VIEWPOINT / DEMOCRATIC PARTY’S DILEMMA

By Timothy Weaver, Ph.D.

It’s a chicken-egg dilemma of the highest order. Without political power, Democrats can’t pursue three major reforms that are at the heart of the Party’s agenda. They cannot take the actions needed to protect the environment, end the plague of gun violence, and they cannot reduce atmospheric warming. They cannot gain a lasting majority to address these issues because the current approach has created an unholy alliance, a stable block of votes that opposes restrictions on guns, fossil fuels and the opening to Cuba.

Let’s start with the Cuban vote in South Florida. That was the difference maker in November. Democrats cannot win Florida as long as this problem is unsolved. How to solve it? Imagine that the US government was overthrown and your own property was confiscated in a countrywide grab of private property. Now, along comes a foreign power that wants to normalize relations—say, China. But, there will be no deal to return your property or compensate you. Would you like that? Hell no, you wouldn’t like it.

Think the Czech Republic. When the Berlin Wall fell, Communist regimes fell throughout Central Europe. Owners of property confiscated in the Czech Republic were offered an opportunity to reclaim that property 60 years later. If the U.S. wants to normalize relations with Cuba, someone needs to stand up for property rights. Why should this be solely a Republican issue?

As it stands, Democrats want to normalize relations without even raising the matter of property confiscated in the Castro Revolution. No wonder the Cubans and their heirs who lost everything are incensed. Until the Democrats put restoration of property at the top of their list of priorities for Cuban Americans, we will not win in Florida. Democrats might not get that property back but they have to fight for those rights. The Republicans own this issue. Democrats have forfeited it.

It appears that Republicans gained and retained House seats in an unholy alliance of states: oil, gas, coal, guns and white supremacy. If Democrats seek to build a lasting majority, they have to have an answer to this solidifying Republican base. This is not the Trump base. It is a majoritarian base drawn together out of fear—fear of losing jobs, status, guns, representation, power and control. Democrats! This is your task. Provide an answer to this alliance.

WINNING IN THE ENERGY PRODUCING STATES

The Democrats cannot become a lasting majority party until they find a way to compromise rather than insisting on zero carbon emissions. There is a Third Way. The environmentalists talk loosely of alternative energy jobs. Without doubt they are right to claim carbon-free energy creates jobs. Unfortunately, the vast majority of such jobs are in manufacturing and those jobs are not even in America. Installation is employing a large workforce. But these jobs are temporary by their very nature. My proposal is to withdraw subsidies for fossil fuels, and create a very large American government investment program in solar and wind manufacturing in exactly those areas where carbon energy jobs will decline.

Add to the Republican energy states the old white supremacy states: NC, SC, GA, FL, MS, Utah, Kansas, Arkansas, and rural agricultural and gun states, Montana, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. That means Democrats start every campaign with 44 Republican Senate seats conceded, written off. How can we expect to build a Democratic majority with this solid Republican base? Something has to change. I write off the racially driven vote. I simply see no way to compromise with bigots. But, there is no reason why we can’t erode the Republican majority in the energy states, the rural states and Florida. The strategy I am proposing, to borrow a term from Bill Clinton,  is the Third Way. Finding common ground with energy producing states, rural voters and the Cuban community in Florida.

We’ve undertaken massive investments in military hardware, interstate highways, land grant colleges, and huge infrastructure projects such as the Panama Canal. The Democrats blundered into a position in this election that sounded like a ban on fracking. Biden had to spend time and energy denying the charge but it hurt him in the states where natural gas employs large work forces. Why choose gas fracking, a relatively clean fuel, as the highest priority to fight a war against environment pollution. The big plum for environmentalists is vehicular burning of petroleum. Natural gas is the safest fuel to burn and millions of homes depend on it for heat.

The least dirty way to use the vast stores of coal is conversion to essential building materials. Natural gas replaces vastly more carbon loaded fuels. Coal can be converted to feedstock for essential plastics and carbon fiber materials. We can retain some jobs in coal and natural gas while significantly reducing carbon overload for the atmosphere. Until the market begins to signal otherwise, these are prudent investments. The purists will hate this compromise. But, significantly, they’ve never been successful in building a lasting majority for their approach in several decades of trying.

And, yet, because of the issues above, our side lacks a solidified and lasting majority necessary to make massive changes! The Democrats must find a way to unravel this Gordian Knot.

For those who are spending their lives fighting for a no-compromise world, one with zero carbon emissions, I hope they watched Pennsylvania closely. Fracking cost President-elect Biden votes in his home state. He won Pennsylvania, but not by the landslide he should have had won. The Democratic choice to push for an oil free world means Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma are lost, and the anti-coal stance now means none of the Appalachian states and Wyoming will ever vote for a Democrat President or Senator. The absolutists of the left have refused to compromise on carbon in a world in which millions are dependent for their livelihoods on a carbon-based economy. As long as that is the case, I’m not sanguine about the chances of Democrats to build a lasting majority. Environmentalists have made their zero tolerance case for decades to the nation, and they simply are unrealistic about ever controlling both the Presidency and the Congress in our lifetimes.

Biden is President. I’ve never had a doubt. But, it’s still a carbon copy of recent past elections. It took the largest Democratic vote in history to win against a failed President. Without COVID-19, we’d be looking at Trump and the rightwing adding another term to their destruction of four decades of environmental protections. Luck brought this Democratic victory. Some long term rethinking of the Hillary mistake—-kissing off the Appalachian states by saying she’d end coal mining jobs—is warranted. This uncompromising strategy is not working. I’m ecstatic that we could disrupt temporarily the solidifying Republican majority in November. Recall that Republicans have controlled the U.S. Senate since the second year of Obama’s first term. But we can’t rely on luck in the future. I’m hoping Biden and his team will realize this. When we can barely defeat an emotionally disturbed narcissist, we need to rethink the party and what it stands for.

By the way, lest readers get the wrong idea, I’m a liberal and very supportive of environmental causes. Yet I’m a pragmatist. Without lasting political power there is no chance for progress. We need to build a lasting Democratic majority. That is not possible giving up on all the energy producing states. For those who won’t compromise, there is no political future. Just more of the same: radical jerking from one pole to another. One side cancels the other’s progress. Environmentalists have no answers for those who will lose their livelihoods in the carbon economy. The energy states have no answers for the environment and global warming. In system dynamics lingo this is a system out of equilibrium, and oscillating wildly.

Social science has been absent in the environmentalists drive toward zero carbon, and environmental science absent from the carbon based industry. There has to be a third way. Over 10 million Coal, Oil and Gas (COG) jobs are at stake. Add transportation and the number increases. When I see a realistic proposal from environmentalists to replace these jobs in places where they currently exist I shall know that the proverbial light has gone on.

Before we can implement necessary planet saving changes we have to address the millions of lost energy jobs in 10 states with 20 Republican Senators. Yes, environmentally friendly jobs will replace some fraction of those jobs potentially lost in Louisiana, Alabama, Alaska, Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, Wyoming, Western Pennsylvania, North Dakota, South Dakota. Someplace, those jobs will created. As it stands, not one single manufacturing job exists in solar or wind in West Virginia. Zero. Yes, jobs have been created in installing wind turbines, but they are temporary. Until Democrats can embrace a third way—job for job replacement, we will not regain power sufficiently to take the measures necessary.

I am hoping for a third way that compels action while winning political support. I’ve not seen that in the decades since “Silent Spring” launched a broad based attack on environmental destruction. No one is winning except Coal, Oil and Gas. They carry on as though environmentalists are a gnat on their plates. Drill baby drill has continued unabated. We are losing the political battle. Once we can accept this reality the sooner new compromises can be launched.

As long as Senator McConnell lives, I expect him to be in charge of the Senate for reasons I stated above. We start every campaign conceding 44 Senate seats to the Republicans. Why? Guns, energy and racism. Right now, we have no answers for this unholy alliance. Period.

THE SICK MAN OF APPALACHIA: SOUTHERN WV

Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) has spent billions in an effort to revitalize the Appalachian region. It is thought to have been a success. Indeed, one can find lists of projects that have been funded. There is evidence that they work on a limited scale. Here is what I have found thus far about the ARC and its efforts to find a solution to the decline that has been McDowell County, WV, the heart of abandoned coal country. Let me put it this way. ARC has been in existence since 1965. They have had projects in McDowell County. The population loss that began there in the 1960s has continued unabated. From 2010 to 2019, the population declined by 20.3 %. (22,109 to 17,624). The percentage of population over 16 employed fell from 31.2 to 28.3%. By comparison the West Virginia percentage of those over the age of 16 who are working is 51.3%. McDowell County household income and per capita income stood at $26,547 and $14,489 respectively. By comparison, West Virginia household per capita income stood at $44,921 and $25,479 in 2018. While ARC has been in McDowell County things are getting progressively worse. For sure they are not getting better. Isn’t it time to shift strategies?

I am not zealous about coal conversion. Not at all. Coal conversion has its own environment problems unique to the industry. I have long been a liberal thinker residing part-time in West Virginia. It’s lonely. However, I am a believer in thinking about problems as the outcome of a complex set of interacting dynamics. Typically, there is a perturbation of the system, in this case a collapse of coal demand and a rapid increase in unemployment., followed by social decay. But, I am a pragmatist. Without a major turnaround in job creation, the McDowell counties of Appalachian will continue their long journey into the dark night. I feel for these people. I know people in West Virginia who have never recovered their livelihoods and their dignity after plant shutdowns. I sense the desperation of families chronically without jobs. They are vulnerable to the promises of a charlatan. West Virginians voted overwhelmingly for Trump both times.

Tourism is the way out where I live in the northcentral part of the state. Can we say the same for Welch and McDowell county and nearby Bluefield? Environmentalists may not welcome a challenge (in fact, some seem offended), but I do. Convince me coal conversion, subsidized relocation of solar and wind turbine manufacturing to the coal patch would not work to create jobs and reignite entrepreneurism. I truly want to be convinced I’m wrong. My view as a pragmatist is that coal will continue to be mined long after we are departed. Wouldn’t one rather see it used for non-combustible coal conversion than go up the smoke stacks of power plants?

I’ve been searching for a single solar panel or wind turbine manufacturing plant in Appalachia. I have not found one. Most of them are located in parts of the country with already low unemployment. If we want to do something non-coal related, why don’t we turn our attention to subsidizing the location of such plants in Southern West Virginia, Eastern Kentucky, Eastern Tennessee, Western Virginia, Eastern Ohio?

WHERE ARE U.S. SOLAR PANELS MANUFACTURED?

Florida, California, Oregon, Ontario, Minnesota, San Antonio, Texas, Atlanta, Mississippi, Washington, Buffalo, NY. Not one of the U.S. solar panel manufacturers is located in the COGs regions of the country, with the exception being Texas. The location there is San Antonio, not Houston.  To mention a few of the American solar manufacturers, Heliene Solar, for example, is based in Sault St. Marie, Ontario, Canada, and manufactures most of its solar panels there. However, Heliene also has a manufacturing facility in Minnesota. They announced that they will be investing in a new equipment line at its Minnesota facility.

Mission Solar is based in San Antonio, Texas, where they design, engineer, and assemble all of their solar panels. They make panels for both small-scale (rooftop) and large-scale solar projects. Like other US companies, Mission Solar announced that they were ramping up production in 2018. However, their plans have been in the works since 2017 as a result of increased production, and are not a direct result of the recent trade case. Seraphim Solar USA is a U.S. owned subsidiary of Seraphim Energy Group, which is based in China. Seraphim Solar USA manufactures all of its panels in the United States at its facility in Jackson, Mississippi.

In 2018, Silfab Solar acquired the U.S. panel manufacturer Itek Energy. Silfab Solar now produces modules in both Washington State and Toronto, Canada. Solaria is based in Fremont, California, and manufactures its solar panels both in the United States and in South Korea. At the beginning of January 2018 (prior to the final tariff decision), Solaria announced that they had raised $23 million to expand manufacturing capabilities.

It is important to note that solar panel manufacturing in the U.S. is located, with the exception of Florida, Texas and Mississippi in states that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won in November. Not one of those plants is near a carbon energy region of the country, except Texas but even there the location is not near the oil producing part of the state. The Census Bureau reports that the solar industry as a whole employs about 249,983 workers. Most of the jobs are in installing panels. 4.5 million solar jobs exist outside of the U.S. In short, if all the solar jobs in the world were located in the U.S., it would only be about 40% of the jobs in the COGs fields.

U.S. Energy and Employment Report (USEER) found that the wind power industry provided 111,166 jobs in 2018, increasing four percent from 2017. USEER categorizes these jobs as 33 percent construction, 24 percent professional services, and 24 percent manufacturing. The USEER also reports that in 2018, 2,324,866 people worked in the United States “energy efficiency sector.” Although not clearly defined this presumably would include engineers, designers, manufacturers, installers, maintenance workers, transport, and labor. This represents an increase of more than 124,800 energy efficiency jobs since 2016, making it the energy sector with the highest job growth in the country (5.37 percent). Energy efficiency workers are dispersed across the country, with workers employed in all but seven U.S. counties, according to a 2018 report. More than 300,000 people are employed in energy efficiency in rural areas and 900,000 people work in energy efficiency in the country’s 25 largest metro areas. The states with the most jobs in energy efficiency are California (310,433), Texas (154,565), New York (117,339), Florida (112,620), Illinois (86,916), Massachusetts (84,556), Michigan (84,052), North Carolina (84,020), Ohio (79,653), and Virginia (76,621).

According to the USEER report, these jobs are spread out across sectors with more than 50 percent of energy efficiency employees in construction, 20 percent in professional services, and 14 percent in manufacturing. In the construction sector specifically, 17 percent of all construction jobs are in energy efficiency—this is equivalent to more than 1 in every 6 workers. I have been able to identify three wind turbine manufacturers in the U.S. They are located in Pennsylvania, New York and Virginia. Once again, these are states that Biden-Harris took in November.

This is our problem. The growing energy efficiency field is real, but the most important reality for this discussion is where those jobs are being located. None, not one of the manufacturers of solar panels or wind turbines, is located in the Appalachian states, the oil and gas producing states–all states the Democrats need to win if we are to build a majoritarian party. Until the Democratic Party awakens to this reality, we will continue to write off 44 senate seats in every election going forward.

WINNING IN RURAL AMERICA

Finally, in addition to winning back Florida and the Appalachian states, the Democratic Party needs to remember where it came from after the Republicans controlled government from Lincoln to Wilson. The Roosevelt Administration undertook the largest rural redevelopment program in the world, and succeed with electrification, new roads, new schools, new towns, large investments in public works. This needs to be our agenda today if we are to win back the rural states: Massive investment in today’s critical infrastructure—high speed internet, vastly more miles of interstate highways, high speed rail service, redevelopment money to build, where appropriate, tourism industries by establishing more national parks and byways. The second area of needed investment in rural American is education. Large sums of money need to be poured into early childhood education, starting with social work in homes to prepare children and parents for school, and subsidizing models of schooling that actually work, that is, producing progress from Pre-K to high school graduation.

These three things are key: addressing the Cuban problem and winning back Florida, addressing the energy problem by putting jobs where old energy jobs are being lost, and, finally, massive new rural investment. The may sound a bit like the New Deal or the Great Society, and so be it! Those programs were right and greatly helped Americans. They also had the side effect of producing large Democratic majorities.

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