We are too nice to our former colonial master that they keep taking us for granted
Both the Democrats and Republicans, the traditional parties in America’s federal two-party system of government, are caught in some kind of crossroads in choosing their standard bearers for the forthcoming 2024 elections.
Soon they will begin primaries, although among the Democrats, it looks like it’s all over but the cheering – they will likely re-nominate incumbent Joe Biden, who will seek a second term as POTUS.
Will the cheering turn into a dirge, with a fumbling, senile-denigrated incumbent tripping all over himself, figuratively and literally, as the campaign rolls on?
This makes the Democrats’ choice of a running-mate for Biden quite important.
Kamala Harris, by the metrics of performance and public acceptance, does not seem to fit the bill as president-in-waiting to Biden who will be 82 years old by the time he takes his second oath in January 2025.
Meanwhile, hard-core Trump loyalists who constitute half of the Republican Party are still betting on resurrecting their Donald, despite a tumultuous presidency capped by a refusal to concede along with an assault upon the US Capitol.
Despite a string of cases, from tax fraud to debauchery to stealing classified documents and bringing these to his Florida aerie, the man, labeled “insane” by his detractors, leads the other presidential wannabes in the Grand Old Party by a mile.
Because the US of A is the world’s constable by the proclaimed “manifest destiny” of a previous leader, expanding the bounds of their sphere of influence beyond their neighborhood and to the entire world, and is thus the military superpower, whoever leads it has become the center of world attention.
The irascible Trump upended the world, which heaved a sigh of relief when Biden won in 2020 amidst the pandemic crisis.
But then Russia’s Putin discombobulated the world order early last year, sending paroxysms of turmoil all over the world’s economy and stability beyond Europe.
Meanwhile, tensions continue to rise up between “upstart” China and old hegemon America. The world’s second largest economy built in just 40 years has likewise built an impressive military force in the last 15n years.
This in turn has sent shivers down the spine of the constable of the world which would brook no competition.
Our part of the world, and our country in particular due to its geographic location, has become another flash point, with Biden and Xi at loggerheads.
Biden, after sending his secretary of state Anthony Blinken to Beijing probably expected China’s Xi Jinping to treat Blinken with the significance attached to the envoy of the world’s greatest superpower, and was disappointed that Xi gave the guy 30 minutes of his time and simply reiterated China’s intransigence over Taiwan and other issues.
And so in a moment of pique, he used the shooting down of what he termed a “spy balloon” as a “great embarrassment for dictators,” signaling continued confrontation rather than a cooling of tensions which the Blinken visit hoped to achieve.
Stung by the reaction of even US allies to an inappropriate and certainly undiplomatic remark, Biden stuck to his description of the Chinese leader, while sheepishly stating that he expected to meet Xi “sometime in the future — in the near term.”
I am not a geomancer nor a Nostradamus, but expect Xi to bide his time and just await who the next POTUS will be before he makes any further friendly move towards America.
The Second Cold War which recently began will get frostier.
Thus do we all await with anxiety how the American electorate will choose their next president just a year and four months distant.
Meanwhile, we wonder if the Republicans and the Democrats cannot choose among 380 million Americans someone better than Trump or Biden to represent them in the forthcoming electoral battle.
Are there no other choices for these two parties, who at this writing seem hell-bent on making their voters choose between a senile incumbent and an insane former leader aching to come back despite gross misconduct in his time ?
Cannot Biden do a Lyndon Johnson who did not seek re-election in the wake of the disastrous handling of the Vietnam War?
And Trump should just concentrate on his legal woes which could yet see himself in jail, adding more notoriety to whatever legacy he would leave.
That is why foreign policy observers and analysts like Singapore’s Kishore Mahbubani sagely predict in so many words that, in the end, China will win.
***
Listening to Sen. Francis Tolentino in a recent Headstart interview by Karen Davila, I am seeing the Afghan “refugee” issue in better perspective.
Aside from moral obligations such as our being a Christian nation which sheltered other nationalities in the past out of humanitarian sympathy, something we mentioned in our article “Please listen to your sister” (Monday, June 19) and our being an original signatory to the UN declaration on human rights, I agree with Sen. Tolentino when he said that the problem was brought about by the seeming secrecy and lack of information on the issue and its ramifications.
Tolentino blames the DFA for this opacity which came to public attention only when the President’s sister, Sen. Imee Marcos, began asking questions.
One point I would like to ask is: why should there be a “processing” center in a foreign country where US consular and immigration officials can “temporarily” house these refugees whose lives may indeed be in danger?
The US is such a huge country with so many areas where they could fly their Afghan allies to, and place them under “restricted” conditions while they vet whether to accept them as immigrants to or get other countries to shelter them.
The reasoning being advanced that the US Embassy in Manila has one of the largest consular staff holds no water. Why not fly their staff to wherever else, expense being of little import to the world’s richest nation?
Why must we help solve the problems created by America in the first place, with their interference in other nation’s affairs and their clandestine support for terrorist and like organizations which later turn out to be their own undoing?
We have far too many problems that demand the full attention of our leaders than get embroiled in this brouhaha.
We are too nice to our former colonial master that they keep taking us for granted.
