Is there a good way to run a trigger for each record in a postgres table?
It can be done, using the following template:

CREATE TABLE tablename ( ... );

/* for direct invocation */
CREATE FUNCTION propagate_data(newrow tablename) RETURNS void
LANGUAGE plpgsql
AS $$
BEGIN
    INSERT INTO other_table VALUES (newrow.a, newrow.b, ...);
END:
$$;

/* trigger function wrapper */
CREATE FUNCTION propagate_data_trg() RETURNS trigger
LANGUAGE plpgsql
AS $$
BEGIN
    PERFORM propagate_data(NEW);
END;
$$;

CREATE TRIGGER propagate_data AFTER INSERT ON tablename FOR EACH ROW
    EXECUTE PROCEDURE propagate_data_trg();