Just when you thought Donald Trump can no longer implode, he lets go another mouthful. This time at a recent political rally in Portland, Maine, he named nine countries, including the Philippines, as a “terrorist nation” and Filipinos as “animals.”
Now deemed as America’s worst nightmare, the foul-mouthed Republican Party presidential candidate it seems is not running against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton but against North Korea’s Kim Jong Un for the title of the Most Unhinged Person on the Planet. His latest outburst against the Philippines also included Uzbekistan, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Morocco, Yemen and Afghanistan.
He said these countries are plotting to do harm against the US with Islamist immigrants who are able to slip into the country. The last time I checked, the Philippines (except for some Islamist extremists like the Abu Sayyaf in Mindanao), was a Catholic country.
Trump is showing signs of senility. Earlier, he described the Philippines where he invested in a luxury condominium building in Makati as “a special place.”
Earlier in the campaign, Trump called Mexico a nation which sends its illegal drug traffickers, rapists and killers as immigrants to the US. Trump is making his list of enemies longer and his chances of winning the White House a lot shorter. Hillary Clinton is leading Trump in the poll surveys in the run-up to the US elections in November. For sure, Trump is not going to endear himself to the Latino vote and the supporters of his former GOP rivals Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio who are of Latino descent.
This is the man who wants to lead the United States? Even the Republican Party is divided on having Trump for president. The possibility of Trump’s election is seen by many as divisive, not only among Americans but also its allies in Asia and Europe.
The more than 300,000 Filipino-Americans in the US should start a movement to dump Trump. This is the least they can do to show Filipinos in the States are a voting bloc to be reckoned with. This guy Trump has no concept about foreign affairs and international relations The only immigrants he welcomes are the beauties he married from Slovenia like Melania and Ivana from the Czech Republic. Our Miss Universe, Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach, better beware of the billionaire tramp’s roving eye.
While I had some doubts about Clinton before, I am now certain about Trump needing professional help. Trump is a loose cannon with a loose tongue and few loose screws in the head. Only Kim Jong Un probably has more loose screws, making him unhinged beyond repair. Between the two of them with their fingers on the nuclear trigger, the US and North Korea are facing Mutually Assured Destruction so appropriately abbreviated as MAD. The Philippines and Japan and other countries in the region could suffer severe collateral damage if the US and North Korea unleash their nuclear warheads against each other. Kim has been threatening to send his missiles to the US territory of Guam in the Pacific and as far as the West Coast cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco. The North Korean leader is really inviting a preemptive first strike by the US and Trump if elected (heaven forbid) might just accommodate him.
How will North Korea’s neighbor and China ally react when the shooting starts? Let’s not also forget third party Russia in the equation.
Sison-Duterte war of words
While still on the subject of name-calling, President Rodrigo Duterte got back at Filipino communist leader Jose Ma. Sison by calling him arrogant. Sison, from his self-imposed exile in Utrecht, Netherlands, described Duterte’s decision-making as volatile and called him a butangero (hoodlum). Duterte canceled a unilateral government ceasefire he had announced in his first State-of-the-Nation Address after Philippine troops were ambushed in Mindanao even before the mechanics for the ceasefire had been worked out by both sides.
To be fair and not take sides in this war of words, I think that what Duterte and Sison are saying to each other are, in a sense, true. I can imagine the verbal fireworks when the two get to face each other when Joma comes home for the proposed peace talks if it does still happen. Bruised egos often get in the way of clear thinking.
Sison says the things he says from the luxury and safety of his exile in Europe while Duterte, ensconced at Malacañan Palace, does the same thing. It’s like dueling with swords at 10 paces.