As I have previously written, the popularity of Donald Trump stemmed from the fact that Trump didn’t talk like a politician and didn’t act like a politician.  So far, the national polls still show Trump with a big lead, but whether the lead in national polls will translate to primary votes remains to be seen.  First of all, we don’t have a national primary, we have separate State caucuses and primaries from February to June, so national poll results don’t tell the whole story.  Secondly, and more importantly, as Trump has felt the heat from Ted Cruz in Iowa, the first State contest, he has been sounding and acting more and more like Trump the politician, rather than like Trump the Maverick, breath of fresh air.  You see, Iowa grows corn, and over 40% of all the corn grown is used to produce ethanol, which is added to gasoline.  Once upon a time, we were lectured by environmentalists that gasoline with 10 to 15% added ethanol was good for the environment.  These mastermind environmentalists also judged “gasohol” a “win-win” because is would reduce the amount of oil needed to run motor vehicles, a good thing because, the masterminds told us, we were fast approaching “peak oil” – the time when oil production would peak, and then would decline steadily thereafter.  In other words, we were running out of oil, and that’s why we needed to run cars on alcohol.  As a result, the U.S. government pays huge subsidies to farmers, many of whom are in Iowa, to grow more corn, to make more ethanol, to add to the gasoline, by means of which to save the planet.

Unfortunately, here in 2016, we are confronted by several inconvenient truths.  Despite decades of warnings about “peak oil” from the environmental Jeremiahs, our shale oil production has produced so much domestic crude oil that we are running out of places to store it.  In the last 5 years, oil has fallen from $127 a barrel to under $30 a barrel.  So why continue to pay corn growers billions of dollars for producing “renewable fuel”?  It’s better for the environment?  Well, no.  It turns out that it takes 4 gallons of oil to produce 3 gallons of ethanol.  That raises the price of the gasoline you buy.  You’ve paid more than $10 billion extra since 2007.  What’s more, the alcohol is not good for your car either.  You’d get better mileage on pure gasoline, which would be cheaper.  Plus, alcohol damages the engines that burn it, especially small engines, like those on your lawn mower.  And one more thing, using so much of the corn crop for fuel makes less corn available for food, and drives up food prices.  So, to recap,  there’s a glut of oil, ethanol is bad for the environment, it makes fuel cost more, your car run worse, it ruins your lawn mower, and it raises the price of your Frosted Flakes and Doritos.  So why does the government continue to give your money to farmers to produce more ethanol?  Because the farmers refuse to be weaned from the government teat.  They want that money.  You have to remember that the “farmer” who gets the subsidies is not good old Fred Ziffell from Green Acres.  The “farmer” is a big corporation, like Archer Daniels Midland.  They produce ethanol.  It has been estimated that, for every $1 profit ADM makes on ethanol, U.S. taxpayers pay $30 in subsidies.  Now that study is a bit dated but even if the subsidies equaled the profit, it would still be senseless corporate welfare.

What’s this got to do with Donald Trump?  Well, he’s been running behind Ted Cruz in Iowa.  Cruz wants to phase out the payments to these big corporations for ethanol.  That prompted Iowa Governor Branstad to declare that Cruz must be defeated.  Trump now is sounding very much like a politician, as he has come out for the expansion of the subsidies and has bashed Cruz for trying to end them.  Trump keeps touting his willingness to “make deals,” to the point where many Establishment politicians have actually begun to support Trump.  That should worry Conservatives.  There is too much debt, too much corporate welfare, too much waste, too much government meddling with industry, and there have been too many dirty deals done in Washington.  We need a leader, not a dealer.

Will Trump fade?  I don’t know, but what sounded like something new in June now sounds just like the same old thieving politicians with their hands in your pocket.