“Creative destruction,” the term coined by Joseph Schumpeter to describe the power of capitalism to create something greater from the destruction of something lesser, is an optimistic forecast of the outcome of Monday’s vote in the Iowa Caucuses.

Former President Donald Trump resoundingly won the contest, setting himself up for a triumphant return as the GOP nominee who will confront whomever the Democrats nominate this year, whether it is an ailing and unpopular President Joe Biden or a late-game substitute.

Within the Republican contest, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, whom I favored, couldn’t overcome the wellspring of support for Trump that came from unfair, undemocratic prosecutions by the Biden administration and local hick prosecutors in New York City and Atlanta. Those prosecutors and officials in Colorado, Maine and elsewhere who have sought illegally and outrageously to deny voters the option of voting for Trump—supposedly in the name of democracy—helped propel his ascent.

Trump still faces former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, but the former president seems likely to prevail. Haley is a happy warrior like Trump, but will be cast as a globalist, neoconservative, establishment Republican for the simple reason that she is one. Few on the Right beyond the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Chamber of Commerce long for uncontrolled immigration, exporting manufacturing to Asia, or funding the defense of wealthy European moochers.

But Iowa was about more than the prosecutions. Trump is right on policy and right on the image of America, which appealed to Iowa voters. They want the Three Fat Years of economic growth that Trump and his economic team achieved before China inflicted the COVID-19 pandemic on the world. Through those years, Trump had ended the decade of economic malaise that created the populist wave that brought him to power. He made everyone willing to work hard better off—especially minorities.

(more…)