THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: What Is History?

As we are about to enter still another era in U.S. and world
history, it seems appropriate to ask again the simple
question with the always seemingly confounding lack of a
simple answer, that is: What is history?

When we’re young, and in school, history appears to be the
story of the past, moreover the true story of the past. As we
get older, we discover that not only does each place or nation
tell its own story of the past, but that these stories can be, and
often are, in conflict. As we get even older, we often learn that
different generations from the same place or nation can see
history quite differently. Particularly in our own time, it is
reported to us that, in the quest to be politically correct, history
can be described by anyone to suit their predetermined
assumptions.

With the technological advance of photography, films, radio,
television and newer devices, there are now certain limits to
how to tell the stories which are history. (Earlier history is alas
less subject to visual and aural “proof.”)

In totalitarian societies, only one story of history is allowed,
and inevitably it is an untrue story. In a free society such as
ours, various stories are allowed, which is a vital element of
our freedom, but paradoxically does have the lack of certainty.

Even history most of us have lived through together, and in the
same place, is subject to the telling of a different story about
what happened. Events can be very complex matters.

Examine the whole catalogue of books of history, and you will
observe so many different and often conflicting stories. How
then is history able to be useful to us, and to those who follow
us?

I think one of the realizations of contemporary life at the
beginning of the 21st century is that for history to be useful to
us, we need each to be more our own historians than we ever
needed to be in the past. Instead of turning away from the news
of the world around us, or depending on a few others for that
news, we have to learn how to use wisely the devices and
forms of communication which bring us news.

The past did happen. There are “facts” of history. History
might not repeat itself, yet it can instruct us. But today, as not
ever before, we are flooded with more data, statistics,
contentions and whole news stories that are conveyed with
points of view which are intended to make us believe that they
are objectively true. Some of them are. Some of them are not.
Each of us needs to develop the skills to discern how useful and
accurate any bit of information, and any story which purports to
be history, truly is.

This might seem to be an insurmountable task, especially with
amount of information and news now reaching us increasing
exponentially. But there is a new tool we can demand in the
reporting and storytelling of history. That is the transparency
or the provenance of what we are told. By that I mean, knowing
more about from where and whom the information comes.
Demanding new and greater transparency in what is taking place
around us will enable to assess history better, including and
particularly the most important history of all, the history we are
now living through every day of our lives.

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Copyright (c) 2017 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved.



THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: What's Important

As we approach the inauguration of Donald Trump as the
new president of the United States, there is an unusual
preoccupation with the individual and personality of this
businessman from New York City, and it exist on both sides,
that is, those who voted for him and those who did not.

This preoccupation is quite understandable considering the
unprecedented nature of Mr Trump’s candidacy, both his
extraordinary success, his verbal controversies, and the
passions, both positive and negative, that he aroused. It has
already been pointed out by others that much of the divide
is not so much ideological (since Mr. Trump’s ideology is yet
so undefined), but more whether he is taken literally (as do
many of his opponents) or not (as do many of his supporters
who were looking for a champion to deal with their concerns).

Of course, it is inevitable that such a strong and volatile
personality that Mr. Trump projects will be a major focus of
public attention, but I suggest that as his administration
begins and takes the wheel of governing, we turn our attention
also to the issues and problems the nation as a whole faces,
and which frankly are bigger than Mr. Trump’s personality
and his Twitter account.

Incidentally, those who want President Trump to cease and
desist from twittering, I think, will be disappointed. It was a
a tremendously successful communications tool for him
during the campaign, and enabled him to speak directly to
voters without interference from a hostile media. It can also
be a useful tool for him as president. That does not mean all
of his Twitter comments were correct or laudable (I criticized
several of them during the campaign), but as I previously
pointed out, it gives Mr. Trump direct access in the same
manner that President Franklin Roosevelt achieved with his
periodic and now legendary fireside chats; and photogenic
President Kennedy achieved using televised press
conferences.

There will now be a reset of many domestic and foreign
policies. They will include tax reform, a new healthcare
program, redirections in education, immigration, defense
spending and alterations in our international relationships.
Most of these changes will come as a result of discussion,
negotiation and compromise between the new president
and the leaders in the U.S. house and senate. Democrats
will, and should, be part of this process.

As I have mentioned so many times, and others so much
more knowledgeable than I am about technology have
predicted, there is a new world unfolding, not far ahead of
us, but right now --- under the feet of our daily lives. This
new world brings with it many benefits, but also problems
and unintended consequences which should concern us ---
all of us, whether we are liberals, conservatives or centrists.

The shock of the 2016 election should now give way to less
emotional considerations than our disappointment or joy
about who won and who lost. National elections will follow
in 2018 and 2020 --- soon enough to pass judgment on what
will now soon take place.

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Copyright (c) 2017 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved.

THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: Biden Shines

For those who have been disappointed in the comments and
behavior of some elected Democrats following the 2016
presidential election (for example, efforts to needlessly
promote state recounts, sabotage the electoral college vote,
and finally, thwart the congressional certification of the
election), there was the exemplary and dignified model of
outgoing Vice President  Joe Biden presiding over a joint
session of Congress that made the presidential and vice
presidential election final and official.

Some Democratic U.S. house members tried to force
prolonged debate by contending that some electors were
ineligible, but Mr. Biden calmly ruled them out of order,
even though they were members of his own party. At the end
of the session, when more objections were made, the vice
president good naturedly and decisively said, “It’s over.”

There were the predictable radical protesters in the gallery
who tried to disrupt the proceedings with slogans and
yelling, but they were promptly ejected.

At one point, a U.S. house member pleaded for a single U.S.
senator to join with the house petitions, and to their credit,
not one Democratic senator came forward.

I think this session and Mr. Biden provided a turning point
in the post-election trauma of many liberals and Democrats
who have seemed in self-denial about the results, not only in
the presidential election, but in the congressional,
gubernatorial and state house races which turned out so
poorly for the nation’s oldest political party.

This does not mean, of course, that Democrats will now go
along with President Trump and his policies, nor that they
won’t criticize his action nor vote against him. They are,
after all, the opposition party now at every level, and in our
political system, they are expected to oppose or present
contrasting policy ideas.

At the same time, a new president deserves to name his own
cabinet and presidential staff with positive U.S. senate
confirmation (except in egregious cases). Early in his term,
he merits approval of his federal judgeship nominees (again,
excepting improper choices), and that includes any U.S.
supreme court nominees. As a president’s first or second
term nears its conclusion, both Democrats and Republicans
have established the precedent of often delaying some of these
confirmations until the election. It’s a political precedent, not
a constitutional one, but both parties seem to believe it is
proper. It is now a political reality.

There are going to be political battles ahead. Contrary to the
rubric that both parties are the same, the reality is that today
the Democrats and the Republicans hold very different views
on most public policy subjects. This is also true in each
party’s intraparty debate. Republicans have won the most
recent election, but now they must deliver successful
programs based on their ideas. If they do not, the voters will
put the Democrats back in charge.

Vice President Biden has charted a course for civility in the
current transition. His colleagues should take note of this,
and he should be remembered for his graceful final act in a
long and distinguished pubic career.

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Copyright (c) 2017 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved.

THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: A Jarring Action, A Reassuring Response

The day before the new Congress was sworn in, the Republican
house members met behind closed doors, and took an unexpected
action, voting to eliminate the independence of the house ethics
investigative process. The GOP house leadership opposed the
move, but 60% of the Republican members voting (about 50
members were not present) defied the leadership and voted to
change the ethics committee accountability.

The reaction to this move was swift and overwhelmingly negative.
By the next day, and after GOP President-elect Donald Trump
weighed in with strong criticism of the move, the conservative
caucus changed its collective mind, and abandoned the effort.

The independence of the ethics committee investigations was
established by then Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2006,
and continued under GOP Speaker John Boehner in 2011. Many
members, Democratic and Republican, complained about it,
contending that it permitted anonymous ethics complaints
which denied them their civil rights, and called for reform.

With all the perks, pay and privileges given to lawmakers in
Washington, DC, this complaint has understandably found little
sympathy among voters both on the left and the right. Public
opinion regarding Congress remains at or near its all-time low,
and lack of accountability is part of the reason for it.

That U.S. house members felt that this was among their first
priorities in the new session indicates that many remain frankly
politically tone deaf following the recent election.

It is to the credit of the president-elect that he promptly and
unambiguously criticized the inappropriate action. It is also
somewhat ironical because so many had previously expressed
their hope that the Congress would act as a watchdog on the
new and controversial president --- and here was the
president-elect acting as a watchdog on the Congress.

New members, as well as house veterans, should take the
incident as importantly instructive. Voters want some significant
change and reform in Washington, and that should be the only
real priority in the new Congressional session. Preoccupation
with themselves and their prerogatives is not what voters in 2016
had in mind for  U.S. house members this session of Congress.

The entire U.S. house will be up for re-election in less than two
years. The voters have already indicated they want results, and if
they don’t get them, they will express themselves forcefully once
again.

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Copyright (c) 2017 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved.

THE PRAIRiE EDITOR: Ducks In A Row

When President George Washington voluntarily and graciously
turned over his high office to John Adams, his vice president, in
March, 1797, the news was received with surprise and awe in the
capitals of Europe and the rest of the then civilized world. In
those places, power was almost always held tenaciously and
indefinitely, passed on to family heirs, or taken by force. Even in
the nascent French revolution which had toppled a dynasty of
kings, power was held by force without any formal and natural
institution of transition. General Buonaparte soon ended that
revolution by declaring himself emperor and launching war
against his neighbors.

If we today still hold Mr. Washington in heroic esteem, as he
was by his fellow citizens in his own time, it might be useful to
also remember how great was his contemporary international
esteem when he turned down a royal title or continued power in
his young republic.

Since that time, the seamless and peaceful transfer of power has
been the hallmark of U.S. democracy, and is followed all over the
world where genuinely free elections take place.

While U.S. transitions are peaceful and seamless, they have been,
on occasion, not without tension and controversies. The most
notable transition in U.S. history was perhaps the one from the
single term of President James Buchanan to President Abraham
Lincoln in March, 1861. Mr. Lincoln had clearly won the election
by a plurality of the popular vote and a majority of the electoral
college vote, but his assumption of executive office was so
unacceptable to many southern slaveholding states, that a civil
war erupted. In later years, peaceful transitions followed, but
on occasion after the violence of assassinations (including
Lincoln’s).

In the 20th century, a transition occurred in March, 1933 while
the nation was in severe economic depression. The outgoing
president, Herbert Hoover, had been defeated at the polls the
previous November by the incoming president, Franklin
Roosevelt. The week before the inaugural (then scheduled on
March 4), a national banking crisis had become acute, and Mr.
Hoover in his attempt to relieve the crisis tried to enlist the
president-elect to help him. But Mr.Roosevelt, who held a
different perspective on how to solve the crisis, demurred, thus
incurring the wrath of Mr. Hoover. The two men, riding in a car
to the inaugural ceremony a few days later, did not speak to each
other.

Since there is a periodic change of political parties, as well as
personalities, at inauguration time, all is not without some
tension in the interregnum period, which now goes from
election day to January 20. On those relatively rare recent
occasions when a new president is from the same party as the
outgoing president (most recently, January 20, 1989 when George
Herbert Walker Bush succeeded Ronald Reagan), there is not
tension but celebration between the two figures. Even when the
transition is not between presidents of the same party (such as
Lyndon Johnson to Richard Nixon in 1969, Gerald Ford to Jimmy
Carter in 1977, George H.W. Bush to Bill Clinton in 1993, and
George W. Bush to Barack Obama in 2009,) the principals have
acted with notable civility and good manners.

Of course, it is understandable that outgoing presidents wish to
finish up their business as positively as possible, and to leave as
good an historical legacy as they can. Last-minute pardons and
executive actions are always on the agenda for any “lame-duck”
president who, after four or eight years of extraordinary power
and attention, has to suddenly retire to the political background.

The 2017 transition seemed to begin rather well shortly after
Donald Trump’s upset victory in early November. President
Obama invited President-elect Trump and his wife to the White
House for a cordial tour, conversation and photo-op. Subsequently,
the transition has become rocky, as both President Obama and
President-elect Trump, each with quite different public policy
views, have maneuvered to gain an upper hand. In fact, however,
the incoming president holds most of the cards, and most of the
actions the outgoing president takes are primarily provisional
gestures made as a final psychic demonstration of his almost
exhausted power.

With about two weeks to go before the inauguration, and a new
Congress sworn and in place, the political pond is in a uniquely
provisional moment. Lame ducks still are swimming in it, but
will soon be replaced with a new flock now en route. After an
especially bitter and unprecedented election cycle, there will be
a few stray fireworks, controversies and exaggerated media
headlines.

But make no mistake about it, there will be new ducks on the
pond soon enough.

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Copyright (c) 2017 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved.

THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: The Re-Set Is Always Bigger Than Anticipated

The new Donald Trump administration policy re-set, like the
recent historic ones before it, is likely going to be bigger
psychologically, as well as ideologically, than perhaps most
now assume it will be.

I cite, in the order they took place:

Hoover to Roosevelt in 1933
Carter to Reagan in 1981
George W. Bush to Obama in 2009

Each of the above represented a dramatic about-face in national
public policy. Each was not fully anticipated, even after election
day, to be the strong policy-changing phenomenon it became.
As the reader will note, there were only three such re-sets in
recent times. Roosevelt to Truman, Truman to Eisenhower,
Eisenhower to Kennedy, Kennedy to Johnson,, Johnson to Nixon,
Nixon to Ford, Ford to Carter, George H.W. Bush to Clinton, and
Clinton to George W. Bush each had transitions with some change,
obviously more when the presidency went from one party to the
other, but the changes were more of personality and degree than
of truly dramatic turns.

Big re-sets bring with them big political risks. In the cases of
Presidents Roosevelt and Reagan, their changes mostly worked
successfully for a longer period, and they were not only re-elected,
but in the case of 1988, Reagan’s vice president won. When they
don’t work well, as just happened with President Obama, they
trigger voter rejection.

In 2008, President George W. Bush finished his two terms under
the cloud of a mortgage banking meltdown that doomed John
McCain’s campaign against Barack Obama. Mr. Obama had not
campaigned as an agent of radical change, but as soon as he took
office he undertook major alterations of U.S. domestic and foreign
policy. The failure of his healthcare reform (known as Obamacare)
and the deterioration of his foreign policy worldwide, however,
made it difficult for Hillary Clinton to succeed him.

Actually, most new presidents don’t bring major policy re-sets
with them into office, and the state of general economic
conditions usually mark their tenure and their prospects for
re-election.

Donald Trump, however, has not only promised major re-sets of
domestic and foreign public policies, his choice of cabinet
officers and White House staff clearly indicate such major change
is coming, and coming soon. It might not be “overnight” change,
of course, but his tax policies, trade policies, education policies,
immigration policies, judicial appointment criteria, as well as his
policies toward Europe, the Middle East, the United Nations, and
China each are likely to make some dramatic turns.

These changes, in themselves, do not guarantee success. I happen
to think his “supply-side” economic views, like Kennedy’s,
Reagan’s and George W. Bush’s efforts in the past will stimulate
the economy, but true supply-side success requires notable decreases
in public spending. Mr. Trump’s infrastructure ambitions might get
in the way of that. The new president, as I suggest, is likely to re-set
much economic public policy, but he could well not re-set much in
social policy, as some conservatives might hope he will.  His new
directions in foreign policy, and in reinvigorating the U.S. military,
are much needed, but the international landscape these days is a
an ambiguous and provisional stage of volatile operations --- and
Mr. Trump’s experience is limited (as was Mr Obama’s).

Donald Trump’s first 100 days as president of the United States
are something difficult to predict, from the vantage of three weeks
before he takes the oath of office, but they will be quite a spectacle.
Mr. Trump disrupted more than 50 years of political rules and
traditions, defied his critics’ judgments, and then won a national
campaign that upset almost everyone’s expectations.

As I asked out loud (in print) just after he won the Republican
nomination in Cleveland (then in terms of the general election
just ahead): What evidence is there that his performance as president
will be any less surprising than how he got to that white “bungalow"
on Pennsylvania Avenue in the first place?

We are only at the beginning of quite a political saga.

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Copyright (c) 2016 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved.

THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: Weekend Update 24

FRENCH PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
HEATS UP
The next major international election that will test the current
populist wave sweeping many democratic nations across the
globe will be in France in April. Three likely leading candidates
for president have emerged so far. Manuel Valls has been the
Socialist prime minister, and entered the race when the current
president, Francois Hollande, decided not to run for re-election.
He faces several opponents in a January, 2017 Socialist primary.
Thought by many to be now leading is Francois Fillon, a former
prime minister, the center-right nominee who defeated both Alain
Juppe, also a former prime minister, and Nicholas Sarkozy, a
former president, for the Republican nomination. On the right,
Marine Le Pen is the likely candidate of the populist  National
Front Party, and is the wild card in the election because she
represents many unhappy French working class voters who are
dissatisfied with the traditional main parties of the left and the
right. Many of these voters have been likened to the U.K. voters
who voted for Brexit, the U.S. voters who chose Donald Trump
and the Italian voters who forced that country’s prime minister
recently to resign.

TRUMP NEARLY COMPLETES CABINET
AND TOP STAFF APPOINTMENTS
President Trump has named all but three of his cabinet
appointees, and most of his White House staff and
advisors (only a few of whom require Senate confirmation.
Most observers, on both the left and right, were surprised
by how many strong conservatives he has chosen, and by
how adroit some of his choices have been to bring the
Republican factions, some of which did not support him
before the election, together. The former have alarmed many
Democrats who now see a major policy re-set coming to
Washington, DC, and the latter have, for the time being at least,
upset many hostile media predictions that there will be a
Republican civil war in the capital.

OHIO INCUMBENT SENATOR HAS
FIRST 2018 ANNOUNCED CHALLENGER
The difficult challenge facing Democrats in the 2018 U.S.
senate races (when 25 incumbent liberal seats are up for
re-election and only 8 GOP incumbents face the voters) was
just heightened by the announcement that Republican Ohio
State Treasurer Josh Mandel would challenge incumbent
Senator Sherrod Brown, a very liberal Democrat, who is seeking
re-election. Mr. Brown defeated Mr. Mandel in their first contest
in 2012, but since that time, the Buckeye State has gone from
blue-purple to red on the political scale, climaxed this year by
Donald Trump’s winning the state, and by Ohio’s other senator, 
Republican Rob Portman, winning re-election by a landslide. Mr.
Mandel also won the statewide Ohio treasurer’s race in 2014, and
has made much-praised strides in the state’s finances. He leads
all his potential GOP rivals by a wide margin.

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Copyright (c) 2016 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved.