America’s Phase Transition

As a Maine delegate to the DNC, I witnessed and participated in what might be considered a magnificent mood shift, buoyed by considerable intellectual and political content. I came prepared to support and also evaluate Kamala Harris and Tim Walz as the candidates who might defeat an opponent I already considered manifestly unfit for the Presidency. What I discovered was an increasingly unified Democratic Party, coalescing as it watched its emergent leadership perform at a very high level. It would be hard to imagine an event of this scale - four consecutive 17-18-hour days - that was more tightly and elegantly choreographed to deliver on a small set of clear objectives. Make Kamala Harris known for who she really is. Same for Walz. Lay out the principle guiding values that define these two people. Describe their ambitions should they be elected and make clear these are the objectives of most Americans. At one particular moment, listening to Tim Walz for the first time, I felt a sensation in my body and heard the words, “We are going to win.” It was my own voice, making a flat statement to myself, suddenly fully certain.

Right after the convention concluded, a friend in Sweden asked me to write something about it and what arose was this:

America may be in or near a phase transition of a social and political nature, where the very state of the country changes radically. (A phase transition in scientific terms occurs when a system undergoes a major change, like ice melting or water boiling or suspended gas exploding.)

This phase transition could be one in which the system moves from male to female, from adversarial interactions toward collaboration, from an economics of scarcity to one of plenty, from despair and dread to hope and optimism, from selfishness to generosity. Perhaps from polarized to increasingly integrated in efforts to improve the whole for the many.

I submit these elements, expressed or implied, were at work in the mood shift broadly felt after the Harris announcement and which seems to be broadening and deepening and accelerating. Yes, things could be seriously different (less old and white, now younger and more embracing of diversity.) As I stood on one of the Maine delegation seats and looked around the arena across 5,000 delegates, America’s diversity looked back at me and I felt, “This is the country of which I am a part.” Yes, this IS the country of which I am a part, and we are held together by what we value and what we wish to create for one another.

As the week had unfolded I was able to watch the teleprompter and marvel at the consistency and coherence of the messages coming across - and note that Michele Obama is one of the best at making prepared text feel utterly spontaneous, but others did it extremely well also. As a former journalist (three dailies and a Nieman Fellowship devoted to economics), I marveled at the writing, the editing, the organization and pace and tone, culminating in Kamala’s acceptance that reinforced every key theme - including the prosecution of the case against Trump - without feeling repetitious. And I left the hall on a wave of enthusiasm and conviction I could not have anticipated, this sensation of a massive national mood shift that might indeed be a phase transition into, as Harris and Walz put it, the next chapter of America’s ongoing attempt to fulfill its promise, “for the people.”