What is the Iowa caucus? A secretive, pagan ceremony rooted in Viking traditions. Probably.
Every four years, Americans on the East and West coasts remember there exists a mysterious and enchanted place called “Iowa.”
We here in the Midwest are familiar with the state, largely because its residents deep-fry anything that’s not nailed down and the jet stream carries those fumes into our yards and homes. We routinely have to go to the border and yell, “HEY, CAN YOU MAYBE TURN OFF THE FRYER FOR LIKE 10 FREAKIN’ MINUTES OR SOMETHING?!?”
But for those in distant lands like New York or California, the ones who believe the Midwest is as fictional a place as Narnia, Iowa only comes to mind when it’s time for the quadrennial caucuses.
Sadly, it’s time.
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Monday evening, voters across Iowa will gather at caucus sites to decide which of the Republican presidential primary candidates will not beat leading GOP candidate, former president and current criminal defendant Donald Trump. If the polls are even remotely accurate, one can imagine groups of conservative Iowans coming together in gymnasiums and community centers at 7 p.m. CST and having one person say: “Sooooo … Trump, right?”
And everyone replies: “Yep.” And then they all go home to their damnable deep-fryers.
But of course, it’s not that simple. The Iowa caucuses are much darker and more ritualistic than the average non-Iowan realizes. It’s an oft-bloody affair with deep pagan roots. To truly understand how they work, you must go back to the beginning.
Few realize the Iowa caucus is rooted in pagan Viking traditions
About 1,000 years ago, Vikings landed on the shores of North America. One group of Norsemen got separated from the others and, not being particularly good at Viking-ing, wandered roughly into the middle of what is now the United States. Confused and frustrated, the seafaring people decided to make the best of things and settle in a flat, landlocked land, declaring their new realm “Iowa,” which in their Old Norse tongue meant: “Oops.”
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Over time, they developed a system for picking leaders. For reasons that remain unclear, the group decided that every four years they would undertake a ritual nobody outside Iowa would understand, a ceremony that would be of great importance to the people of Iowa and of zero importance to anyone else.
The Vikings – who by then called themselves “Iowayans” – gathered around pits of flaming animal fat (the first-known examples of rudimentary deep-fryers in North America) and talked and talked and talked until everyone had just about had it with all the blah-blah. (“Blah-blah” is an Old Norse term for “bloviating nonsense that delays eating supper.”)
Have Bjorn blow the Gjallarhorn and let's get home to our supper!
There would then be some light human sacrifice, a few elders would douse themselves in goat’s blood (rams were not available), someone named Jurgen would blow the Gjallarhorn then everyone would write the name of the leader they wanted in the dirt using a chicken bone. Whichever leader got the most votes won, and the people who didn’t pick that person were immediately tossed into the pit of burning animal fat.
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Remarkably, little about the Iowa caucuses has changed since that time. The human sacrifice bit was done away with back in 2018 – thanks a lot, Woke Mob – and the Gjallarhorn can now be blown by a man named Jurgen or a woman named Freya. But those picking the losing candidates are still summarily deep-fried, a fact that doesn’t bode well for current Iowan supporters of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The term 'cauci' is more accurate, thank you very much
The pagan ceremony was renamed a “caucus” in the early 1960s to honor Torsten “The Berseker” Caucus, the last Iowan able to trace his lineage directly back to the confused Vikings who founded the state.
(Fun Fact: The correct plural term for these primary voting sessions is “the Iowas cauci,” but locals never correct anyone because they’re too busy looking for things to deep-fry.)
I hope this provides a clearer window into what will happen Monday. For Iowans, the night will be long, cold and bloody.
And roughly as consequential as this column.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How does Iowa caucus work? Voting method dates back to Vikings. Maybe
