In planning this trip, I looked for a way to make it a new experience, even though we had visited most of the places before. With the backdrop of how our nation’s governance has been virtually deadlocked since the 2010 election by partisan politics, it seemed that a structural change should be one option to consider. With the death of Justice Scalia, this disabling condition has spread to the Supreme Court. Our national governance and organization no longer works.
If we could start over and restructure America for the 21st century and beyond, what would it look like? I came across Colin Woodard’s 2011 book American Nations, which proposes that we re-partition our country into 11 Nations. Each Nation would be defined by borders of a group of people with common values, cultural features, language, and historical experience. One of these proposed Nations, El Norte, is relevant to this trip. “El Norte” being defined as the swatch that extends from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, with the Southern portions of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas forming the northern half of El Norte, and the northern parts of the bordering Mexican states of Baja, Sonora, Chihuahau, Coahulla, Nuevo Leon, and Tamaulipas, forming the southern half.
Coincidentally, over the last few weeks, several written opinion pieces have addressed the idea of a restructuring, not only in the United States, but internationally. Parag Khanna pointed out in his New York Times article A New Map for America, “The 50-state model is holding the country back.” Our nation’s structure and the Washington bureaucracy are not going to change anytime soon– they are fighting to preserve the current ‘game.’ Fortunately, some state governors have come together to form regional initiatives, mainly around economic benefits – hopefully serving as a beachhead to future changes.
So the thread of this journey was to see if indeed there was a shared set of values and cultures in the communities affected, which could serve as the basis for El Norte. The bottom line? I found neither a value nor a culture drive to support a new alignment – in fact the greatest energy I picked up was not created by attraction, but rather by repulsion. Like trying to bring two magnets’ North poles together. They just repel each other. The stratification is less about religion, language, or culture and much more about race, history, and economics. Each stratus is trying to preserve its identity. What I heard over and over again was that the tiers consisted of North Europeans, Spanish, Native Americans, and Mexicans. The rest are invisible. This is not encouraging. No one we talked with thought it was a good idea or that it could possible happen. I came to believe that formation of ‘nations’ in America on the basis of culture and values sounds great intellectually, especially in the abstract, but falls apart as you get into the details. Perhaps another parameter for partitioning makes more sense.
So what’s going to cause change? As several people I’ve talked to have said, the situations is getting bad, and they take blind refuge in the hope that when it gets bad enough there will be change. It is hard to fathom change as we listen, participate, and even promote our regression on racism, immigration, women’s rights, and voting rights. As we say in business: Hope is not a strategy. Are we just hoping things will get better? There is strong resistance to change and progress. Is this resistance a last desperate choke hold to get back to ‘the good ol’ days’ – Trump’s “Make America Great Again,” which is really just code for going back to a white, male-centric America? At which point will we release the choke hold so as not to kill the rescuers? Will it be an evolutionary or revolutionary change?
In drug addiction, it is the responsibility of the addict to change. What could trigger him to make and to commit to change? Counselors prescribe that the addict must hit bottom, before she is motivated to change. What is bottom? Perhaps family and friends can create a false bottom that results in change? Or is there only one bottom for him…death? Likewise, what is the bottom that would cause America to fundamentally change its structure and behavior? Is there a false bottom in our hand? Regional Cessation? An overlaying structure on top of the existing state and federal organization? Or is it Civil War?
I believe that the path is evolutionary, and has started. Parag Khanna’s proposal for a new system built around urban, international economic centric corridors, and their interconnectivity has a lot of potential. As I’ve written before, social and economic reorganization has already started – some state governors are leading the way with cross state initiatives and projects. As such, our current state and national political organizations are on their way to obsolescence. The map represents Khanna’s view.
The white blotches are the urban, economic centers, and the dotted lines represent high-capacity, high-speed interconnection of these centers. As an example, it would suggest that we focus today’s campaign discussions (re: rebuilding our infrastructure and investment), on building or enhancing these interconnecting pathways. Lets not build bridges to nowhere. Lets not build another section of our interstate highway grid in the Inland West or Great Plains nations. The Interstate Highway system, started in the 1950s, was visionary for its time, it has served us well, and it is obsolete. If in doubt, drive down one of our I-XX roads, torn up and full of potholes, the result of heavy, semi-trailer trucks moving stuff from one urban center to another. Our railroads are running at capacity, forcing freight to spill over to trucks on our highways. Lets not just fill potholes, or lay down more asphalt layers on top of current roads as band-aids. We need to reinvent how to move things differently. In 2013 Elon Musk envisioned and popularized the concept of a Hyperloop. The Hyperloop Transportation Technology (HTT) company, initially funded via crowdfunding, currently employs more than 500 people. This year, the Slovakian government has agreed to build a Hyperloop to connect Hungary and Austria. The construction of a 5-mile Hyperloop transportation system in Quay Valley, California will start this year. This could be our next ‘moon shot’ national project.
While hope is still not a strategy, I am optimistic and believe that before the end of this century, a new organization will wrap America, with perhaps some of the old relics (states and some of our elected officials) still in place, but of no consequence. America will reinvent itself to secure its greatness into the 22nd century.
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