THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: The Mutiny Succeeded; The Coup Failed

The Prairie Editor brought two phrases into the 2016
presidential election. The first was the “mutiny of the
masses;” the second was a “media coup d’etat.” I was
correct about both of them, but neither of these phrases
was more than a diagnostic until the election was actually
held.

Now we know that the mutiny succeeded, and the coup failed.

I did not endorse Donald Trump in print, nor did I, at the
outset of the 2016 campaign cycle, think he could be
nominated, much less win the presidency. But later in the
primary/caucus season, after Mr. Trump kept winning in
spite of widespread exclamations that he could not, I realized
that he was connecting to an authentic phenomenon, that is,
a profound mutiny among many voters who had reached their
limit of tolerance for the political and media establishments
on both ideological sides. I did not waver in this diagnosis, but
not until the final days of the campaign did I realize that the
mutiny would succeed.

At the same time, I became alarmed at what I perceived as an
irresponsible pattern in my own profession of journalism, that
is, what I considered an unacceptable bias in both major print
and broadcast news reporting for one presidential nominee
over another. I did not criticize editorial or opinion writers and
broadcasters, but I did perceive the news reporting side of
much (but not all) of the U.S. media was exceeding its proper
role and attempting to predetermine the election outcome.
It was, in effect, I thought, a media coup d’etat.

The election of Donald Trump as president of the United
States should be no cause for gloating by those who supported
him, nor for those who, like myself, sympathetically explained
and analyzed his candidacy. As I wrote in my election eve post
on this website, the next president faces enormous challenges
and obstacles, and now President-elect Trump must work
quickly to begin to deal with the problems and crises which
will surely come ahead.

The mutiny of the masses, in spite of having succeeded in the
election of Mr. Trump, is not concluded. He and the U.S.
Congress, now controlled by his party, must respond to the
legitimate grievances of the mutineers. Mr. Trump’s election
has been a shock to the system, and hopefully a catalyst for
transformation of a worn out system of ways to do the
public business. Government transparency is now an
immediate requirement. Failure to provide it will only provoke
another mutiny.

The media establishment, both on the left and the right, need
to take a hard look at how they perform their roles in a free
country. They have, for the time being, lost much of the
confidence many Americans have historically put in them,
especially the expectation that news reporting would have
fairness and balance. Print, radio and TV editorial journalists
should continue to express their opinions freely, but the media
establishments need to recognize that, in the phrase I have
consistently used, “The front page is not the editorial page.”
Only when this is observed will the American public
confidence in the establishment media be restored.

President-elect Trump and his incoming administration will
face a problematic world, domestic and foreign, when they
take office on January 20 next. Their brief celebration of
hard-earned victory is understandable, and Mr. Trump’s
historic achievement needs to be acknowledged. But now
comes the difficult part.

The voters have had their say. Now it’s time for action and
change.

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

THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: Election Day, 2016

In a few hours, the polls will close across the nation, and the
tumultuous and unanticipated 2016 presidential campaign
will be concluded, a new Congress will be elected, and
several state legislatures and governorships decided.

It has been quite a ride.

I have not endorsed any candidate for president to this
point, and in the spirit of not presuming to tell my readers
how they should vote, I will not do so now. Nor will I reveal
which candidate I am personally going to vote for.

What I will say is that I am going to mark my ballot much
less for a personality, and more for a candidate’s party, what
it stands for, and whether it will advance the ideas, principles
and values that I believe in. I think such an approach might
be useful for any voter whether they are liberal, conservative
or centrist.

Whoever wins this election day will face obstacles and
challenges few new presidents have ever encountered. In
1933, Franklin Roosevelt entered the White House in the very
midst of an historic economic crisis which required, literally,
immediate attention. The crisis facing the nation today is
considerably less visible, but no less dire. In 1933, it was
primarily an economic catastrophe which had appeared. In
2017, the perilous circumstances of a transforming economy,
domestic and global, are accompanied by unprecedented
technological change, threats of terror, a dangerously weaker
U.S. military, a widespread failing educational system, a
looming crisis in American healthcare, and many more 
serious issues. No matter who becomes president, he or she
will face the inevitable loss of half the full-time jobs in the
nation (due to robotics) within the next decade or two --- with
no now known source of jobs to fill the resulting employment
vacuum.

The United States has survived and flourished by continually
reinventing itself politically, socially and economically. Doing
this has enabled us to make it through 228 years, and to become
the world’s most successful large nation, as well as the protector
of other, and smaller, representative democracies which face
natural and human-made threats.

We have reinvented ourselves with innovation and the practice
of liberty for two centuries, and now we must do it once again.
If we do not, the alternative is the unthinkable, but possible. 

That is what truly is at stake when the votes of more than a
hundred million Americans are counted on November 8, 2016.

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

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THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: A Tide Turns Again?

An “October surprise” in the 2016 presidential election has
occurred, and as always, it was unpredictable.

Some did predict other possible “surprises” such as new
very damaging “wikileaks” about Hillary and/or Bill Clinton,
a new scandal about Donald Trump, or a dramatic event
affecting U.S. foreign policy. But it was none of the above.
Instead, it was the revival of an issue which was thought no
longer pertinent, that is, the criminal investigation of Hillary
Clinton’s previous public service. That issue had become a
sleeping volcano after FBI Director James Comey publicly
declared he was ending this investigation weeks ago.

At that time, Mr. Comey was applauded by Mrs. Clinton, her
campaign and most Democrats for “good judgment,” and
was criticized by Mr. Trump, his campaign, and many
Republicans for “covering up” alleged wrongdoing by the
Democratic nominee. Mr. Comey subsequently made it
explicitly clear that he thought Mrs. Clinton had shown very
bad judgment in some of her actions, but it was also clear
that he was not willing to take any action just before the
presidential election in which Mrs. Clinton was one of the
two major party nominees.

End of story, yes?

Not exactly.  In the days and weeks following his decision to
end the investigation, Director Comey and the FBI itself came
under extraordinary scrutiny as various “leaks” and other
new information became public and cast a darker and darker
shadow on Mrs. Clinton’s previous actions. Rumors abounded
that various figures at all levels of the FBI organization were
unhappy with Mr. Comey’s decision.

Historically, James Comey is a Republican with a strong
reputation for honesty and integrity. For this reason, President
Barack Obama appointed him to be FBI director. In this post,
he works under the attorney general of the United States,
Loretta Lynch, another appointee of President Obama. No
matter what an FBI investigation produces, the final say about
whether or not a prosecution takes place is up to the U.S.
attorney general.

For this reason, perhaps more than any other, Mr. Comey’s
decision was widely accepted by the public. It was understood
by everyone that it was an inevitable fact of life that a
Democratic attorney general working for a Democratic
president who was actively campaigning for his Democratic
successor would not prosecute this case.

I have no idea what is on the newly discovered e-mails which
prompted Mr. Comey to reopen this investigation, but the timing
of it leaves only one reasonable conclusion --- that what is on them
is VERY serious material. There is no other possible reasonable
explanation I can imagine.

I want to stress that Hillary Clinton has not been charged with,
nor been convicted, of any crime. She is, in one of the most vital
principles of U.S law, innocent until proven guilty. At the same
time, recent leaks to the media involving her e-mails, her use of
her computer server, and her actions involving the charitable
foundation co-founded with her husband, the former U.S.
President Bill Clinton, have cast considerable doubt about her
judgment, ethics and character.

She has now been placed in a similar position to that of
then President George H.W. Bush in 1992 when he was running
for re-election. Days before the election, his former cabinet
member Casper Weinberger was indicted. At that point, his
opponent the Democratic nominee, Bill Clinton, and his
campaign made a major issue of this October “surprise,”
and many historians consider this event cost Bush his
re-election.

The Clinton campaign is complaining that Director Comey has
defied the instructions of the attorney general in re-opening the
Clinton investigation. Of course they are! What choice do they
have? But the bigger question is what would move Mr. Comey to
take the action he has. An intelligent and savvy man, he knows
what he has done and the probable impact it will have on the
election only days away.

Alexander Butterfield was a loyal figure in the inner office of
President Richard Nixon. Under oath in 1973, before a
congressional committee, he revealed the existence of tapes
made of President Nixon’s private conversations in the Oval
Office. After subpoenas made those tapes public, it led to the
unprecedented resignation of a president of the United States.
History has not treated well those whose comments on those
tapes revealed wrongdoing. Mr. Butterfield is a minor, probably
unheralded, but nevertheless a genuine American hero.

That notorious incident in U.S. presidential history produced
figures of honor and dishonor. FBI Director Comey knows his
days in his present job will end in a few months (with the
inauguration of a new president), but he knows his reputation
will become the captive of history --- and his conscience will
not leave his side as long as he lives.

As I have suggested previously, the 2016 presidential election has
been an relentless inferno. Without question, the two major party
nominees are the least admired in modern history, The campaign
has been filled with scandal. pomposity, negativism and in
virtually every aspect, the least common denominator.

At the end, perhaps appropriately, we have had two tide-turning
events. One was an off-the record private tape and the other is
an unresolved criminal investigation. That the leadership of this
Republic will be decided under these clouds should be the
lament of all voters, regardless of their political views.

But that is where we are, one week from election day.

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

THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: The Front Page Is Not The Editorial Page

Andy Warhol once wrote that (almost) everyone gets fifteen
minutes of fame. That’s of course a typical sound-bite
aphorism exaggeration, but for those in certain professions,
such as political writing, it can be somewhat true.

I’ve actually had a few of these, though they were properly
short as predicted. In 1982, I wrote an article in a Minneapolis
newspaper I edited and published that predicted an unknown
Colorado senator named Gary Hart would emerge to challenge
Walter Mondale seriously for the 1984 Democratic presidential
nomination, and when he beat Mondale in the New Hampshire
primary, I was briefly “discovered” by the national media. (I
still prize a gracious letter to me from Hart campaign chair Ted
Sorenson asserting that I was the first journalist to predict
Hart’s national rise.) In 1985, determined to try to do it again.
I wrote in my newspaper that a then little-known Delaware
senator would be a serious candidate for president in 1988. By
1987, he was Michael Dukakis’s most formidable rival, and once
again I received brief attention. As it turned out, Senator Joe
Biden developed a double aneurysm and had to withdraw, but
I must note that he eventually did make a bit of a comeback,
and is currently the vice president of the United States.

Then in 1990 I began writing articles in a Washington, DC
newsletter that the governor of Arkansas was going to be
the next Democratic nominee in 1992, although at the time,
incumbent President George H. W. Bush seemed unbeatable.
Few took me seriously.

Finally, in the off-year elections of 2010 and 2014, I called the
the number of eventual gains for the Republicans, especially
in the U.S. house, as well as any other national pundit, and it
was briefly noted.

I have also on several occasions got it wrong. I did not think
Ronald Reagan would be elected president in 1980. I thought
Mitt Romney would win in 2012. And I did not see either Bernie
Sanders or Donald Trump coming on so strong in 2016. (I’m just
lucky, I guess, that most folks remember your successes and forget
your failures.)

This brings me to an op ed I wrote for my Prairie Editor blog a
few days ago that contended that many in the national media were
indulging in a kind of coup d’etat on behalf of one of this cycle’s
presidential nominees against the other one. Newt Gingrich liked
my characterization so much that he began citing it on various
national radio and TV programs, as well as posting it on the
biggest social media sites. Subsequently, numerous journalists,
print and broadcast media, and online sites noted my piece.

Newt Gingrich is a partisan in this year's presidential race. He is
on record as supporting Donald Trump. He often acts as a
surrogate for Mr. Trump (and, I might add, seemingly doing a
much better job most of the time advancing the Republican
ticket than the nominee himself does.

What makes my coup d'etat comment perhaps unusual is that I
have not endorsed, nor do I publicly support either candidate. In
fact, I have often criticized each of them when they said or did
what I felt were outlandish things. My purpose was not to serve the
campaign of one candidate, but to defend the responsibility of the
media to be fair in their reporting the presidential contest. I was
being critical of print and broadcast reporters and editors, not of
editorial journalists. My view can be summed up in one sentence:  
The front page is not the editorial page.

I make no claim to being "objective." In fact, my readers (who span
the whole political range from left to right) expect me to be an
opinion journalist and not a reporter. Nevertheless, I was for many
years a reporter, and I know the difference between fairness and obvious
bias. Nor does my assertion of a media coup d’etat come to most
American eyes and ears as a surprise. Almost every voter already
knows that much of the media is in the tank for one candidate. It’s
just also true that a large number of voters are pleased by this and
understandably perhaps are not being critical.

But I don’t think a biased media trying to predetermine the
outcome of the 2016 presidential race is good for anyone. Yes,
it pleases those who are for the candidate who is the beneficiary
of the bias in the short term, but in the long term it is an
egregious violation of the role of the media in our American
representative democracy. It trespasses on the rights and duties of
the voters, and it violates the underpinnings of one of the pillars
of our Republic --- the role and responsibility of a free press.

As I have already said, most adult Americans already know that
my contention of media bias is true in this cycle. Some who do,
and want to rationalize its occurrence, are openly acknowledging
it, and saying it is a good thing because the biased media is
protecting the electorate from an “evil” candidate. Words like
“fascistic” and “Hitlerian” are often employed wrongly to justify
this view. In fact, it is those who use this rationale, and these
emotionally overblown words who are the ones using elitist,
totalitarian and demagogic language to serve an arrogant and
dangerous view of the role of the media in America.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the American press was extremely
partisan. Newspapers in those days were unambiguously for one
political party or another, for one political candidate or another.
As the media grew and diversified in the early 20th century, radio
and TV came into being, and standards for a "fair" press emerged.
After World War II, the principle of balanced and fair reporting of
the news was firmly established, even as the institution of editorial
opinion expression was preserved and also flourished.

In less than two weeks, U.S. voters will choose their next president.
They need to make their decision not only from reading and
listening to the opinions of others, but even more vitally, from
being presented fairly the facts, issues and prospects that will
assist them to decide their vote.

I don’t think my assertion of calling out the media will amount
to very much in the larger scheme of things, but I’m glad to add
a voice to defend the principles which create, enable and require
a free media to do its job in a free country.
.
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Copyright (c) 2016 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved.

THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: Are These Mutineers About To Take Over?

In a few days, a national election will take place in which a
political party of mutineers, led by a woman, could likely take
over the government. This nation, which has the world’s oldest
legislature, would almost certainly be turned upside down,
and the political establishments of both major parties thrown
out.

Am I speaking about the U.S.A.? Are the mutineers Trump
supporters? Is the woman Hillary Clinton? Is the legislature
the U.S. Congress?

None of the above.

On October 29, 2016, the voters of Iceland will go to the polls
to elect their new government. The political party most likely
to win this election did not even exist three years ago. Iceland is
currently governed by a coalition of the Independence Party
and the Progressive Party. These two establishment parties now
trail the provocatively named Pirate Party that was founded by
Birgitta Jonsdottir in 2013 in response to a financial scandal
involving figures from the ruling government. Winning 3 seats in
parliament, the Pirate Party, led by Ms. Jonsdottir, promptly moved
to overthrow the nation’s blasphemy laws (Iceland’s version of
“political correctness”) and succeeded.

In 2016, following the scandal, a demonstration took place in the
nation’s capital which brought out a huge percentage of the entire
population. It is now considered the largest public demonstration,
in terms of proportion of the population, ever to take place in any
nation! (It would be the equivalent of 21 million Americans
demonstrating in Washington DC.)

From that point on, the Pirate Party has led in the nation’s public
opinion polls.

Iceland is one of the world’s smallest nations. It is also one of
the northernmost countries in the world. It is located entirely on
an island of active volcanoes, glaciers and hot springs, and has a
land mass of 40,000 square miles. Its population is 323,000 (about
the size of the city of Minneapolis). It was founded in the 9th
century A.D. by a Norwegian chieftain. It soon became an
independent commonwealth and established the world’s oldest
parliament, the Althing, in 980. Icelanders speak their own
language, Icelandic.

Unless Americans were bargain-hunting for airfares in recent
decades, and took advantage of Icelandic Air’s low rate flights to
and from Europe (always with mandatory stops in Reykjavik,
Iceland’s capital), few U.S. citizens have visited this tiny and
remote country.

Begun in poverty, and ruled from Scandinavia for most of its
history, Iceland won its independence in 1918, and became a
republic in 1944. With aid from the U.S. Marshall Plan after
World War II, the little republic industrialized, and is now rated
the 13th most developed nation on earth.

Iceland endured a financial crisis in 2008 (at about the same time
one took place in the U.S.), and many of its banks failed. Unlike
in the U.S., many bankers were jailed for their role in the crisis.
With an influx of tourism, and an international $4.6 billion
bailout, the country has recovered.

Recently, however, it was revealed that the prime minister’s wife
was involved in a financial scandal. The prime minister then
resigned and new elections were called.

Birgitta Jonsdottir is a poet, web programmer and former
Wikileaks activist in Iceland. She and her “pirate” mutineers
represent an entirely new direction in European politics. If the
Pirate Party wins on October 29 in this tiniest of European
nations, the reverberations of its mutiny could be enormous
throughout this entire ancient continent.

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

THE PRAIRIE EDITOR: A Roller Coaster In Hell

To say that enduring a volatile time is like riding on a rolling
coaster is a cliche, but enduring the 2016 presidential campaign
is something more --- like riding a roller caster in hell -- and
like nothing else we’ve been through collectively as a nation in
modern times. (There were some "infernal" campaign cycles in
the 19th century.)

There are now about two weeks to go. The formalities of the
primaries, caucuses, vice presidential choices, conventions
and TV debates are concluded. A few October “surprises”
have been trotted out. The polls are inconclusive (the most
accurate poll in 2012 shows Trump ahead by 2 points, two other
major polls show race tied, several major media polls show
Clinton ahead by several points).

Conventional wisdom, encouraged by the political and media
establishments, is now settling on a comfortable victory by
Hillary Clinton, a narrow take-back of control of the U.S.
senate by the Democrats, and major gains (but not control) in
the U.S. house by the Democrats. In short, a liberal landslide.

It could indeed turn out that way, but I would not rule out some
surprises, even astonishing ones, election night. Is that because I
know something secret, or even wish for something shocking at
the polls? No, it is because a presidential election cycle with so
much volatility, unconventionality, and surprise is more likely to
end with a loud noise than with a whisper.

Over the past eighteen months, I have commented regularly about
this election. After miscalculating which candidates would emerge
and win in both parties, I got the end of it partially wrong. Even
though I have been writing about voter dissatisfaction for years, I
did not see its apotheosis coming in 2016. I dismissed Donald
Trump early and often, especially after his celebrated “gaffes,”
and watched him rise back again.

I finally came up with the notion of the “mutiny of the masses,”
an uprising of a hitherto unrecognized group of Americans, many
of whom do not regularly vote, and some who usually vote for the
major parties --- all of whom are profoundly unhappy with how
government is managing its public affairs and duties.

After Bernie Sanders, the object of the liberal members of this
group was defeated for the Democratic nomination, the only
remaining champion of these mutineers was Donald Trump, the
Republican nominee. After the major party conventions, most
of the major media, including some in the conservative media,
turned their wrath on Mr. Trump in what I described as a
“media coup d’etat.” Mr. Trump, in the most unorthodox
presentation of a presidential nominee in memory, made his
way through three TV debates. Polls then wavered wildly as the
media and his opponents battered Mr. Trump even as more and
more damaging disclosures were made about Hillary Clinton,
her husband and their controversial mutual foundation.

Air Force One 2017 is now setting up its landing pattern over its
home air base. On the ground, millions of Americans await its
final touchdown,  and to see who comes out the door as it pulls
up to the electoral count. Perhaps conventional wisdom is right,
and the now-predicted winner will be the new president. Perhaps
the “mutiny of the masses” will have been only a passing phase,
and perhaps the media coup will have succeeded in its goal. I
have little concrete evidence against this conventional wisdom.

But in Brexit in the United Kingdom, national elections in
virtually all European countries, and the recent referendum in
Colombia in South America, a worldwide “mutiny of voters”
has defied the polls, the media, the experts and most
expectations.

Can that mutiny happen here?

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