Democracy was too hard for Americans, how about you?
Analysis and Opinion
By Joe America
America’s democracy lasted from 1789 when its Constitution was adopted to 2025 when Donald Trump started dismantling it. That’s 236 years. Rome’s republic lasted 482 years. Greek democracy out of Athens made it just 185 years.
Democracy is hard. It requires giving and sharing, not taking and bossing. Last election, Americans decided they wanted more from the world. And angry white men promised them a way to take what they wanted.
Power is not glory, and it will be a long long long time before America returns to glory. America cannot be trusted to see things any way other than Donald Trump’s way. He is a brutal racist, rapist, con-man, felon. That is his character, voters knew it when they voted for him, and that is the character of America right now.
Europe is shocked. Canada is shocked. It’s every nation for herself . . . including the Philippines.
Let’s consider the Philippines.
It is hard to pinpoint when Philippine democracy was born, and I’ll not debate it. Take your pick:
- 4.1 The 1897 Constitution of Biak-na-Bato.
- 4.2 The 1899 Malolos Constitution.
- 4.3 Acts of the United States Congress. 4.3.1 Philippine Organic Act of 1902. 4.3.2 Philippine Autonomy Act of 1916. …
- 4.4 The 1935 Constitution.
- 4.5 The 1943 Constitution.
- 4.6 The 1973 Constitution.
- 4.7 The 1986 Freedom Constitution.
It’s around 100 years of “the right idea” battered by global affairs, a period of dictatorship, and tribal interests that seem never satisfied. I think maybe not very many Filipinos, conceptually, know what “the right idea” actually is.
I think Duterte wanted to end democracy but no fascists like Musk were here to power him through. Nor did we have white Christian nationalists wanting a new Talibanic era for the nation. Philippine government institutions, checks and balances, held firm.
The 2028 election could bring in a more vengeful Duterte and the ending of democracy here, too.
Why is democracy hard? Because it REQUIRES DEI, the stuff Trump and his gaggle of mean men despise and destroy. DEI is a purposeful effort to accept and promote:
- Diversity among many ethnicities, religions, and ideas, peacefully.
- Equality among all, even the handicapped, women, races, and all that makes people different in characteristic, but equal in rights.
- Inclusion, welcoming all, rather than some being real citizens and others not.
Democracy requires compassion, compromise, and education. It requires science and facts. Americans became ignorant by watching propaganda channels or believing conspiracy theories and easy social media lies.
Filipinos are subject to the same distortions. Clearly, most voters have zero concept of what a senator should have as qualifications. The leading senatorial candidates here are populists of no known patriotic principles or skill at law-writing.
Ignorance here abounds. But all is not lost. Oddly, the nation is held TOGETHER by its warring dynastic tribes. Their bickering is a part of the checks and balances in the Philippines.
But it is fragile.
When one of the dynasties gets too brazen and powerful and destroys all checks and balances, we’ll see democracy die here, too.
We are, collectively, too weak to carry on with an elegant form of government like democracy. A compassionate and humanistic form of government.
We prefer to be led by the showmen of the political stages, the empty vessels, the charlatans and the scalawags, the thieves, the entitled, and the clowns.
We is not you, specifically. But it is the collective of all Filipinos to whom we are bound by nationhood and the votes of the ignorant.
_________________________
Cover photo from NPR’s article “Trump and Musk appear together in the Oval Office to defend the work of DOGE“.
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
We are better of if our only problem is having Feb 25 be a working or non working holiday.
Hope the Dutertes stay out and same with like minded people.
Indeed, if people were smart enough to elect a President Aquino every six years, the nation would be richer and better in every way. Steady building. Duterte took the nation backward into murder and friendship with abusive China, for family gain. Sara would study Trump and turn everything into trash. People need to be smarter and stop allowing themselves to get swept up in emotions and conspiracies.
Yes
Unfortunately, people do get swept up, especially if they think they have been given a bad deal, justified or not. I know WHY most of what used to be East Germany voted “blue” aka AfD in Germany’s recent Federal elections, even as I don’t agree with what they did.
The blue states of Germany are like America’s red states that feel left behind. That populists and worse use emotions and social media make it all worse is a given. What we have is an incoming Chancellor Merz who is like a Reagan Republican while the AfD are like MAGAs. Democracy is under siege everywhere nowadays like in the 1930s when the world had Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Franco, Salazar (Portugal) and Antonescu (Romania) while the democratic leaders were authoritative types like FDR, Atatürk and Manuel Quezon. It isn’t easy at all.
That trend is obviously built on anger but is so destructive. Anger and lies. The lies are so big and people love them. Until they get hurt. In the US, the campaign was on immigrants and drugs and the price of eggs. In action, it quickly went to racism, cutting benefits to common people, imperialism, tariffs, and Russia. The alleged smart rich people support it. Bezos. So crass. Musk, crazy. Zukerberg, greedy.
The Philippines is bound by dynastic greed and impunity, dogs at each other’s throats, a kind of check and balance. The House is doing good things, driven by the Dutertes’ bad manners in the main. There are a few sensible people around but the populists represent the nation’s intellect. Haha, it’s really a tragic comedy.
Sometimes, resentment outlives its original cause. People’s lives were already improving under Aquino but he got the hate that others before him deserved. It is similar in East Germany.
The map of real estate prices (a great indicator of progress) below shows that the Northeastern seaboard has already started to get richer due to tourism and call centers (the Northern accent is considered “expensive” here), the area around Berlin has industry growing as well as the urban areas of Leipzig-Halle, Dresden and Erfurt-Jena (Jena is where they make the Zeiss objectives one can find in many a mobile phone camera, Dresden has a BMW factory, Leipzig is scrappy but moving up I saw it not too long ago) so the narrative that the East was left behind is not fully true, it was just hard to rebuild after Communist damage. Unfortunately, the lie that the West German puppet state of the USA colonized East Germany to exploit its people – and variations thereof – are a simplistic way to explain complex matters. 😢
towards the later part of pres noy’s rehimon, resentment morphed into resentment 2.0 and become quite exponential. things were getting better kuno, that debts were being paid, yeah, govt debts that is, incurred by previous governments. the debts owed by the poor are still there, baon pa rin sila sa utang only now with interest rates going up, they have to pay more. baon na baon pa rin sa utang.
those whose lives got better under pres noy, rarely share their good fortune with the poor, and keep most of their newfound wealth in their family’s close circle. the poor still have to work hard an sometimes even harder, just so they can have a better future. but they want better lives now, not next week, next month, next year. maybe never. and so their vengeful eyes turn to the man at the top, the man in malakanyang. of what good are sealed roads to them, they have no cars. free education for all, and higher salaries for public servants. and the poor still have to fight for token places in universities and colleges, and many dropped out. unable to proceed, sorely needed to put food on the table. parents got sick and kids had to step up.
higher salaries for public servants whose vacancies hire mostly relatives and friends of public servants. the poor are rarely hired mostly because they are unknowns and not influential, and could not possibly add more to the status quo.
Well, I get the resentment of the poor but not that of many middle class and rich under PNoy, for instance, what MLQ3 wrote about doctors who voted for Duterte because Kim Henares went after their taxes. Or middle-class car owners who blamed PNoy for traffic that wasn’t his fault but a legacy of decades of wrong urban planning in Metro Manila. Or the OFW and BPO crowd that indeed had an issue with drug-related crime. Mar Roxas’ Lambat-Sibat with buy-bust and all was a long-term solution against drug trade, but for immediate effects of it, there could have been policing solutions, not that I know exactly what but Mar appeared distant from the reality of that crowd. Of course, that’s far from my own direct knowledge. Maybe others can say more.
For East Germany, I know that from the 1990s onwards, many drove to Bavaria on Monday to work, living in dormitories and drove back home on Friday. Some totally moved like a colleague who now lives in his hometown, which is a place that has improved. He built a house there and returned after two decades in West Germany. Still, that town has majority AfD. I would get it for the hometown of the wife of a truck driver who regularly picks up food delivery in Munich. She moved to Munich and worked as a secretary at a food wholesaler here, and yes, that is where she met the truck driver. They bought an old house that the truck driver renovated himself. He told me once that during the week, all one saw in that town was old people and young jobless men. The old who never fully adapted to the new capitalist system and the less qualified young.
A lot of women left for the West and married there. Of course, people came back like the truck driver’s wife and my IT consulting colleague. Maybe there are factors in the East I don’t know, but like hell, I won’t go to the dark blue places on the second map I posted as I am not suicidal..
I once worked in Watts, the poor south part of Los Angeles, black at that time, maybe more Mexican now, I don’t know. Most whites don’t go there. But there I was, mopping the floor of the Safeway grocery store and laughing with the Black Mamas who came through my check-out line absolutely delighted to see me working for them. I also once attended a holy roller Baptist church in South LA, rocking, truly, and the congregation was pleased as punch to see the shade of white sticking out like a sore thumb. Don’t let the boogie man run off with your cool. 😃😃😃
c’mon, Irineo, there must be some guided tours of east germany (scary places included) where one can just disappear or be invisible among a group of tourists. and if you stay with the group, you’ll be safe and wont attract attention unless you are the eurovision song contest winner of the year.
potsdam is nice apparently as well as many other historic towns. and are worth a visit. lufthansa goes there regularly. and with your europassport, you can go just about anywhere.
I don’t really want to watch any people in economic misery like animals in the zoo. I meant the dark blue areas in the second map. Potsdam is close to Berlin-Wannsee, where I was born, I’ve been there. Leipzig I have been. Dresden many Filipinos visit in summer and take pictures..
hence the difference, taga D and E ako and feels affinity with the lowest of the low, the disenfranchised, and those on the peripheries. their miseries are also mine, a cross for me to bear.
thanks for your honesty.
Well, I do understand how it is to be relatively poor, but that was the short time when we were new in Germany and had very little, had secondhand clothes, and furniture that others threw away but we could still use. My brother and I walked to school as we had neither money for bikes nor bus tickets. When we had our first basic bikes, things got a bit better. Worked in McDonald’s to finance my driving lessons and get my driver’s license. When I got into university, I had first odd programming jobs to have a little money on the side.
So it isn’t like we always lived in luxury or something, but we weren’t rock bottom either. Thanks to the public library, I was able to keep up with staying educated, or I speed read books I couldn’t buy yet at the bookstore. Since my mother gradually was promoted, my siblings gradually had it better than me. Probably my very materialistic choice of an IT career was because I really HATED being poor after having been a privileged kid sa Pilipinas. My little not so little anymore sister chose to do something she loved. That is how life can go.
Many of those who are poor in a rich country don’t want obviously better off people to hang around them. Probably, it makes them feel ashamed as opportunities exist over here. It is possibly easier to be poor in a country with LESS opportunities like the Philippines.
Being poor here is being like everyone else you know, so maybe not as emotionally punishing as living in a box on Fourth and Main.
Poor here suffer the same insecurities as anyone.
The problem arises when the better off create their own insecurities.
even the uber rich suffers insecurities, so afraid of losing their wealth that they hoard riches and hoards some more, making sure they will never be without. presidents may come and go, but the wealth of the rich stays with them true to the end. and like what we girls say, diamonds are girls best friend.
It’s all self-deception, the excuses one comes up with to explain one’s dismal state of struggle. Intellectual and emotional weakness.
pardon me, I cannot hide my widely grinning D & E face, off to buy a carton of eggs is me! sorry about democracy american style, I think, I am the only filipino who has not set foot in american soil and what I know of america can be accommodated in a single grain of rice. a little knowledge being so dangerous and here is me dangerously spinning, about the america that is now the center stage of all that is ultimately worldly, numero uno in all things. america first, for americans to be complaining about the price of eggs had D & E like me grinning and spinning. welcome to the club.
in phil we des sell our votes and can well afford a carton of eggs many times over. during election time, we can even afford to update our old gadgets like cellphones, pay bills, eat well and set one candidate against each other. the bigger the spender the candidate is and the richer the candidate is, the more votes he can buy. whether he wins or not, not our problem. we already got a share of the loot. though not all richer than rich candidates wins, eg. ex pres noy won against bilyonaryo manny villar.
american voters can surely learn a thing or two from us, and if they do, the price of eggs is going to be the lest of their worries. and that is democracy.
You are absolutely right, k, and I’m pondering on an article or two that considers how absolutely terrific the Philippines is. I am amazed each time I load up on my wife’s omelettes or sunny side ups.
I don’t quite understand JoeAm’s position that democracy requires DEI. Wasn’t the US a democracy for decades while it was not DEI?
There are different forms of democracy. The US is built on concepts of liberty and equality. The liberal social movements starting with women’s voting rights, then racial equality, then handicapped, then gay rights, all were premised on the idea that those disadvantaged by social values that went against the grain of liberty and equality should be given equal rights and, to achieve them, advantages to not be excluded from college or jobs. So we got the affirmative action and employment laws that gave preference to women or minorities. These are the laws that seem discriminatory against whites, to some whites like MAGAS. These “woke” laws are now being taken down, and minorities and women will now return to being the disadvantaged class.
So my view is decidedly liberal. I think it is healthy for women, minorities, and others to not form a class that is suppressed by the biases of white men. If a competent Filipino interviews for a job and is turned down solely because of his brown skin, that’s wrong.
There is also the concept of damages. If the black population was held in slavery, then released and expected to live a productive life, if you don’t mandate that doors to education and work be opened, you are essentially holding them in enduring slavery. So you MUST compensate for the damages you imposed. Thus, DEI laws like affirmative action and fair employment.
Without those laws, you are not executing the mandates of the Constitution.
I see…so if I understand you correctly, you are saying that American democracy requires DEI. Personally I think humanity requires DEI. I consider it part of the maturation process of a society, be it a democracy or not.
Both statements are correct. Democracy values humanity more than dictatorships.
Personally, I like to look at people more than forms and/or structure. I believe that a good people can take any form of government or whatever (like work organization) and make it work for good, and bad people can make an otherwise good system not work. I recall that the citizens of the Kingdom of Bhutan did not want a democracy as proposed by their king, because they were not impressed with their neighbors who had democracies.
In a bible study I recall that the Israelites wanted to have a king, just like their neighbors. God tried to warn them that a king was not a good idea. They insisted. So God gave them kings…42 of them and 1 queen. Of the 43, most were bad. I think less than 10 were considered good.
Character should be the first quality people consider, for sure. Which makes one’s jaw drop to see the character of the people who get elected these days. But we are given a democratic form of government and are allowed, even expected, to participate by voting or speaking or even protesting. So I participate rather than follow orders. In the government are good people and bad, and good ideas and bad. One chooses to try to tip the balance, or one does not. That’s freedom I suppose.
I take issue with the penchant of the elite in the Philippines to latch onto the temporary misfortunes of other countries, especially the US, to somehow justify the current state of affairs in the Philippines. In my opinion, this penchant is just as self-damaging as American Exceptionalism can be at times, except in the case of the idealism of American Exceptionalism being able to sometimes drive intense periods of progress, excuse-finding behavior is just that, finding excuses to justify nothing being done. No wonder most DE Filipinos’ only engagement with the local to provincial to national government is “what can you give me NOW” — if crumbs of stuff isn’t grabbed straight away, promises of big things might never come true. DE Filipinos see through the empty words and BS from most elites.
Democracy still exists in the US, regardless of hyperbolic “news” stories and MSM opinion columnists, who by the way are a large part of the reason why the US got to where she is in the first place. I refuse to respect the opinion of so-called journalists who gleefully write about how democracy is burning, when the Fourth Estate has the most powerful tool to provide a voice to the Third Estate, and would rather stand idly by opining rather than picking up the bucket of water that is right at their feet. The truth here is the US federal system provides the individual states with immense power (actually the majority of the power that ultimately affects American lives), and governors are already fighting back. Civic society is mobilizing. Civic Society, by the way, which while weaker in the US than in certain (mostly Central and Eastern) European countries, is still much stronger than in the Philippines. I myself have been spending the last month engaging with Civic Society, helping to organize local opposition against the MAGA takeover of my city.
I had also been around during my university years when concepts like DEI, which originated in the 1970s African American intellectual community, were developed further before being mainstreamed. I agree with the premise, but I don’t agree with how the term had been used by both proponents and detractors. These originally academic terms are easily weaponized to the point where we have rando politicians in Europe, Russia, and yes the Philippines complaining about DEI, CRT, Woke, etc, etc. despite being totally out of context. How did we get here where the terms were reversed? Because well-meaning affluent White Americans used these terms to virtue-signal their moral elevation rather than actually believe in the ethnics behind the terms — see how fast those organizations and corporations are running away from “DEI” now that Trump threatened them. How about using the appropriate term, which is “Merit.” Merit is race-blind, ethnicity-blind, gender-blind, religion-blind. Merit is “can you do it or not?”
I also believe that if one truly loves one’s country, whether it be myself with the US, or a Filipino with the Philippines, then one must operate within the constitution no matter how difficult the slog will be to get things moving. Americans or Filipinos, sitting around complaining nothing never gets done, yet don’t have to put in the minimum effort of engaging in Civic Society have no right to complain in my opinion. Doing hardly nothing yet demanding big change is how we get dictators who can cut through laws and constitutions to give preferential treatment to certain groups. Individually we are weak, but together within Civic Society we are strong. A strong Civic Society is how former Soviet satellites like Romania, Poland, Ukraine, and the Baltics survived.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_society
“Americans or Filipinos, sitting around complaining nothing never gets done, yet don’t have to put in the minimum effort of engaging in Civic Society have no right to complain in my opinion.” Astounding rejection of the first Amendment. If Americans in the Philippines and Filipinos complaining and looking within and elsewhere than the US are in fact a part of the rejecting force that wakes Americans up as to the real-world damage of Trump’s knee-jerk policies, then they have played a constructive role in the give and take of democratic politics. Indeed, your throwing water on their complaints seems to suggest you want appeasement with the real-world knee-jerk policies of Trump, and Republicans rolling over, and media moguls like Bezos supporting the destruction of American values. I can’t at this moment distinguish your views from his.
Joe, you know that you and I agree on practically the majority of issues. I even agree with most of your opinion on the approach, though sometimes I think there are more updated and effective ways to approach problems and say so. I am also a speed reader. I do often re-read at least once to make sure I’m understanding the context and what the writer meant. What you seem to think I meant in your reply, does not match with what I tried to convey in my original comment. To be frank, I do not feel respected here, and have not for a while. There are other ways to express disagreement effectively that does not require putting someone on blast.
“I do not feel respected here, and have not for a while.” Feeling’s mutual. Let’s be clear here that the villains are in Washington DC, and wherever Trump’s acolytes gather. How people respond reflects their own situation and is always, always legitimate, whether it is the way you would do it or not.
Justin Trudeau ripped Trump for his senseless trade war.
“TORONTO (AP) — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday called American tariffs “very dumb” and said that U.S. President Donald Trump is appeasing Russia while launching a trade war against Canada.
In a blunt news conference during his final days in office, Trudeau said that Canada would plaster retaliatory tariffs on more than $100 billion of American goods in response to Trump’s 25% tariffs.
“Today the United States launched a trade war against Canada, their closest partner and ally, their closest friend. At the same time, they are talking about working positively with Russia, appeasing Vladimir Putin, a lying, murderous dictator. Make that make sense,” a visibly angry Trudeau said.”
Many of us feel the same way because we are affected, one way or another. As an ardent capitalist, my best performing investment today is a mutual fund that holds foreign (outside the US) stocks. It is up, everything American is down. No need to worry about critics. They are on the right side of the mess.
https://apnews.com/article/trudeau-trump-canada-tariffs-us-5d5ef8bd41c4567926d543a9526b2e84
The European Union is acting. This all is very real. Americans have a problem
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/04/nx-s1-5317453/europe-defense-trump-ukraine-russia
There were previous times where you seemed to misunderstand what I commented on, and I often took a conciliatory stance out of respect for you and this blog. A lot of the misunderstanding seems to stem from not fully digesting the context of my comments, which while admittedly long-form, seems to just underline the point that nowadays long-form thinking and discussion is dead. For most of my career, I managed people 20 years my senior. I do not have thin skin, but I do wish you had addressed this previously if there was a problem. I was under the impression this is a discussion blog to share and develop ideas, which is the point of small-l liberalism. I do not go off on tangents about aliens and psychics. I can take constructive disagreement and criticism, but this is a bit too far.
By the way, I am in agreement with the concern about the shambolic idiots in the White House, but that doesn’t reflect America as a whole, especially when American Civic Society is starting to pushback from the left to center-left to center-right, and push back quite strongly and unapologetically. Unengaged citizens, who are the main reason why Trump won twice, are waking up. Europe won’t get its act together anytime soon. Words do not equal actions, and nice words from the British and the French which have a pre-requisite of American backstop as admitted by both countries have been commented heavily in Eastern European media as of today after Hungary once again blocked any action. I have limited time between work and doing my part in-person to save American democracy.
I confess your excellent commentary, truly remarkable for its eloquence, tests my mental capacities. I get exhausted and pick one or two points that strike me one way or another, and respond. Today it is the legitimacy of critics. I believe critics are always legitimate unless they are trolls or crooks, and the idea that they have to be doing something rather than complaining seems to me to be a form of elitism. Complaints add up and you express confidence that they will add up in America and you’ll right the Trump ship.
I think it would be foolish of the Philippines to simply figure everything will be fine. Canada and the EU don’t trust the US, clearly. The Philippines is working on multiple alliances, and that is the right approach. The US will do what she does and the Philippines should not rely on a nation that appears no longer to care about humanity.
Well, your perspective is a bit similar to that of many of my mother’s Berlin (no Berliner will accept a reference to East/West anymore even as they are as loyal to their respective districts as New Yorkers are to their borough) US friends who mostly are in Democrats Abroad groups.
My perspective of the Philippines is at times as disillusioned, but I temper that ever since I felt how harsh misjudgment (by Micha) of my by now local perspective of Germany from afar is.
We tend to fall into nostalgia when looking at the old country from afar or any place we were. African-Americans who had studied in Heidelberg in the 1920s when it was FAR less racist than the USA they knew were SHOCKED when 1933 happened in Germany. It isn’t easy.
It isn’t easy, for sure. It’s complicated by greedy people with power and the stunning inability of voters to see character and connect it to likely outcomes that affect them. Modern electronic media muddy thinking rather than clarify it. I think how different it would be if white American men had found it within themselves to vote for a capable, rational black/Indian woman. Such weakness of intellect and emotional make-up.
Thanks Joe. Glad we got on the same page again. I respect the amount of time you invest in running this blog and providing a place for discussion. In the year or so I’ve been here, I regularly spend hours each day reading and thinking about how I can contribute based on my experience — though there are many times when something is said is so good it serves as a capstone.
It’s sad that there aren’t more commenters here, but sometimes it seems that slight deviation from orthodoxy is frowned upon here and that scares away a lot of potential participants. By deviation, I’m not referring to totally out of this world heterodox views held by contrarians but trying to come up with new ways to tackle existing problems when old methods have not worked.
To go along that line of deviation from orthodoxy, sure criticism is a part of the democratic process, but it seems to me that as the world globalized after the Cold War, an elite class of critics arose whose main activity is to criticize yet they do not offer any constructive solutions. These elite critics also tend to change their positions, at times drastically. At other times, these elite critics also hyperventilate about positions they don’t seem to fully understand. This has been a big problem in the West and contributed to distrust in the media as this behavior comes off as inauthentic. This problem also exists in Western-adjacent countries like the Philippines. Authenticity and thus trust comes from being able to connect current events with one’s own experiences. Too often people, even these elite critics, tend to talk about stuff they don’t know much about. When I don’t know much about something, I tend to be quiet and seek those who know who can impart that missing knowledge.
I get what you’re saying about allies finding it hard to trust the US, at least at the federal foreign policy level, but I would encourage us to follow front-line countries like in Eastern Europe and the Baltics. Aside from the Philippines, Thailand, Japan and South Korea, I had spent a lot of time in Eastern Europe and the Baltics. Those front-line countries are treating the endless “summits” of happy talk by Western European leaders with suspicion. Just yesterday, the new EU proposals for re-arming Europe and aiding Ukraine were blocked by Hungary. See here comments by Polish PM Tusk regarding the British-French condition of the “American backstop” in their aid proposal:
https://x.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1896187479092560179
“500 million Europeans are asking 300 million Americans to defend them against 140 million Russians.”
European defense manufacturing has atrophied by quite a bit after the Cold War with the reduction in defense spending. European air forces are a generation behind, European navies are anemic, and so on. The French have the most self-reliant stance and industry, but France does not have the capacity, hence Macron trying to position France as the EU’s new leader in order to gain defense contracts to save French companies. The situation is quite complicated, as a veteran friend who is the son of a certain famous general conveyed to me recently. As bad as the US looks right now, Americans are waking up and fighting back. Trump did not win with a majority, rather Trump has a bare sliver of a plurality due to too many Americans not performing their basic civic duty of voting. Well, people tend to vote if they are pissed, and the country is pissed at the moment. It would be good if American allies are more resilient, but I would not count the US out either. All countries need to be resilient for the coming WWIII.
It is interesting watching Europe deal with the new reality of Trump which is one of betrayal and hostility. His latest, cutting off satellite intelligence and tossing out Ukrainians who fled to the US, is unbelievably cruel. Clearly Europe is on their own. And my point, which started our argument, is that the Philippines needs to act as if she were on her own, too, and build with states that are diplomatically more trustworthy. If American institutions, which include people screaming at Republicans, can change the way the US deals with other nations, great. But I think the Republican base is in hate mode, too, so I don’t see a sea change happening.
Hmm, Orthodoxy can be really cool. Priests get married and usually have the hottest women as wives, have long beards, and sing in deep bass voices.
Joke lang, I will expound on this in a longer answer, to be continued.
OK, my answer. We always have core beliefs or mental models. The world is too complex, and we have to simplify to even understand it and even simplify more to give it order as the main principle of nature is entropy.
Certain belief systems work for very long until new realities catch up with them. Modern capitalism caught up with the feudal economy and made feudalism obsolete in Europe, leading first to absolutism and then to democracy with checks and balances.
There were societies that were civic from the start, like Switzerland, gentleman farmers who shook off feudal overlords very early. Some of their advantage was topographic, and another was the cultural advantage of mountain people with very closely knit societies.
The opposite case study to Switzerland is the Duchy of Liechtenstein just across the Rhine River, basically a mountain that no one could conquer, so still under a Lord. And as the 20K population of that tax haven lives reasonably well, they probably are OK with that.
Liberal democracy has been facing challenges to its orthodoxy for quite a while and must change to survive. In Europe, we can learn from Eastern European civic society. In Germany, we cut that short too early and have the consequences now. In the USA, well. Joey pls tell us.
One more thing, sometimes there is something useful in movements and counter movements. Would the intellectual splendor of the Jesuits have existed if there had been no need for a counter Reformation? For many in the Vatican, Martin Luther was a troll using the new social media of the times, that of Gutenberg whom he knew personally. Contrast that to the care that went into copying manuscripts by hand. Not mocking the deep intellectual legacy of the monks here, who did save a lot of ancient knowledge from the Dark Ages.
Liberalism has given much to the world since its inception. Just taking the last 80 years of post-war liberalism, the world has been free of globe-spanning conflict from behind the American aegis. Of course, when looking at domestic situations, there are some Europeans who chafe against the so-called “American hegemony” where the Old World feels less important somehow, while there are increasing numbers of Americans who feel burdened by feeling compelled to the thankless task (that often requires military commitment) of keeping free trade flowing. But by and large, the era of peace has allowed the Western World to live in a certain decadence and comfort. Here I don’t mean decadence as meaning literal riches, rather that facsimile created by access to credit that enables excess materialism while feeling like one is in a rat-race of survival in a world of dwindling resources… see the liberal political and geopolitical order abandoned the Keynesianism that propelled us into abundance post-war, where even liberal politicians have adopted the neoliberal Austrian Model of economics (most prominently expressed in the US by the Chicago School).
Neoliberal economics promotes globalization without consideration for the lives of each worker. In a neoliberal economic world, workers are simply inputs, resources to be reallocated or cut, no longer valued as humans with needs and aspirations. If a factory where one’s father was able to work his entire life in a decent, dignified union labor job was closed down and moved overseas, the son is expected to find his own way and re-train himself despite being given no direction or assistance. This is what happened in the US industrial heartland, where the “Steel Belt” decayed into the “Rust Belt.” But unlike factories that can move to chase cheaper labor, people have families and relationships that root them to the land, like in another blighted region such as Appalachia. A person may be feel defeated at first, but the rage and resentment simmers much like a pot of near-boiling water that only requires the addition of an ingredient such as a populist demagogue in order to reduce the surface tension just enough that the pot boils over suddenly.
A problem I have seen during my lifetime was that liberal and progressive politics has become increasingly diluted as politicians became a professional class of technocrats, just like the business leaders they hobnob with regularly. When a politician no longer requires the support of the people to finance campaigns, the politician’s ear goes to big financiers rather than to the people. There is no more accountability. Similarly, with the transformation of politicians into professional technocrats, there are now armies of political consultants who supposedly know how to win, but effectively only exist to make their political bosses feel good about themselves. So much money is wasted on such consultants; a billion dollars the last time around by the Democrats. The other day, I was quite disappointed in Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer who rolled over on the single most effective bargaining chip he had. I would observe that the 9 other Democratic senators who followed him in cowardice all have deep corporate-backer connections.
In America across the “Red states,” education has also been incrementally undermined for two generations. Without education, people are more easily controlled, which is no wonder reactionary forces that joined up with the greed of businesses identified education which is controlled by each US state as one of the first targets as they started wresting power away from liberals in the US after 1968. Many GenZ Americans cannot think more than 15-second increments, and some studies have reported their average reading level is equivalent to a 11 year old. Same for their GenX parents who grew up during the time when segregationists figured out how to legally oppose Brown vs Board of Education which integrated American schools. The only interjection was for American Millennials whose critical educational years were mostly during Clinton and a softer version of conservatism under Bush Jr. who supported education through federal grants.
I listen to a diverse number of political voices from the progressive left, center-left, and center-right. I’ve concluded that the reason why the right often wins is that sadly they know how to communicate better. What Trump did so well was to have a “bumper sticker” slogan for each targeted voter group, consisting of memorable, repeatable 3-4 word phrases that elicit emotion. Trump’s messages hooked onto the resentment and simmering rage of each societal segment. Farage and his Brexiteers did very much the same. From what I’ve heard of the AfD through friends has the AfD engaging in the same tactic, as does the National Front in France. While on our side of supporters of liberal democracy, our leaders speak in wonkish language that to an average person sounds like technocratic babble-speak. We need to change that.
Without finding a way to connect to people hurt by globalism as it had played out, the accompanying regional wars pushing migrant waves “West” that destabilized already fragile societies that had lost its Civic Society supports, there’s no way to win against the power of monied interests when divided. Liberalism needs to win again and secure her position, then make good on promises to regain people’s trust in the West. Only then when in power can modern day equivalents of Robber Baron trusts can be broken down and Civic Society rebuilt.
Capitalism is a power, no doubt, restrained by laws. Social good, or DEI, is also a power. It tries to restrain the capitalists. If it is losing, it’s because capitalists are more ruthless.
Well, America does have and always had two sides and I guess being in the USA nowadays is about as difficult as the situation of Marty having to deal with the ancestor of Biff in Back to the Future 3, though you probably know more about guns than Marty and are technologically almost as proficient (or more?) than Doc Brown. LCPL_X, who didn’t forget my three American archetypes of businessman, missionary, and cowboy, is a sad example of America going off the rails. I have already told Gian and Karl in our GC that all of us have to focus on the home front at this point, each one of us where we are, respectively. If YOUR (fiberglass-based, super high both upstream and downstream char) bandwidth has limits mine definitely has. Europe is in a far worse situation than in the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s. We shall see how this goes.
europe may have a bigger pest in hungary’s victor orban. once seen as hungary’s hero, now possibly the bringer of hungary’s demise. he and trump should get along fine, both populists and egocentric. my swedish pen friends dont like orban, he tried hard to block sweden’s nato membership, galling but to no avail. and sweden succeeded in becoming nato member nation. latest I heard, pro putin victor orban vetoed europe’s military aid to ukraine.
I think every country has two sides, including the US. There is American idealism, often expressed in American Exceptionalism, but there is also a darker side of slavery and Jim Crow. But the important thing is for progress to march forward, despite occasional setbacks by the reactionary undercurrent. I think overall, the US had progressed quite a bit towards a more perfect version of the American Founders’ ideals, and a largely benevolent US had kept the globe out of major world wars for eight decades bringing prosperity to many.
I saw a tweet by Representative Sean Casten recently that seems to encapsulate this perfectly:
https://x.com/SeanCasten/status/1896274329031319676
“Doing diplomacy from a position of strength requires conveying red-lines with kindness. As a Romanian diplomat once told me, the US is ‘the nicest bully in the world’ – and that weaker countries only bully.”
It is everyone’s duty to cultivate and preserve democracy. Too often in today’s busy world, here in the West many are stuck in the paradox of endless toil, yet also access to easy credit that enables a life of decadent materialism in a way. This can foster resentment, in which out-groups are easy targets as the real problem which are the elites are out of reach for vengeance for the individual. This is a huge problem, and we can all help as much as we can to foster a stronger Civil Society as I observed in Eastern Europe, the Baltics, Latin America and Africa. Civil Society builds human connections and highlights commonalities, providing resilience against undemocratic thinking or action. Take the example of Romania, which we discussed before many times, part of the reason why Romanians were able to reform their country was due to a quite strong Civil Society that existed throughout the rule of communism that provided the basis of strong democratic reforms.
Here at home in the US, even MAGAs are starting to wake up, as the billionaires have finally went too far and MAGAs are starting to feel the pain personally. You might have seen clips of town hall meetings here where Republican politicians literally got up and ran off from their own constituents, and it’s happening more. Popular backlash is building, which probably will wash away at least one generation of geriatric Democratic politicians who cling to power along with the Republicans who enabled Trump and his billionaires. Trump’s advisors are already telling him to consider executive orders to effectively have a loyalty test to own firearms, as a ruse to take away firearms from liberals. Well, the American Founders did say that the final backstop against tyranny are the people themselves, and Americans have a lot of guns.
(I do have a lot of mental bandwidth, mostly as a byproduct of insomnia, but here at home my fiber internet speed is 5Gbps up/down.)
Joey,
I disagreed with you a lot and I even said that you were quick to judge, if you felt disrespected then I am telling you those were supposed to be respectful disagreements.
Joey has been the intellectual equivalent of the Russian I played chess with for months on end during lunch breaks at a UN project early in my career, a great sparring partner, and a fair one. Definitely NOT like the Algerian-French man who was two belts higher than me at the dojo during my university days and pretty much used his being more advanced to go full contact, though that isn’t really a thing in shotokan karate. That one did inspire me to level up, though, and when I was strong enough and just a belt lower, I could hit back. A bit like with Micha. 😀
Personally, my fighting philosophy (both verbal and physical) usually involves a single critical strike, similar to rope-a-dope. That served me quite well when I used to be active in competitive martial arts. I do hate bullies though, and often feel solidarity with the little guy. I’m probably one of the few people who doesn’t stay a bystander and steps forward to do/say something if there is trouble. I do have a terrible temper, and can go full warfreak, but have practiced calmness so it’s not very apparent. Patience is something one actively practices. No one is born with patience.
pst, sometimes, he is so like trump, show respect zelensky, you ungrateful sod! and zelensky was kicked out, sans american dinner.
but I am no ukrainian, am filipino and a lot worst. of course, I respected him, he just have not seen my knees roughened by constant genuflecting each time I see his scowling pic!
Well, if I had offended you in some way, please feel free to speak up on it. Being direct allows the other person to at least explain their side, rather than one or both sides working off of assumptions and hard feelings. I enjoy your commentary, and often laugh along with your sarcasm. If my profile picture bothers you, I will find a different one, though I cannot promise the next picture won’t be similar. We suplado-faces did not have a choice in the face we were born with. Ukraine is one country I have also visited a lot aside from the Philippines. I did a lot of work in Ukraine with the Redemptorists. I would not mistake Zelenskyy’s attempt at diplomacy as weakness. Ukrainians are not a weak people and don’t warfreak with just words; Ukrainians make sure their enemies feel the hurt, usually in ways that the enemy does not realize until its too late.
Haha if I were in charge at DOT to develop Filipino cuisine as world-class, I would send you around as a restaurant tester and spread the rumor that I listen to you and only those who make you smile will stay on my list. 😄
Being so-called “soft Asians” as opposed to “hard Asians” (Chinese, Japanese, Koreans) Filipinos are friendly but laid-back. Some degree of being less laid back isn’t that bad for making the country progress, though I admit I sometimes have loony ideas..
Well I think Filipino food is already world class. I reckon the issue preventing mainstreaming mostly has to do with making the presentation appetizing. After all, Japanese-American restaurateurs in the 1970s figured out that to make sushi appetizing the protein should be cooked, and the rice should be on the outside — makizushi (nori outside) vs uramaki (“California style,” nori inside). That simple aesthetic change introduced Americans to sushi, and now many Americans can even eat the traditional makizushi styles with raw fish, while the uramaki style was introduced back in Japan. If I were to popularize Filipino cuisine, I would give attention to the tendency to be heavy-handed on seasonings (salt, sugar and suka) that overwhelm the tastiness of Filipino food, and probably add more vegetables for color.
Contrary to my profile pic, I do smile a lot, if someone manages to make me laugh. Suplado face, or what we call RAF (Resting Asshole Face) in the US, can prevent conversation which may be good or bad. Sometimes I don’t feel like having people approach me hah. There was a cute barista at my usual cafe who finally worked up the courage to say “hi” after years and was shocked that I was able to show emotion 😄
“Soft” vs “hard” Asians may be just a stereotype though. Koreans and Japanese are well known for grim stoicism, especially Koreans, while Vietnamese and Thais are known for light-heartedness. That didn’t prevent Vietnamese and Thais from being calculating and determined fighters. While then Han Chinese being a “hard” culture mostly only achieved domination when they were dominated themselves by foreigners. I see Ukrainians very much the same way; a culture of art, light-heartedness, and kindness, but I wouldn’t want to screw with them. There is a certain Cossack mentality among Ukrainians that is really terrifying when they are moved to anger.
We do have many disagreements Karl. We are both strong-minded. But in the end, the important part is we agreed that our beliefs are basically the same, and the disagreements are only on the margins.
I miss you too, joey nguyen, warts and all.
and if you have noticed, we are like a family here, dysfunctional sometimes, but family, ask joeam.
we fight, we screamed, we pulled each others hair, we cold shouldered each other, stabbed one behind their back, step on each others toes, bite and scratched and kicked and punched and pulled each others teeth without anesthesia, poked each others eyes, but in the end, we love one another till thy kingdom comes. just takes getting used to. a family of nations. sometimes warring.
That is how I imagined it sometimes.
Agreed.
Diversity brought new ideas and values and cultures for which to be immersed into the great melting pot. However, it’s the so-called self-styled “nativists” who insist on national racial purity, to get rid of multiculturalism (again, just like a century ago with those marching Kluxers on DC) in favor of a homogeneous society where those racial and religious supremacists want to wake up to a “purified” America (again), where all others are banished away from sight (again and with segregation possibly reestablished) and to serve as serfs toiling the fields and factories.
As for here, the biggest threat to our multiculturalism are the moneyed fundamentalist religious groups — specifically that one with the Italian tricolor — bullying to have things like work culture make space for their own brethren, and force others to be converted if only to receive the same privileges such as better pay and other perks such as perceived brotherhood — except they have to pay larger tithes. Likewise, I read that there is some veiled hostility leveled against economic migrants from Mindanao who experience difficulty finding work and so are forced to write “Christian” instead of “Muslim” on the blank line if asked of their religion in an application form.
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As an aside, and sorry to say that bastard may about to cause two things: either see a new Bonus Army rise against him, or a possible mutiny within the US military.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/trump-military-veterans-job-cuts-benefits-health-care-1235289413/
I forgot where you are based ML, is it NYC?
Somewhere in Manila.
I see thanks.
Diversity is among the most honorable of all aspirations, I agree. Thanks for highlighting the dangers and damages from religious groups. They were off my radar but need to be on. Filipinos do like belonging to groups and that can drive away from diversity.
Many Republicans who voted for Trump are going to get hurt big time. Veterans for sure. Farmers who sell to Canada. Businesses that need immigrant labor to stay in business. Poor people who need medicare to stay alive. It’s a disaster.
being maybe the only filipino who has not been to estados unidos and not seen 1st hand how americans managed its migrant workforce, its problematic to me americans preferential use of unskilled migrant labor when there are so many homeless and unemployed americans living off the grid, healthy and fit enough to take over farm jobs or simple jobs as flipping burgers at macdonald’s! if its about pay with americans having to be paid more than migrants, then houston america has a problem.
anyhow, american veterans fired from their jobs found out that a new door has opened for them. they are being pursued now by russia and china willing to hire them, specially those federal veteran experts who used to work for security agencies.
ah, houston heaven helps america. she is going to be made legless and dance the watusi on one leg.
Legless America, rather perfect imagery. The work that Mexicans do in California farming is hard picking in the sun and hands on processing in the packing section. The homeless would not be hired, I think, because they are at the end of their emotional ability to cope. Mexican laborers are tougher.
MAGA led to more BPOs instead of the opposite.
https://www.bworldonline.com/economy/2025/03/05/657469/outsourcing-could-pick-up-with-us-tariffs-phl-offices-seen-as-possible-beneficiary/
That would be great. Interesting twist.
Yes a hmmmm moment.