“Trump appeals to Fil-Ams as a strong leader, even if he is both a felon and an unhinged personality.”
As we write this article, the US West Coast has yet to be counted into the initial results of the US elections, where Trump has reached 207 electoral votes versus Harris with 91. The usual agricultural belt and Republican strongholds have already delivered for Trump, including Texas and Florida, but California, Oregon and Washington state have yet to be factored in.
When these states, traditionally Democratic are counted in, the numbers should even out, and as in 2016 and 2020, the so-called battleground states will decide who will be POTUS by January 20, 2025.
Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, probably Nevada and Arizona will once more decide the elections, and the victor will have a razor-thin margin over the loser.
What I found quite surprising, insofar as Filipino-Americans are concerned, is how they have been shifting their historic preference for the Democrats towards the Republican Trump, not necessarily the party, but the candidate. Trump appeals to them as a strong leader, even if he is both a felon and an unhinged personality.
Fil-Ams are beginning to think like the midwestern whites, and are not identifying with an Asian-American woman in a large way. Strange.
Whenever my chat groups ask me about who between Trump and Harris would be “better” for the Philippines, I would respond by saying it doesn’t matter whichever way.
Our exports to the US of A are mostly semiconductor devices and electronic parts, of which the value-added is only cheap labor, with the bulk of the inputs imported, because we have neither an industrial nor technology base. We are increasingly importing food and grain from them, and that is not likely to change in the next decade.
Will American business invest more in our country if Harris or Trump wins? Neither.
They have big domestic economic problems and if they have surplus to invest, they will not go to the Philippines, and would prefer Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand. Let’s be real.
The big IF between Harris and Trump has to do with geo-politics, particularly because there could be a marked difference on how the protagonists will handle the Taiwan conundrum, with the WPS conflict on which we rely to the Americans as “reliable” allies, a mere sideshow. Trump looks at China from a dollar and cents focus, while the Democrats and Harris are focused on the growing security rivalry with China.
So by Friday, maybe even Saturday, we should know who won, but I repeat: it won’t matter much to our fate as a country and as a people whoever wins.
***
At the rate Vice President Sara Duterte and her advisers are handling their problem with the HoR and its demolition crew, the results of the 2025 senatorial elections will matter very much to her political longevity.
By longevity I refer not just to 2028, if she decides to run for the presidency, but a potential impeachment, noises about which are getting louder and more pronounced.
As it is widely expected that the ruling coalition’s congressional candidates will mostly be re-elected, their dynasties prevailing over the competition, if any, a decision from its adversarial leadership and of course, Malacanang, will trigger an impeachment.
It would then go to the Senate for trial, and that is where the numbers matter. An impeachment is a political judgment call which the 24 “republics” will decide when the time comes.
It is probably comforting for the beleaguered president that even the Alyansa candidates are not solidly loyal to the current political mandarins and will weigh their decision on conviction or acquittal based on either what would be in the best interest of the country, or be swayed by prevailing political winds.
If she could forget an early announcement that she would not campaign for a chosen slate, it would be to her future advantage to make sure friendly “republics” would win.
Which means she had better campaign hard, especially in Mindanao and Central Visayas, for “friendly” or “fair and independent-minded” senatorial candidates, whether they are listed in the Alyansa or her father’s PDP.
