American Greatness: How Conservatism Inc. Missed the 2016 Election and What the D.C. Establishment Needs to Learn

How is it possible that the conservative elite, Washington insiders, and mainstream media were so completely out of touch with reality during the 2016 US presidential election cycle?

“We were all wrong!" "The greatest political upset in our lifetime." "None of us saw this coming" are just a few of the confessions pundits, experts, and anchors expressed when it emerged that Donald J. Trump was the winner. Yet, while most of the political establishment and pundits missed the boat, there were many who recognized the growing Trump phenomenon in early spring 2016. And there were some who recognized, even during every seeming Trump-created "meltdown" or "mistake," that Donald Trump not only could win, but would win. What did they see that others didn't? More importantly, how could so many "experts" and "smart people" get the election so totally wrong? And why are they still considered experts?

American Greatness is an analysis and indictment of the mainstream media, liberal commentariat, and conservative establishment that implicitly undermined, if not insulted, some 60 million fellow Americans when they treated Donald Trump's candidacy as a sideshow. With so little humility or self-reflection—and no apology!—how can these so-called experts continue reporting on and analyzing a country and polity they have essentially admitted they do not understand? After all, what they got wrong in 2016 was not just an election. What they got wrong was America.

One writer pegged it when he compared the election to the fateful Flight 93, which was thwarted by brave Americans who sacrificed their lives to stop the terrorists. The profound essay exposed the hypocrisy of the checklist conservatives and deflated the Never-Trump movement. He recognized that Trump represented something new—the spirit of Americans. The 2016 election was the Flight 93 election. It was a “take charge or die” situation. For most Americans choosing Hillary Clinton would have been like playing Russian Roulette with a semi-automatic. With Trump at least we had better odds. 

“What the media and Democrats see as Trump’s outrageous extremism,” said historian Victor Davis Hanson, “now looks, to more than half the country, like a tardy return to normalcy: employing the words “radical Islamic terror,” or asking cities to follow federal law.”

American Greatness includes the entire “Flight 93” article that started the political wave that took over Washington and it explains in great detail:
 -What went wrong for the pundits and what they missed
 -How “America first” is simply common sense
 -How checklist conservatism failed America
 -Who the media should be listening to
 -How it’s time to relearn the basics
 -And much more

American Greatness is not just another analysis of the mainstream media’s liberal biases. It focuses equally on the many conservative writers, thinkers, and pundits who profoundly missed the mark as well. American Greatness explains how the timing was perfect for a populist takeover, why both the Left and the Right missed the pulse of the nation, and, most important, how we can move forward to truly make America great again.

William J. Bennett is one of America&;s most important, influential, and respected voices on cultural, political, and education issues. He currently serves on the Advisory Board of Udacity, one of the world&;s leading online education organizations, as well as the Advisory Board of Viridis Learning, Inc., a senior advisor to HigherEducation.com, and is also a member of the Trump Leadership Council, a private citizen advisory group to the president. Seth Leibsohn is the former Vice President of two of the nation&;s premier think tanks, Empower America and the Claremont Institute. He is the cohost of the Seth & Chris Show on 960am KKNT. He produced, cohosted, and was the regular guest host of the top-rated national radio show Bill Bennett&;s Morning in America and has counseled, written speeches for, and collaborated with candidates for national office and several former Cabinet officials. The coauthor, with William J. Bennett of The Fight of Our Lives, Leibsohn is currently, a senior fellow with the Claremont Institute and a senior editor of American Greatness. He lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Chris Buskirk is the editor and publisher of American Greatness and cohost of the Seth & Chris Show on 960am KKNT. He was a Publius Fellow at the Claremont Institute and received a fellowship from the Earhart Foundation. A serial entrepreneur who has built and sold businesses in financial services and digital marketing, Chris has also studied political philosophy at the graduate level, his work has been published by the Washington Post, he is a frequent guest on NPR&;s Morning Edition, and he holds a B.A. from Claremont-McKenna College. He lives in Phoenix, Arizona.