My brain hurts: 

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.

[snip]

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. “It’s not remotely a national primary. These national polls mean nothing. The nation isn’t voting,” says Stevens. Instead, it’s Iowans who get the first say.

Go home Vox. You’re drunk. Those two paragraphs are barely a screen apart. Iowa might have been bullshit once, but we made it not bullshit, and then it wasn’t bullshit anymore because we made it not be.

Like are we not even requiring a story to stand up until we’re done reading it? Either cover something or don’t cover it but don’t cover it while pretending to be better than covering it. It’s depressing. I’m sorry your job isn’t doing it for you these days. If you’re going to write about how Iowa isn’t really important except in the minds of these assholes over here, then don’t go and stand over there unless you want to be called an asshole, too.

I mean, I get that somewhere in here we’re meandering to the point that this is all made up crap, but you can’t then talk about the height of the pile of it.

A.