The Winds of Change Are Blowing Again

“Hushed and grim, Atlanta turned painful eyes towards the faraway little town of Gettysburg, and a page of history waited for three days while two nations came to death grips on the farm lands of Pennsylvania.” – Gone With The Wind

This past weekend, two armies once again came to death grips on the farm lands of Pennsylvania, one led by President Donald J. Trump and another by former Vice-President Joseph R. Biden. Just as in the days of Gettysburg, the nation waited, and waited, and waited.

The epic levels of violence that many predicted for this election did not come to pass. Instead, there was an eerie silence across the United States of America and around the world, as the ballots were counted and the drama stretched to the breaking point of patience.

Some questioned the bona fides of the decision desks and the vote counters. But there really wasn’t anything sinister about the delays. The electoral system of the United States struggled to cope with the demands of a national election in a time of pandemic. Vote counters were taking it slow and steady to ensure an accurate result. Networks were taking it slow and steady to ensure an accurate call. 

Now, the networks have made their call that Joseph R. Biden, Jr. will be the next President of the United States.

in 2020 we have been reminded that the country in question is not the United People of America but the United States of America, it is a sometimes loose confederation of states that hold 50 separate elections for the Presidency, and may the best candidate win. Many have said that there should be a single, national popular election for the Presidency, and victory should go to the one who gets the largest number of votes. After all, that’s how every other office in the land is selected —  get the most votes, you’re in. 

Yet, the Presidency is the only national election. Members of Congress, Senators, Governors and the rest — these are state-wide elections, or elections held in districts. The Founding Fathers of the United States always intended for political power to be pushed downwards, away from the Federal sphere, closer to the people. 50 different state elections with 50 different sets of rules for elections — different reporting standards, counting orders, registration criteria and so forth. It feels messy, but it is a guarantee that no individual or combination of forces can gain a tyrant’s control over the mechanism of election. The people’s guarantee of democracy lies in the separation of power, even when it comes to the power of elections and the counting of the votes.

The Winds of Change

On Election Day morning in Key Biscayne, Florida, home to The Daily Digest, a tremendous wind began to blow, and metaphor had nothing to do with it.  We’ve had a howler on our hands, 96 hours of gale-force sou’easterlies. Late on Sunday we will be visited by Tropical Storm Eta, and we’ll be doused with some 12 inches or rain and only then will this storm be done with us. We haven’t had red skies, or blue skies, we’ve had purple skies, even the clouds seem to have signaled a bipartisan spirit.

The gale-force winds of change and the eerily purple skies, blowing onto the east shore of Key Biscayne, Florida all throughout Election Week.

The winds of change mark the shift in Southeast Florida from the summer trade winds to the Nor’easterlies of winter. Yet, in a metaphorical sense the winds of change have been blowing since Tuesday all across the nation and it is fitting in some ways that we felt it here in the most raw and physical sense. It was here on the east shore of Key Biscayne that Nixon and Kennedy met in 1960 to discuss the disputed 1960 election, which had come down to a heavy Democratic vote in Chicago that many Republicans had suspicions about. It was on the west shore of the Key that in 1972 President Nixon first was informed of the Watergate break-ins and made the first of his fateful decisions on a cover-up that would doom his presidency. 

It is tempting in the autumn of 2020 to think that this election is the most drawn-out and distasteful of all time, and drawn-out it has been and distasteful at many moments. The election of 1876 did not produce a President until February after nearly 3 months of waiting. In election of 1884 the Republicans across the nation chanted “Ma, Ma, Where’s Your Pa?” in painting Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland as morally unfit for the Presidency for having fathered a child out of wedlock as a young man. 

After Cleveland was elected, Democrats would reply, “Gone to the White House, Ha Ha Ha!”

After the 2020 election, in the searing post-mortem that accompanies the defeat of a sitting President, we’ll hear much about a shifting electorate, of coronavirus policy, and how tired that independents and suburbanites had become of President Trump’s divisive style.

Yes, the winds of change are blowing, but if we look only to changing demographics and pandemics, we will miss the real change, which has come because of the advances in science.

It is technology that has created the over-connected world where pandemics spread rapidly, technology that has changed the nature of political discourse because of social media, technology that is uncovering the root causes of climate change and exploring our genome so that we can extend our lives, technology that makes it possible for more and more food to be produced by fewer and fewer people (leaving de-populated rural areas at the whim of majorities in the cities). It is technology that is giving us alternatives to the burning of fossil fuels.

We will think of this as the Pandemic Election, but it was something else. Some have struggled with the pace of change, and small wonder, fast has been getting faster and future shock is impacting the psychology of the world.  It had become a Protection Election, though the parties differed on what we needed protection against. As we noted in September:

“Trump v Biden, Law-and-order v Defund-the-Police, Border Walls v Bridges, it has been a Protection Election The Democratic vision focuses on protection against COVID-19, climate change, discrimination, loss of health care or lack of access to education. The Republican vision focuses on protection against multiculturalism, illegal immigration, violence in the streets, excessive regulation, bad trade deals and China”.

The people have made their choice, the national has counted the votes, and now we will move on. It will take some time for the newly victorious to unveil their new Administration and the newly vanquished come to terms with a narrow and bitter loss. But we might take a moment to consider what “unifying the country” might look like in a time of rapid technology change and the disruption that comes from that. The national will eventually put the pandemic behind us, but we will not get past technology change. More of it is coming, and it brings disruption, and can creates winners and losers unless we make sure that it creates winners and winners.

What’s Next?

When the President-elect takes the Oath of Office in January 2021, he will be attempting to unify a divided nation, to help people through leadership to “buy in” to the steps that public health authorities say we need to get the coronavirus outbreak under control. If infections have been raging, it is not because they are inevitable, or because we have been lacking in public health advisories, or leaders taking tough decisions about freedom of movement. We have lacked that “buy in” that makes everything work. That will be the new President’s challenge.

In the bioeconomy, our challenge is to accelerate deployment of new technologies — not by bringing forth good technologies, only, and letting someone else do the work of deployment, but by focusing on the barriers to deployment and, together, overcoming them.

The Priorities: Stabilize Carbon Prices, Build Infrastructure

Unstable carbon and feedstock prices are one. Building a bridge from green investors to green fuels projects is another. Gaining assurance of market share. Reducing the cost of biorefineries. Creating the infrastructure to efficiently move liquid inputs and products. Demonstrating that the advantages of liquid energy storage overcomes the concerns about bio-based economics. Building trusted brands in fuels, materials and more.  

The time is now, and unity is required.

There’s been too much Balkanization and bickering in the bioeconomy. Too much disregard and disdain between the various makers or marketers of this fuel or that material, this food or that nutraceutical. It is not only time for the nation to come together, and the world, but the industry too.

On the broader front, as a new Administration aims to translate vigorous debate into a consensus for action, here at The Daily Digest we think that infrastructure is the best area for focus, and we’re not alone in this. COVID policy and economic stimulus will be the first priorities, but the next steps will be the acid test for the new Administration, and infrastructure is a way for the President-elect to signal that a Biden Administration will be for all the people. Delivering rural broadband is the kind of breakthrough that would convince rural Americans that they have not been forgotten.

Both political parties want it, it is a traditional form of economic stimulus. And it would start 2021 on a bipartisan footing. The fact that we have divided Government gives our leaders a stark challenge to work together or face more years of bickering and inaction. The people may well revolt against four more years of yelling, and call a Constitutional Convention to design new forms of government.

That is for then, this is now. And in the here and now, as the winds of change blow across the landscape, we  might remember that, should we point ourselves in the wrong direction, they are head winds, if we aim anew, they are tail winds, so let us aim anew, now that the battle in the fields of Pennsylvania is over, and a divided nation seeks to heal itself in the weeks and months to come.