Disruption
"This is threatening not just a way of doing business. It's threatening their livelihoods. It's threatening their jobs. And every time that happens, whether it's a government or a business or whatever it is, the people who are holding the reins, their hands on the switch, they go batshit crazy."
Boston Red Sox Owner John Henry in the movie "Moneyball."
Great film and book for what it says about the coming change to our world and how we will respond.
American society as we know it is about to change radically. Much of that change is driven by technology. The rest of that change will be driven by climate change and the emerging realization that we must transform the way we live to survive.
What does that mean?
It means that by 2035, General Motors and Ford will no longer sell cars and trucks powered by gasoline. Gas stations will be gone, replaced by electric chargers.
It means our health care system - the most bloated, inefficient system in the world - will see doctors video chatting with patients.
It means no more giant coal-fired power plants spewing carbon pollution that kills children and warms the planet.
It means a new electric grid to handle all that power from low-cost solar and wind.
It means an education system moving away from homework and rote learning toward coaching and critical thinking.
It means giving people paid time off to have a baby and good child care options for parents.
It means a five-week vacation.
It means a 35-hour workweek.
It means drastic changes to the absurdity of commuting to and from an office - COVID or no COVID.
It means fewer jobs.
All this was happening before COVID, but COVID has pulled the curtain back on the inner workings of a fat and happy America drunk on wealth and paralyzed by political bickering.
President Biden and the Democrats are pushing these changes. The $2 trillion infrastructure plan includes investments in a clean energy transformation, new highways, broadband Internet, racial equity. In short, the Biden proposal envisions a modern country, more equal, and more democratic.
Yet Republicans - every single one - are opposed. I just don't get it.
While Biden is trying to stem the epidemic and rebuild the country, Republicans make it clear they will oppose the plan to the end and force Democrats to use their slim majority in Congress to push it through.
Republicans are focused on restrictions on voting in Democratic areas and social issues like preventing transgender kids from playing high school sports.
What happened to the defense of the family, church, academic freedom, small government, and low taxes, competitive enterprise - not to mention to Republicans who prized national parks and the environment?
The problem is that the Internet, technology, and other factors like climate change are dispersing our society away from the Republican belief system. The small town of Andy Griffith is mostly gone. So is the rugged individualism of the Wild West, if it ever existed.
What's left is a Republican Party pining for the myth of those days and missing the vast changes in society.
Republicans are angry with corporations for responding to citizen complaints. Major League Baseball pulled the All-Star game out of Atlanta over the voting rights issue. Coca-cola, Delta Airlines, and others followed suit. Republicans are furious after decades of partnering with those same corporations to arrive today at a place where Amazon pays no federal income tax.
Republicans who loved the support from big businesses are suddenly trashing those same companies. A few years ago, Republicans were hailing the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision that declared that corporate money in politics constituted free speech.
Now The Rs want companies to "shut up and dribble," in the words of one Fox TV personality.
So the Republicans are left to mock Democrats as socialists and "woke," hardly a platform to win elections in a country growing in color and demands for modernity like child care and paid time off to have a baby.
The party has been captured by people like Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who spend their time decrying the societal changes wrought by technology and fighting any change to the oil and gas economy.
My question is why?
Aren't Republicans missing an enormous political opportunity? Why is no Republican picking up the flag and leading the way on clean energy and economic transformation?
I refuse to believe it's because they are captive to oil and gas lobbyists. That's too simple.
I think it is cultural. It has something to do with how we were all raised on the American myth that we are somehow better, even chosen by God to lead the world. But Vietnam, Watergate, Iraq, Afghanistan, and low-paying jobs at an Amazon warehouse have told us we are not special. And we don't like it. So we cling to that notion of superiority, that we are better than others.
Back to John Henry and the Red Sox. He went on to say that every team should be dismantling itself and rebuilding in the face of changes in the game or they will never win another World Series. The same goes for countries. In the face of technological and climate change, we should do the same, getting rid of what doesn’t work, adopting new strategies while holding on to our values.
Democrats are trying to remake the future listening to John Henry’s advice. Republicans in DC are fighting the future, desperately holding onto the reins of the past. One way gives us a chance. The other means we will be on the couch in October, watching China play in the World Series.
