I learned that when I read the above headline my heart teems with hope and inspiration. I am overwhelmed with pride. Only in a nation as great as the United States of America could a person of such humble origins, born in the crook of a tree, aspire to rise to such a lofty and noble position. The news that a squirrel is going to make a run at the governorship speaks encouragement to all young people of our nation…work hard…save your nuts…dare to dream…become that dream. You go squirrel! You go!

But before I plant a “Squirrel for Gov.” sign in the front yard, I should perhaps exercise a mere smidgen of critical thinking. Hmm! Let’s see. Well, everybody knows the Iowa constitution requires a person to be at least 30 years old to be governor. Furthermore, everybody knows that squirrels only live to be around six to eight years old. So, unless we change our constitution …squirrels can’t become governor … only donkeys and elephants can become governor. These seem to live an interminable length of time.

But the headline isn’t a lie. It isn’t news either. It’s just gobbledygook masquerading as news. It isn’t news and it isn’t a lie. It’s just a question; a really, really stupid question at that. But when I read it, it sure looks and feels like news, feels like very good news because it validates my predisposition. I so hoped to vote for a squirrel in 2018.

According to a recent Gallup poll, Americans confidence in newspapers is down around 27 percent. Americans confidence in television news is only around 24 percent. News on the internet…way down around 16 percent. At first blush, these numbers seem horrendous and disheartening; like we should be doing something about this. But to put this into perspective, the same poll places our confidence in the criminal justice system at around 27 percent and most despairingly, congress at 12 percent. We should certainly be doing something about these.

Not considering the numbers for internet news because it is such a different sort of animal, I’m wondering if the numbers for newspapers and television news are all that low in relation to where they should be. If we were to divide ideological America equally into two camps, say, those who are pro squirrel and those who are pro donkey or elephant … or donkephant … it would stand reasonable, if both squirrel and donkephant ideologies were given equal consideration in the news, the numbers should have a normal starting point of around 50 percent. About half the news would raise the ire of donkephants just as half the news would raise the ire of squirrelicans.

Now, if we consider that some donkephants and some squirrelicans are more extreme in their ideologies than the mainstream donkephants or squirrelicans, perhaps dividing each camp into moderate, mainstream and extremist factions, these divisions should drive the numbers down to around 33.33 percent. If we add in the factors of obviously biased reporting and even fake news like the headline above … 27 percent just doesn’t seem that far out of line.

Even though it was James Madison who penned the 1st amendment fortifying our freedom of speech and the press, it was Thomas Jefferson who compelled him to do so. Both Madison and Jefferson understood that a free press is an integral and necessary organ of a free and informed democracy. They understood that alongside the executive, legislative and judicial branches of our government, all designed to keep the others in check, it was the press, the ‘fourth estate’ that would inform and enable the citizenry, giving us the power and information needed to keep the checks in check.

Even though Jefferson firmly believed in a free press, he enjoyed slapping it around a bit. Jefferson wrote, “I deplore … the putrid state into which our newspapers have passed and the malignity, the vulgarity, and mendacious spirit of those who write for them …” Sound familiar?

But he also said, “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

Our reaction to news is often dependent on our predispositions … our ideologies. It was the controversial governor of Alabama, George Wallace who said, “We must not be misled by left-wing incompetent news media that, day after day, feed us a diet of fantasy telling us we are bigots, racists and hate-mongers.” If you were a Wallace supporter, it would be difficult to disagree with his belief that the press was left-wing and incompetent.

But I wonder. In Wallace’s 1963 inaugural address for the governorship of Alabama he said, “… segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever …” If one were a reporter covering this address, how would one quote him without letting him sound like a bigot?

Wallace called civil rights a “tyranny”. How does one report such a statement without letting him appear racist?

George Wallace stood, backed by his state police, in front of the doors of the University of Alabama in an attempt to prevent the enrollment of African-American students. How does a reporter cover such an act without Wallace, and his supporters, appearing as a hate-mongers?

There are many students of American history who are prone to say the American Revolution has never ended; that the fight for who we were, are and will be…continues. I’m glad the confidence numbers for the press are only around 27 percent. Squirrelican or donkephant, it means we, together, are still fighting this noble revolution. It means we, together, are still yearning for democracy perfected. It means we, together, are yet free.

The revolution will only be over when all of us unanimously vote either squirrelican or donkephant and the lessor of the two fades from memory, and when confidence in the press rises to 100 percent. Bias, partisanship and fake news notwithstanding … I hope we never get there. Up the revolution! This is all I have learned today.

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James Wares lives in Marshalltown and can be reached at whatjimhaslearnedtoday@yahoo.com