ’ s time-jumbled narrative , in which it leaps between present and past with thrilling abandon , filling in gaps as the story goes , left at least some viewers confused .
“ Gerwig has thrown linear storytelling to the wind , and opted for a series of unidentified flashbacks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chronicle with so many characters and locales as Little Women , that ’ s a great disservice to anyone who ’ s new to it all , ” wrote critic Ed Symkus , who ’ s actually familiar with the story .
But Symkus fears that those who aren ’ t as familiar will be too confused by the film to properly enjoy it .
Were they ?
Yes and no .
Most people seem to find the film more or less comprehensible .
But when I started looking through my Twitter followers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the story of Little Women , despite having not read or seen prior versions , I realized something : A lot of them were people I followed primarily for sharing their thoughts about television , not film .
( Take , for instance , TV critic extraordinaire Alan Sepinwall , who seemed more or less fine with the story unfolding as it did . )
The handful of viewers who struggled to follow along , however , seemed more tapped into the world of film .
( Film awards pundit Sasha Stone , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ movie ’ s disorienting timeline . )
Certainly plenty of films have had jumbled timelines before ( even its fellow Best Picture nominee The Irishman slowly fills in its pieces as it goes ) , but Little Women feels like it handles this sort of storytelling differently from most similar films .
My hypothesis is that Little Women — which does this sort of jumbled storytelling extremely well — makes a lot of sense to those of us who watch tons of TV , because it ’ s structured less like a film @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gerwig ’ s film more closely resembles a prestige TV drama .
All of which brings us back to The Witcher , and the way many of our biggest TV shows have moved from relatively straightforward A-to-B storytelling to jumbled Z-to-J-to-X-to-C storytelling .
Lost , Westworld , and the rise of complicated puzzle-box narratives Like Little Women ( which takes place across two timelines about seven years apart ) , The Witcher is told broadly across multiple timelines , in this case three timelines of different lengths .
( One takes about 70 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the last about two weeks . )
This timeline shuffle was apparently inspired by a movie — Christopher Nolan ’ s expressionistic WWII drama , Dunkirk — but The Witcher ’ s execution is pure 2010s genre television .
It most reminds me of HBO ’ s oft-confusing series Westworld , which similarly takes place across multiple timelines without explanation until late into its first season .
( Dunkirk advertises upfront the nature of its weirdo chronology , if nothing else . )
Unlike Little Women ( which openly uses a “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ point to set up that some events are happening in the past ) , The Witcher seems as though it ’ s trying to hide the fact that it ’ s told nonchronologically , jumbling events together in ways that can give casual viewers a headache .
The Witcher may seem like the classic “ turn it on and do something else ” sort of show , but if you do this , you ’ ll walk away and come back feeling deeply confused by everything that ’ s happening .
( Vulture @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sorts everything out . )
This style of puzzle-box show has become so common in genre television that it ’ s honestly surprising when a show isn ’ t told in that fashion .
Even HBO ’ s relatively straightforward sequel to Watchmen features an entire storyline that takes place several years before the series proper begins .
( It ’ s the one with Jeremy Irons in a mysterious manor house . )
Watchmen never comes out and says , “ This happened several years ago.
” It just assumes you ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were not invented by television or movies .
Books that play with chronology are as old as fiction itself , and storytellers ’ experiments with timelines have grown only more brazen over the last several centuries .
But prestige television has taken this technique and made it all but required of sprawling serialized narratives , especially for genre shows .
This kind of storytelling is no longer unconventional on TV : It ’ s the standard .
Ground zero for this current era of puzzle-box TV is likely Lost , a show that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at one point it had flashbacks , flash-forwards , and actual time travel rattling along in the same story .
Its experiments were not as brazen as other shows ’ — you always knew when you were entering a flashback , thanks to an established sound cue — but it suggested that a big , ambitious genre show could and should find ways to experiment with its chronology .
From there , prestige television has become ever more addicted to this style of storytelling .
Westworld is a prime example , with its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ apart , something the series doesn ’ t conclusively reveal until the 10th and final episode of that season .
Nevertheless , intrepid fans on the internet pieced together the timeline long before that finale aired , thanks to subtle clues in set design and costuming .
If you were into piecing together the series ’ puzzle , the show could be delightful ; if you just wanted a good story , well-told ( and traditionally told ) , it was far more enervating .
The Witcher attempts something similar to Westworld .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ understood by trying to grasp the political situation unfolding in Cintra , the fantasy kingdom where the series takes place .
In general , when things are more stable , they take place earlier in the series ’ timeline .
But the show doesn ’ t really come out and tell you that ’ s what ’ s going on .
You ’ re expected to figure it out yourself , busywork that might be fun on a better-made show but kept me bouncing off of the series ( which I finally dragged @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Netflix for over a month ) .
Telling a story across multiple timelines is murderously difficult to pull off , but when a show does pull it off , it can be hugely rewarding .
I ’ d argue Westworld ’ s first season succeeded at this , and in so doing , it underlined how it might feel to be an artificial consciousness and have your past and present jostling for attention in your cybernetic brain .
But The Witcher doesn ’ t have a similarly compelling reason to split up its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ provoke headaches more than deep thinking .
The timeline shuffle is a way to draw audience engagement from viewers who enjoy putting puzzle pieces together .
But it ’ s also a way to artificially push audiences to feel as though characters are making dramatic changes when they actually aren ’ t .
Most TV shows are centered on characters who can only change in very small ways , lest they break the status quo of the series .
( Westworld , for instance , needs its robots ’ understanding of their selfhood @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) Jumbling the timeline means that major revelations the characters came to in their own pasts can be withheld for later in the season , which gives the illusion of change because you ’ re seeing the way things used to be rather than the way they are right now .
But if your brain is steeped in the world of modern prestige drama , you are well aware of timeline jumbling as a conceit , even if you ’ re mostly aware of it via more mainstream examples like , say , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mother .
And who was going to be the lead of that show ’ s proposed ( and ultimately scuttled ) spinoff , How I Met Your Dad ?
Who pitched in to help write the pilot of that time-bending show ?
That ’ s right : Little Women director and screenwriter Greta Gerwig .
Little Women takes a story many of us know well and turns it into a puzzle box .
But it has its reasons .
I loved Little Women , but as I left the theater , I found @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The film ’ s present-day timeline is centered on Jo March pausing her budding writing career in New York to care for her ailing sister , Beth , back home .
While she undertakes this journey , Jo thinks back to other times in her life when her sisters were important to her , which include many of the most famous scenes from the book ( whose first half is generally better known than its second half ) .
Gerwig plays fair with its nonlinearity in a way I ’ m not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , probably because she knows this book is so famous that she can ’ t really disguise her timeline tricks .
In general , the past scenes are colored with a golden hue that befits a memory of a better time , while a blue filter overlays the harsher , colder present .
Also , youngest sister Amy March has bangs in the past , while she doesn ’ t in the present .
These are the biggest cues among several others that Gerwig uses to guide the audience .
Gerwig ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Little Women to utilize a nonchronological narrative , however .
The Broadway musical , which ran for a short time in 2005 , also opens with Jo ’ s writing career struggling along , then flashes back to her past .
But that musical uses Jo ’ s present-day writing career as a framing device , showing how she comes to write the book Little Women ( because , yes , Jo March writes the book Little Women within the novel ’ s own fiction ) .
Gerwig is much more liberal with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ takes a bit to figure out just what Gerwig is up to .
But by the movie ’ s second half , particularly with regard to the famous love triangle among Jo , Amy , and the neighbor boy Laurie , Gerwig begins piling on the ironies of life and the ways these characters find themselves struggling to reconcile their past and present selves .
( Writer Dana Schwartz has a very smart Twitter thread about how Gerwig uses timeline shenanigans to get viewers more invested in the Laurie/Amy pairing than they might @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I ’ ve thought about Little Women ’ s story construction , the more I ’ ve come to love it .
This is a story about how hard it is to ever go home again after you ’ re an adult , about how the warm and happy place where Jo March grew up is no longer available to her , even when all of her sisters are home .
( Indeed , Beth dies before Amy can rejoin the family from abroad , meaning that most of the present-day timeline takes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t be home together . )
That ’ s all well and good .
Many of us have longed for a past we can not return to , no matter how hard we try .
But Gerwig is utilizing this idea to underline more specifically how much harder that idea is to bear for women .
A man who might long to return home will feel wistful , yes , but Jo March ’ s longing is driven by her desire to go back to a time before she realized how little the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a man her age .
She is trapped , in some ways , by her memories , but the memories she holds allow her to write the book that finally brings her success as a writer .
It ’ s a catch-22 , albeit one I suspect Jo welcomes .
So this version of Little Women , too , is structured not as a story where Jo changes , but where she is better revealed to both the audience and us .
Gerwig uses her two timelines in the way a TV @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to reveal other sides of characters that we might not understand so dramatically in a different story .
There ’ s a reason people who watch so much prestige television have glommed right on to this movie : It ’ s almost like a two-hour TV season .

Over the holidays, I had a truly unexpected realization: People were having the same major complaint about Netflix’s weirdo fantasy The Witcher as they were about director Greta Gerwig’s sweet-tempered adaptation of Little Women. Despite the former garnering incredibly mixed reviews (though solid viewership, at least according to Netflix) and the latter becoming one of the most beloved movies of the year (by critics and audiences), it wasn’t hard for me to find folks on social media asking just what was going on in either of them.
Little Women got less of this confused reaction, which makes sense. It is, after all, based on a beloved American novel that had been adapted numerous times before Gerwig’s movie. But even with that in its corner, the movie’s time-jumbled narrative, in which it leaps between present and past with thrilling abandon, filling in gaps as the story goes, left at least some viewers confused.
“Gerwig has thrown linear storytelling to the wind, and opted for a series of unidentified flashbacks and flash forwards. But in a chronicle with so many characters and locales as Little Women, that’s a great disservice to anyone who’s new to it all,” wrote critic Ed Symkus, who’s actually familiar with the story. But Symkus fears that those who aren’t as familiar will be too confused by the film to properly enjoy it.
Were they? Yes and no. Most people seem to find the film more or less comprehensible. But when I started looking through my Twitter followers for those who had no trouble following the story of Little Women, despite having not read or seen prior versions, I realized something: A lot of them were people I followed primarily for sharing their thoughts about television, not film. (Take, for instance, TV critic extraordinaire Alan Sepinwall, who seemed more or less fine with the story unfolding as it did.) The handful of viewers who struggled to follow along, however, seemed more tapped into the world of film. (Film awards pundit Sasha Stone, for instance, has repeatedly criticized the movie’s disorienting timeline.)
Certainly plenty of films have had jumbled timelines before (even its fellow Best Picture nominee The Irishman slowly fills in its pieces as it goes), but Little Women feels like it handles this sort of storytelling differently from most similar films. My hypothesis is that Little Women — which does this sort of jumbled storytelling extremely well — makes a lot of sense to those of us who watch tons of TV, because it’s structured less like a film adaptation of Little Women. Instead, Gerwig’s film more closely resembles a prestige TV drama.
All of which brings us back to The Witcher, and the way many of our biggest TV shows have moved from relatively straightforward A-to-B storytelling to jumbled Z-to-J-to-X-to-C storytelling.
Lost, Westworld, and the rise of complicated puzzle-box narratives
Like Little Women (which takes place across two timelines about seven years apart), The Witcher is told broadly across multiple timelines, in this case three timelines of different lengths. (One takes about 70 years, another about 20 years, and the last about two weeks.) This timeline shuffle was apparently inspired by a movie — Christopher Nolan’s expressionistic WWII drama, Dunkirk — but The Witcher’s execution is pure 2010s genre television. It most reminds me of HBO’s oft-confusing series Westworld, which similarly takes place across multiple timelines without explanation until late into its first season. (Dunkirk advertises upfront the nature of its weirdo chronology, if nothing else.)
Unlike Little Women (which openly uses a “seven years ago” subtitle at one point to set up that some events are happening in the past), The Witcher seems as though it’s trying to hide the fact that it’s told nonchronologically, jumbling events together in ways that can give casual viewers a headache. The Witcher may seem like the classic “turn it on and do something else” sort of show, but if you do this, you’ll walk away and come back feeling deeply confused by everything that’s happening. (Vulture has a timeline that more or less sorts everything out.)
This style of puzzle-box show has become so common in genre television that it’s honestly surprising when a show isn’t told in that fashion. Even HBO’s relatively straightforward sequel to Watchmen features an entire storyline that takes place several years before the series proper begins. (It’s the one with Jeremy Irons in a mysterious manor house.) Watchmen never comes out and says, “This happened several years ago.” It just assumes you’ll figure it out.
Puzzle-box narratives were not invented by television or movies. Books that play with chronology are as old as fiction itself, and storytellers’ experiments with timelines have grown only more brazen over the last several centuries. But prestige television has taken this technique and made it all but required of sprawling serialized narratives, especially for genre shows. This kind of storytelling is no longer unconventional on TV: It’s the standard.
Ground zero for this current era of puzzle-box TV is likely Lost, a show that played around with time so much that at one point it had flashbacks, flash-forwards, and actual time travel rattling along in the same story. Its experiments were not as brazen as other shows’ — you always knew when you were entering a flashback, thanks to an established sound cue — but it suggested that a big, ambitious genre show could and should find ways to experiment with its chronology.
From there, prestige television has become ever more addicted to this style of storytelling. Westworld is a prime example, with its first season featuring events that occur decades apart, something the series doesn’t conclusively reveal until the 10th and final episode of that season. Nevertheless, intrepid fans on the internet pieced together the timeline long before that finale aired, thanks to subtle clues in set design and costuming. If you were into piecing together the series’ puzzle, the show could be delightful; if you just wanted a good story, well-told (and traditionally told), it was far more enervating.
The Witcher attempts something similar to Westworld. Much of its jumbled timeline is best understood by trying to grasp the political situation unfolding in Cintra, the fantasy kingdom where the series takes place. In general, when things are more stable, they take place earlier in the series’ timeline. But the show doesn’t really come out and tell you that’s what’s going on. You’re expected to figure it out yourself, busywork that might be fun on a better-made show but kept me bouncing off of the series (which I finally dragged myself through after it had been on Netflix for over a month).
Telling a story across multiple timelines is murderously difficult to pull off, but when a show does pull it off, it can be hugely rewarding. I’d argue Westworld’s first season succeeded at this, and in so doing, it underlined how it might feel to be an artificial consciousness and have your past and present jostling for attention in your cybernetic brain. But The Witcher doesn’t have a similarly compelling reason to split up its timeline, which means its storytelling choices provoke headaches more than deep thinking.
The timeline shuffle is a way to draw audience engagement from viewers who enjoy putting puzzle pieces together. But it’s also a way to artificially push audiences to feel as though characters are making dramatic changes when they actually aren’t. Most TV shows are centered on characters who can only change in very small ways, lest they break the status quo of the series. (Westworld, for instance, needs its robots’ understanding of their selfhood to happen at a glacial pace.) Jumbling the timeline means that major revelations the characters came to in their own pasts can be withheld for later in the season, which gives the illusion of change because you’re seeing the way things used to be rather than the way they are right now.
But if your brain is steeped in the world of modern prestige drama, you are well aware of timeline jumbling as a conceit, even if you’re mostly aware of it via more mainstream examples like, say, the long-running sitcom How I Met Your Mother. And who was going to be the lead of that show’s proposed (and ultimately scuttled) spinoff, How I Met Your Dad? Who pitched in to help write the pilot of that time-bending show? That’s right: Little Women director and screenwriter Greta Gerwig.
Little Women takes a story many of us know well and turns it into a puzzle box. But it has its reasons.
I loved Little Women, but as I left the theater, I found myself wondering why it was assembled nonchronologically. The film’s present-day timeline is centered on Jo March pausing her budding writing career in New York to care for her ailing sister, Beth, back home. While she undertakes this journey, Jo thinks back to other times in her life when her sisters were important to her, which include many of the most famous scenes from the book (whose first half is generally better known than its second half).
Gerwig plays fair with its nonlinearity in a way I’m not sure The Witcher or even Westworld does, probably because she knows this book is so famous that she can’t really disguise her timeline tricks. In general, the past scenes are colored with a golden hue that befits a memory of a better time, while a blue filter overlays the harsher, colder present. Also, youngest sister Amy March has bangs in the past, while she doesn’t in the present. These are the biggest cues among several others that Gerwig uses to guide the audience.
Gerwig’s isn’t the first adaptation of Little Women to utilize a nonchronological narrative, however. The Broadway musical, which ran for a short time in 2005, also opens with Jo’s writing career struggling along, then flashes back to her past. But that musical uses Jo’s present-day writing career as a framing device, showing how she comes to write the book Little Women (because, yes, Jo March writes the book Little Women within the novel’s own fiction). Gerwig is much more liberal with her time jumps by comparison.
It takes a bit to figure out just what Gerwig is up to. But by the movie’s second half, particularly with regard to the famous love triangle among Jo, Amy, and the neighbor boy Laurie, Gerwig begins piling on the ironies of life and the ways these characters find themselves struggling to reconcile their past and present selves. (Writer Dana Schwartz has a very smart Twitter thread about how Gerwig uses timeline shenanigans to get viewers more invested in the Laurie/Amy pairing than they might otherwise have been.)
The more I’ve thought about Little Women’s story construction, the more I’ve come to love it. This is a story about how hard it is to ever go home again after you’re an adult, about how the warm and happy place where Jo March grew up is no longer available to her, even when all of her sisters are home. (Indeed, Beth dies before Amy can rejoin the family from abroad, meaning that most of the present-day timeline takes place when all four sisters can’t be home together.)
That’s all well and good. Many of us have longed for a past we cannot return to, no matter how hard we try. But Gerwig is utilizing this idea to underline more specifically how much harder that idea is to bear for women. A man who might long to return home will feel wistful, yes, but Jo March’s longing is driven by her desire to go back to a time before she realized how little the world had to offer her in comparison to a man her age. She is trapped, in some ways, by her memories, but the memories she holds allow her to write the book that finally brings her success as a writer. It’s a catch-22, albeit one I suspect Jo welcomes.
So this version of Little Women, too, is structured not as a story where Jo changes, but where she is better revealed to both the audience and us. Gerwig uses her two timelines in the way a TV show would — to underline ironies and to reveal other sides of characters that we might not understand so dramatically in a different story. There’s a reason people who watch so much prestige television have glommed right on to this movie: It’s almost like a two-hour TV season.


vox--2020-02-03--Iowa unveils its new election security feature: pieces of paper

On Monday , Iowans will have a chance to vote for their preferred presidential candidate in the state ’ s caucus — our first indication of who will ultimately win the Democratic Party nomination .
It will also be our first look at how states are upping their presidential election cybersecurity game since 2016 , when Russia attempted to hack US voting machines — and which it is likely to attempt again this election cycle , and with four more years of experience .
But don ’ t worry , Iowa ’ s Democratic Party is instituting a revolutionary new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ defeat : a 2,200-year-old technology called “ paper.
” In the wake of the problematic punch-card ballots that might have decided the outcome of the 2000 presidential election , electronic voting machines were seen as a way to improve accuracy and make elections more accessible .
But after years of issues with the machines and fears that they could be hacked — culminating in the 2016 presidential election — many states dialed back their march toward a paperless future , returning to paper voting machines and paper backups .
The Iowa caucus doesn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all ; rather , caucusgoers meet at various precincts across the state and ( in the case of Democratic caucuses , that is — Republicans have a different system ) , literally , vote with their feet .
They stand in different sections of the room depending on who their presidential nominee of choice is .
It ’ s not the most scientific process , but , as the first presidential nominating contest in the country , the result gives the winning candidate momentum heading into presidential primary season .
The Iowa caucus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 7 out of 10 contested caucuses since it began in 1972 .
It hasn ’ t gotten it wrong since 1992 .
The Iowa Democratic Party and the Democratic National Committee have instituted a few new measures this cycle that they say will increase security following allegations that Russia hacked into the 2016 election .
But some experts believe even these measures are not enough to ward off a determined and skilled hacker .
One of the chief concerns is the app that Iowa ’ s caucus volunteers will be using to calculate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which will be installed on their personal smartphones .
As we ’ ve seen , smartphones can get hacked even in the best of circumstances .
If one of the richest men in the world can have his cellphone hacked , how secure is a caucus volunteer ’ s smartphone ?
Linn County Auditor Joel Miller told the Des Moines Register that he ’ s hopeful about the app ’ s security , pointing out that people routinely use smartphones for important transactions .
“ We use smartphone apps for banking every day @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this is as robust and secure as the banking applications.
” That ’ s not particularly reassuring , as even the most robust banking software is easily defeated if the user has poor cyber hygiene .
Party leaders have been sparing with details about the app ’ s security measures , refusing even to reveal which company designed it ( they say this in and of itself is a security measure ) .
The New York Times reported that the app has been tested by security experts and the Department of Homeland Security @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more innocent time — both parties used a vote-counting app that was designed by Microsoft .
Volunteers who do not wish to use the app or don ’ t have a smartphone can always call the results in through a hotline .
And , as an added measure of security and for the first time in caucus history , the Iowa Democratic Party is instituting a “ paper trail , ” giving caucusgoers a card on which they must write their preferred candidate ’ s name and their signature , to be collected @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be used in the event of a recount .
Laws requiring some kind of paper record for votes vary state to state , with only 13 not requiring them at all .
Iowa , for the record , is one of 14 states that require paper ballots ( this is a caucus , not an election , so the law does not apply in this case ) .
Russia ’ s most effective tool in influencing the 2016 elections was not hacking voting machines but a widespread disinformation campaign that largely played out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ certainly continue this strategy in 2020 .
Social media platforms say they are attuned to the threat and have instituted various measures they believe will prevent the anticipated misinformation onslaught .
Their ability to identify and remove hoaxes from their platforms , however , remains spotty .
The Iowa caucus is a quirky process but a symbolically important one , both for who wins it and its ability to resist interference attempts from bad actors .
A smartphone app hack wouldn ’ t be the end of the world — thanks to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ easy enough to get the correct tally anyway .
The biggest damage would probably be the ominous tone it will set for the rest of election season , casting that much more doubt on the eventual vote .

The Iowa caucuses melted down on Monday night after technical difficulties caused significant delays in reporting the results, which have not, as of Tuesday morning, been declared.
A smartphone app, which was reportedly made by a firm called Shadow, appears to be at the center of the confusion. The app was designed to help precinct chairs send the results to the Iowa Democratic Party headquarters, but reports that volunteers were unable to download or properly use the app suggest that this new way of doing things did not go smoothly. A number of volunteers resorted to calling the state party to report results, and many reported being left on hold indefinitely due to busy phone lines.
Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) communications director Mandy McClure issued a statement saying there was a “reporting issue” late Monday night:
We found inconsistencies in the reporting of three sets of results. In addition to the tech systems being used to tabulate results, we are also using photos of results and a paper trail to validate all results match and ensure we have confidence and accuracy in the numbers we report. This is simply a reporting issue, the app did not go down and this is not a hack or an instruction. The underlying data and paper trail is found and will simply take time to further report the results.
The IDP issued another statement on Tuesday morning providing more details about what exactly happened. One problem seemed to be that the smartphone app was not reporting complete results:
As precinct caucus results started coming in, the IDP ran them through an accuracy and quality check. It became clear that there were inconsistencies with the reports. The underlying cause of these inconsistencies was not immediately clear, and required investigation which took time. … As part of our investigation, we determined with certainty that the underlying data collected via the app was sound. While the app was recording data accurately, it was reporting out only partial data. We have determined that this was due to a coding issue in our reporting system. This issue was identified and fixed. The application’s reporting issue did not impact the ability of precinct chairs to report data accurately.
The IDP went on to say that “the required paper documentation” confirmed that the “data recorded in the app and used to calculate State Delegate Equivalents is valid and accurate.”
Monday night was Iowa Democrats’ chance to vote for their preferred presidential candidate in the state’s caucus, and the results will give us our first indication of who may ultimately win the party nomination. It would also be our first look at how states are upping their presidential election cybersecurity game since 2016, when Russia attempted to hack US voting machines — and which it is likely to attempt again this election cycle, and with four more years of experience.
With cybersecurity fears mounting, Iowa’s Democratic Party instituted a revolutionary new tool that no computer hacker can possibly defeat: a 2,200-year-old technology called “paper” as a backup to the new smartphone app that was designed to help tally votes. A few hours before the caucuses began, Bloomberg reported that some precinct chairs were having trouble downloading the app and logging in. That meant they’d have to call in the results instead, possibly delaying the results by several hours. Late on Monday night, some precinct managers reported waiting on hold for more than an hour while trying to report results.
While it so far appears that the Iowa caucus results might not be skewed by Monday night’s difficulties, the threat of a damaging technical failure in the 2020 election is not without precedent. In the wake of the problematic punch-card ballots that might have decided the outcome of the 2000 presidential election, electronic voting machines were seen as a way to improve accuracy and make elections more accessible. But after years of issues with the machines and fears that they could be hacked — culminating in the 2016 presidential election — many states dialed back their march toward a paperless future, returning to paper voting machines and paper backups.
The Iowa caucuses don’t rely on voting machines at all; rather, caucus-goers meet at various precincts across the state and (in the case of Democratic caucuses, that is; Republicans have a different system) literally vote with their feet. They stand in different sections of the room depending on who their presidential nominee of choice is. It’s not the most scientific process, but, as the first presidential nominating contest in the country, the result gives the winning candidate momentum heading into presidential primary season. The Iowa caucuses have predicted the correct Democratic nominee in seven out of 10 contested caucuses since it began in 1972. It hasn’t gotten it wrong since 1992.
The Iowa Democratic Party and the Democratic National Committee have instituted a few new measures this cycle that they say will increase security following allegations that Russia hacked the 2016 election. But some experts believe even these measures are not enough to ward off a determined and skilled hacker. It also remains unclear how Monday night’s confusion will impact future primaries. For example, Nevada was reportedly planning to use the smartphone app made by Shadow for its own primaries on February 22 (the state’s Democratic Party has since changed its mind).
One of the chief concerns ahead of Iowa’s caucuses was the fact that volunteers were supposed to be using an app to calculate and register their precincts’ votes — an app installed on their personal smartphones. As we’ve seen, smartphones can get hacked even in the best of circumstances. If one of the richest men in the world can have his cellphone hacked, how secure is a caucus volunteer’s smartphone?
That said, it now appears that the app itself didn’t work the way it was supposed to even in the absence of a hack. Linn County Auditor Joel Miller told the Des Moines Register before caucus night that he was hopeful about the app’s security, pointing out that people routinely use smartphones for important transactions.
“We use smartphone apps for banking every day,” he said. “Hopefully this is as robust and secure as the banking applications.”
But it seems that the smartphone app may have done more harm than good.
Party leaders offered few details about the app’s security measures. The New York Times reported that the app has been tested by security experts and the Homeland Security Department. In 2016 — a simpler, more innocent time — both parties used a vote-counting app that was designed by Microsoft. Volunteers who do not wish to use the app or don’t have a smartphone can always call in the results through a hotline.
And, as an added measure of security and for the first time in caucus history, the Iowa Democratic Party instituted a “paper trail,” giving caucus-goers a card on which they must write their preferred candidate’s name and their signature, to be collected by the caucus precinct. Laws requiring some kind of paper record for votes vary state to state, with only 13 not requiring them at all. Iowa, for the record, is one of 14 states that require paper ballots (this is a caucus, not an election, so the law does not apply in this case). It now appears that the new paper system has served an essential purpose in verifying the results collected on the faulty smartphone app.
Nevertheless, the problems at the Iowa caucus point to challenges ahead in the 2020 election. Russia’s most effective tool in influencing the 2016 elections, after all, was not hacking voting machines or hijacking apps. It was a widespread disinformation campaign that largely played out on social media. Russia will almost certainly continue this strategy in 2020, and social media platforms say they are attuned to the threat and have instituted various measures they believe will prevent the anticipated misinformation onslaught. Their ability to identify and remove hoaxes from their platforms, however, remains spotty.
The Iowa caucuses are a quirky process but a symbolically important one, both for who wins them and for their ability to resist interference attempts from bad actors. The shortcomings of this new smartphone app certainly delayed the final results, but thanks to the new paper trail, it appears that the Iowa Democratic Party says it will ultimately report the correct tally anyway. The most damaging part of this incident could very well be the ominous tone or feeling of uncertainty it will cast over the rest of election season.