We’ve all attended our share, and then some, of online keynotes this spring and summer. Very few have really hit the mark, at least for me. IMO that’s because we’re sidestepping the real issue at hand, an omission I believe could prove to be fatal to our industry, our country, and so much more. Below is the keynote I wish some tech leader would give, the sooner the better.
Thanks for attending yet another online conference. I know you have Zoom fatigue, and for good reason – the interchangeability of the messaging in tech conferences since the pandemic has been mind-numbingly predictable. This keynote, however, will be different: we won’t be talking about resiliency in the face of a global pandemic, I won’t regale you about how my company has helped first responders get the PPE they need, or how we’ve made it easier to support remote workers, or how it’s “business as usual” despite the hardships we face. I won’t demo some cool new feature that lets me sell or offer services to my customer in ways that were never imagined before, oblivious to the fact that many of these customers may not be around next year when the product is finally released.
I also won’t be talking about increasing my company’s diversity – though Lord knows we sure aren’t nearly as diverse as we should be, despite the impression implied by those ads we run replete with all those attractive non-white models. Nor will I be talking about how we support our local communities in these times of struggle with token donations or make some oblique reference to Black Lives Matter that carefully straddles the line between support for peaceful protest and condemnation of violence while not actually saying much of anything important or real.
What I will be talking about is the only thing that really matters right now, for our industry, our country, our way of life in our extremely complicated democratic, capitalist, pluralistic society. It’s this: we as an industry and as individuals need to work to ensure we have a safe and secure election and an orderly transition of power in November. Without ensuring that these basic components of democracy actually happen, everything else we can do to support our customers, employees, partners, investors, and the rest of our ecosystem will be for naught. Nothing else will matter.
Am I being alarmist or partisan? No, just brutally honest. We’ve been paying lip service, in tech keynote after tech keynote, to a set of issues that are definitely important – the quarantine economy and its impact on our businesses and our lives has been devastating – but the devastation we’re seeing now will be nothing compared to what would happen if our democracy fails. I repeat: nothing else will matter.
How will our precious democracy fail? In case you haven’t been paying attention, we’re already on the downward slope: The president has made it clear he won’t necessarily accept the results in November. And in response a coalition of left-leaning groups is preparing to mobilize in the event the president moves forward with this threat. With the polls currently predicting a loss for the incumbent in November, the possibility of this scenario playing out in the fall is looking more and more real. The chaos we’ve seen in the streets of Portland recently is a likely template for what’s to come, and I don’t think any of us – regardless of where stand on the political spectrum – want massive civil unrest to be the result of our quadrennial democratic election process.
Even without a divisive election, the situation in November will already be pretty grim. Our economy is struggling to stabilize, and the seesaw numbers of infections and hospitalizations across the nation threatens to continue for the foreseeable future. With less than 100 days until November 3 we’re seeing a steady drumbeat of business bankruptcies, layoffs, and furloughs. Despite the stock market’s continued puzzling buoyancy, and in particular the almost unbelievably positive performance of many tech companies, the reality is that we’re in for a long, hard slog to recovery.
Add to that the prospect that the world’s largest economy will be consumed by a disorderly, contested, and potentially violent post-election mess – a mess that will make a mockery of the democratic precept of an orderly transition of power – and we’re going to find ourselves in a new and unprecedented crisis. What will happen to foreign direct investment? The relative value of the dollar? Consumer buying power? The housing market? Commercial real-estate? Main Street? How will we continue a recovery under the triple threat of the pandemic, electoral chaos, and civic unrest?
These are the issues that I want to talk to you today. New products, features, initiatives, and partnerships can wait.
Let’s start with the biggest threat: civic unrest in the face of a contested election. We know that civic unrest can have devastating impacts on local economies that last for years. A study by two Vanderbilt professors on the impact of the 1968 riots came to the following conclusion:
“…the riots left lasting, economically significant, negative imprints on the cities and neighborhoods in which they occurred. They vividly illustrated the depth and danger of the social forces that cleaved the United States in the 1960s, and for many places they may have strengthened and accelerated a process of endogenous economic decline.”
Those riots were nationwide but concentrated in a relatively small number of large cities with, understandably, significant Black populations. Bad enough. But the recent Black Lives Matter demonstrations that took place following the murder of George Floyd occurred in 2300 cities and towns across the country, in literally every large city and many hundreds of smaller ones. What if this is our other template for civic unrest in November? While, if there is a contested election, I believe most protesters will remain peaceful, there are plenty of hotheads on both ends of the political spectrum who will make sure things will get out of hand if they can. And, unfortunately, they probably will.
This scenario won’t be a repeat of hanging chad time in Florida back in 2000, where a contested election in a single state was effectively decided by the Supreme Court. Whatever you think about the outcome of the Bush v. Gore case, our democracy won. Despite the issues on the table, in the end we had the rule of law, due process, and an outcome that the losing side gracefully accepted. There was an orderly transition of power, and we moved on.
My fear, and why this is the subject of my keynote, is that an orderly transition of power won’t be the case if there is question as to the legitimacy of the election results, which is what is definitely in the cards for November. Even without the issue of who concedes to whom, the moment we’ll actually learn who won the vote count and the Electoral College count won’t come quickly, which itself poses a serious problem. Most election officials believe we won’t know the results of the election for days, and possibly weeks. Vote at home/mail-in ballots take a lot longer to process than those cast at a polling place, and the prospect of waiting until Thanksgiving rolls around to know the results is looking very real.
It’s important to be clear that an orderly transition of power isn’t about a single office changing hands, it’s about the entire electoral process, every candidate and office, initiative, referendum and ballot measure. This November 3 isn’t just about electing a new president – though it seems like that’s all we’re talking about these days. On November 3 we’ll be electing new city councils, state legislators, governors, school boards, congress people, judges – pretty much every working element of government from top to bottom will transition, in many cases to new people, parties, propositions, and policies, as a result of the upcoming election. We don’t just vote for a president every four years, we vote for democracy. This isn’t about Republicans versus Democrats – this is about big “D” Democracy. Voting for Democracy is in particular what happens primarily at the local level, where many elections are completely non-partisan and where local issues, not our all-too often sordid national party politics, are what’s on the ballot. As they should be.
But if there is a question about whether the presidential vote will accepted by one of candidates, that calls into question the entire election – contested ballots mean contested elections for everything on the ballot. And everything is exactly that: your local transportation district’s supervisor election will be thrown under the same “contested” bus as the Office of the President. Nothing down ballot will be valid if the top of the ticket isn’t valid.
Why am I talking about voting in a tech keynote? This scenario, whatever the ultimate outcome, will define the economic and social future of the tech industry for the foreseeable future. We already have a lot on our plates, trying to figure out remote working models, new supply chains for our goods and services, new ways to stay relevant and serve our customers. If our country is plunged into a cycle of civic unrest and chaos in the streets that leads to further economic decline, more layoffs, bankruptcies, and disrupted supply chains, everything we and our customers are doing to right the listing economy will be potentially a footnote in a much uglier future than any of us want to contemplate.
So, here’s my challenge to all of you, and to my fellow tech industry leaders: let’s get together to make sure we have a safe and secure election, one that has the kind of participation rates that make it hard to refute the results. This means helping local and state election officials find the financial resources to support the cost and complexity of moving to a largely vote-at-home election. It means encouraging the young people we know to volunteer at the polls in order to replace the current cadre of poll workers who are traditionally seniors and others in the high risk category if they contract Covid-19. It means using whatever influence we have to ensure that we have an orderly, and peaceful transition of power by demanding, across the political spectrum, that we all work to deliver that peaceful transition in November. And it means making sure that we all vote – regardless of race, age, gender identity, religion, and, most importantly, political conviction. Our big “D” Democracy can only succeed if all of us stand up and are counted.
And finally, our company’s stuff is still cool and highly relevant and will help your company succeed. Stop by our website and find out more. But only after you’ve made sure you’re registered and your ballot, if you live in a vote-at-home state, is on the way. Clicking on www.usvotefoundation.org is a good place to start, as is at your local and state election office website. Thanks, and may the very best democracy win.
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