November 7, 2021

Let's infrastructure!

There is a 104 year old bridge that carries the Interstate 5 traffic to and fro between Oregon and Washington. Around a kilometer long, the Vancouver-Portland bridge was last reinforced and upgraded in 1958. Drivers across the bridge live with the daily awareness that it will collapse in a major earthquake. Since 2005, several proposals to replace the bridge have been produced and debated. The replacement bridge, known as the Columbia River Crossing project was nearly approved in 2012 but plans fell through when Washington state declined to authorize funding. The Columbia River Crossing project is one of the many long-delayed items on America’s to-do list. Avalanches threaten motorists on a highway across the Teton pass in Wyoming. Rural counties in the South await high speed broadband connections. In California, residents are increasingly at the mercy of out of control wildfires, megadroughts and their escalating costs. There are hundreds of smaller bridges, many of which are over 100 years old, across America that await refurbishments, reinforcements and replacements.

The wait has come to an end. President Biden and the US Congress agreed this week to a historic upgrade of the nation’s aging infrastructure. The measure, held up for months, finally passed on Friday. The scale of approved spending is massive, not seen since the Eisenhower administration approved the building of highways. With nearly $600 Billion in federal aid to improve highways, bridges, public transit, rail, airports, water quality and broadband, the legislation is a once in a generation attempt to overhaul America’s public works system. It was a great week for America. It bodes well for our future.

It wasn’t a coincidence that the Democrats agreed to pass the infrastructure bill last week after months of delay. Earlier in the week, they lost the Virginia governorship, nearly lost the New Jersey one and were shellacked in local elections in New York. Alarmed, they rushed to find consensus and pass the long delayed legislation. Will it be enough to stem discontent and further losses in the 2022 midterm elections? I hope so.

It has been a year since Biden’s victory in the Presidential elections. Some demographic trends have emerged in recent months, some of which may surprise you. First of all, did you know that Biden won the popular vote by almost 4.5 percentage points (51.3 to 46.9)? This translated to a popular vote victory of over 7 million votes. Biden of course won the Electoral College 306 to 232. He made his biggest gains among men and in rural counties. He gained ground among white men without a college degree, married men, military veterans, and white Catholics. Surprisingly, Trump did better in 2020 among Hispanics and African Americans, and maintained his share of Asian American voters. Interestingly, Trump gained ground among Jewish voters. Wisconsin, the state that has picked the White House occupant in 2016 and 2020, continues to stay solidly red, giving the Republicans an edge going into 2024.

Was the 2020 election decisive or was it close? Biden’s 7 million vote margin suggests that Trump was routed but in reality the 2020 election was an extremely close affair. It would not have taken much of a shift in the political environment for Trump to win. If the right distribution of 21,500 people across three states had voted for Trump, Biden would have lost Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin, leaving the Electoral College tied at 269-269. You can fit the 21,500 people who decided the 2020 election for a nation of 330 million into a basketball arena! Biden basically won by the proverbial hair’s breadth. Thank goodness.

We humans have always had a complex relationship with truth. We know instinctively that there is no such thing as an “absolute truth,” at least not within the transactional worlds we live in. Truth be told (no pun intended), most of us have no interest in establishing the truth. These days especially, up is down and down is up, everything is in question and nothing is real. Worryingly, more and more people want to be lied to. The lie is seductive. It allows the liar and his audience to cooperate in the changing of reality itself in a way that appears magical. It’s not about what is true. What is true is what I wish it to be.

Shah Rukh Khan’s son must be a drug user. Mohammed Shami must be helping Pakistanis win a dumb cricket game because he’s a Muslim and they are Muslims. Virat Kohli let Hindus down because he spoke in support of his team mate. Narendra Modi must be our messiah even if he has shown himself to be incompetent repeatedly. Biden must be better than Trump because he is not Trump. The Cincinnati Bengals will someday go back to the Super Bowl. There are so many things we want to believe.

They say that love is blind. I think it’s fear that is blind. Love is all seeing. Love is expansive. Love sees what is. Fear is restrictive. Fear leads to pain. To survive pain, we mask it with anger and grief. That way, we don’t have to feel the shame behind it. It’s crazy. The wounds we inflict on ourselves... There is a certain cosmic absurdity to it all. I am honestly not sure why I went down this road and what I am trying to say here. It seemed like a good idea when I started this. I should stop.

Stay safe. Have a great week ahead.