America: From a Fallen Child Star to the Head of the University of the West

Chapter 123 The Return Journey

On the way back to Austin, the car was much quieter than it had been on the way there.

Sean sat in the passenger seat, his eyes fixed on the desert and bushes rushing past the window.

The setting sun dyed the entire earth orange-red. Occasionally, you could see some crosses standing by the roadside, with faded plastic flowers placed next to them. These were places where traffic accidents had occurred before, used by people to commemorate the deceased.

Kelly was leaning against the car window, the increasingly dark twilight reflected in his glasses, making it impossible to tell whether he was awake or asleep.

Benny was driving, and several times he seemed about to say something, but he swallowed the words back.

Finally, he couldn't hold back and spoke first: "Mr. Pan, were you serious about what you said this afternoon?"

"Which sentence?" Sean turned to ask him.

"It's that line you mentioned about Cancun, saying maybe we can go there sometime."

"You actually heard that?" Sean chuckled. "Do you think I'm serious?"

Benny's eyes were fixed on the road ahead. "I don't think it's a joke. But it doesn't seem serious either."

"That's a pretty good analysis," Sean said. "No wonder you're good at data modeling."

Benny then changed the subject, asking, "Shall we go look at other places tomorrow? I can arrange a trip to Laredo, or even further west to El Paso, where the situation is more complicated than what we saw today."

"Let's not talk about that now, Benny. I have a question for you," Sean suddenly threw the question back at him, "After you and your team collected and analyzed this data, what are your plans for next?"

Benny seemed surprised by his question.

Sean continued, "Those data models you showed us in the office, those analyses of voter trends, and those deep divisions between evangelicals and Catholics you mentioned. You spent so much time and effort collecting and analyzing this information, and then what? What are you ultimately going to do with all that?"

This question caused a silence to fill the car for several seconds.

"I want these things to be seen," Benny replied.

"You've asked this question so many times, my dear Benny. The point is: who saw it?" Sean pressed on with a smile.

"To be seen by—" Benny seemed to be searching for the right word, "to be seen by those who truly have the ability and the will to make a change."

In short, it's useless to rely on him, this scholar who has been kicked out, at this stage.

Similarly, he doesn't rely on Thomas Wilder, since he remains aligned with the Republican Party. Although he is still a staunch supporter of conservative values ​​at heart, he has indeed drifted further and further away from the Republican Party.

So he placed his bet on the man who had revealed all of this, Sean Penn.

After thinking it over, he looked out the window again.

At that moment, Rachel leaned over from the back seat and asked, "Benny, didn't Ramon say today that his son works in the border patrol and is often called a Nazi? How do you quantify these kinds of emotions in your data models?"

Benny glanced at her in the rearview mirror and replied, "We tried many methods. For example, we used keywords to crawl social media discussions, conducted in-depth voter interviews for semantic and sentiment analysis, and then combined this with voting data for regression analysis. In the end, we concluded that this negative sentiment against border enforcement officers increased approximately threefold between 2018 and 2020. Moreover, this sentiment was mainly concentrated in districts within 100 miles of the border, and was concentrated in two groups: white blue-collar workers and Latino blue-collar workers."

"Three times?" Rachel frowned. "That's a pretty big increase."

"Yes, and that data is probably a conservative estimate," Benny added. "But the really interesting finding is that people with these sentiments didn't become fanatical Republican supporters. They simply—stopped supporting the Democrats. There's a big difference between 'stopping supporting one side' and 'fully supporting the other.'"

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Kelly, who had been leaning against the car window, opened his eyes. His voice was slightly hoarse from just waking up: "Stopping their support for the Democrats doesn't automatically mean they'll support the Republicans. That empty space, that space of hesitation and observation, is what you want to fill, isn't it?"

Benny nodded. "Yes, sir, you're right."

As the car drove across a bridge spanning a dry riverbed, Sean looked down and saw that the land below was cracked and parched from lack of water.

He looked at the cracks in the earth and suddenly said, "Benny, we won't go anywhere else tomorrow."

"Not watching anymore? Then————"

"I'm not going to watch anymore," Sean said firmly. "What we've seen and heard today is enough. Even if we travel to ten more towns, we'll only hear similar stories."

He had heard the same stories of abandonment far too many times.

He turned to look at Benny, who was driving: "Your team of twelve has finished the data analysis, built the model, and almost finished the report. What you lack now is not data, but how to translate that data into action."

"You said you wanted me to tell these stories so that more people could hear them. I can do that."

"But not now. If I were to go to the media right now and say that, it would just sound like a showman from California."

An official took a stroll around the border, then returned to offer some bland and uninspiring observations. The next day, those comments would be completely drowned out by new Oscar news or other entertainment headlines.

"When do you plan to speak? Or—how do you plan to do it?" Benny asked.

"Didn't you mention before that something similar happened in Florida, and that the situation there was even more extreme?" Sean said. "DeSantis won two gubernatorial elections there, and the shift in Latino voters was even more pronounced than in Texas. I want to go to Florida and see what's really going on there."

Benny's eyes lit up: "You want to go to Florida?"

"It's not just a cursory look," Sean stated clearly. "I want to meet a few people and get to know them better. Do you know anyone there doing similar research? Or anyone familiar with the local situation?"

As Benny drove, he thought for a moment: "There are a few. There's a Cuban scholar in Miami named Carlos Rivera who teaches at Florida International University. He specializes in studying the shift in political attitudes among Latino voters and has a lot of insights."

There's also a community organization leader in Tampa; she should have very solid, firsthand field research data.

"Carlos?" Rachel frowned. "I know someone whose name includes Carlos—"

"Ahem, could you get in touch with them? Arrange a meeting?" Sean knew who Rachel was talking about.

"It's worth a try," Benny said, "but I can't guarantee they'll be willing to meet, since you might be seen as a politician by them."

Sean laughed and said, "I'm not a politician, at least not yet. At most, I'm a salon politician. With Hassan..."

Charlie Kirk is no different.

The car continued its journey through the night. In the distance, the lights of Osjiang began to appear on the horizon, densely packed together, like a sea of ​​stars hanging low on the ground.

Rachel asked from the back seat, "So when are we leaving for Florida?"

"Next week, I guess," Sean estimated the time. "There are still some things to take care of when we get back to California. The lawsuit filed by Crane hasn't been officially withdrawn yet, the Watts District community trust project needs to be followed up, and the academic network that Matthew and Liam have built in Berkeley needs to be strengthened. Once we've taken care of these things, we'll leave."

Kelly took off his glasses, slowly wiped the lenses with the corner of his shirt, and then said, "Sean, before you go to Florida, you need to think about one thing."

"What is it?" Sean asked.

"Think carefully about why you're going to Florida." Kelly put her glasses back on and looked at him through the lenses. "Is it to gather more stories and cases? Is it to find potential allies or collaborators? Or—are you just going to cause trouble for DeSantis, to make things difficult for him? The purpose is different, so our approach there will be completely different."

Sean answered frankly, "To be honest, I haven't fully figured it out yet. But I believe that once I get there, see it with my own eyes and hear it with my own ears, I'll know what to do."

Kelly nodded and said nothing more.

As the car entered downtown Austin, the neon lights along the streets gradually increased.

Bars, barbecue restaurants, music performance venues, and stylishly dressed young people stroll along the sidewalk.

Benny drove the car back to the gray office building, parked it, and turned off the engine.

He turned to Sean and said, "Mr. Pan, whatever you ultimately decide to do in Florida, if you need data, analysis, or any support in that area during the process, our team is ready to assist you."

Sean looked at him, then at the number above his head that only he could see; it had increased from [60] when he picked him up at the airport.

It has already risen to [72].

"I'll contact you if I need to, Benny." Sean opened the car door. "Remember to stay in touch."