One cannot rule out a blizzard in Minnesota after Labor Day, and so when I travel for Thanksgiving or any time in the fall, I am careful to fly into Des Moines instead of Minneapolis, and then drive the 200 miles north to my hometown. I like to drive through Iowa during autumn because it turns back time. When I travel straight north, I traverse latitude, moving toward a place where the thaw arrives later in the spring.

Out my window, I see the corn plants get younger, because the later thaw brought a later planting. The fraying husks of central Iowa corn are still tidily wrapped on northern Iowa corn, and have not yet lost their greenish twinge in Minnesota, tasseled in rows. After my visit, I drive back to Des Moines and see the reverse: I witness the cornfields age as I travel south.

In a few weeks more or less, it will be harvest day, and bent and bowed under a burden of seed, they go to our reward. I marvel that until the very moment that the harvester turns the corner, the corn plants still strive to survive as they ever had, indifferent to the machinations of men.

This indifference goes both ways, it seems, in 21st century American politics. My country has just elected a new president, who is figuring out what to do in office. How he will govern America’s farmers is one of many unknowns, and looking back on the campaign season doesn’t give us many indications.