I watched the United States’ Democratic convention with some envy about how technology was harnessed for the purpose. Until this virus has been licked and things are back to normal, if that happens at all, events like that would come to us only in this form—virtual.
I had been curious how the Democrats could pull it off, and I must say it was quite creatively put together; the program flowed as one. What it lacked in spontaneity, it made up for in substance. Devoid as it was of trimmings, rabble-rousing oratory and noisy, orchestrated cheering from a gallery for speakers to play to, nothing distracted from their message.
We got to see and hear Joe Biden up close and personal—as a family man, friend and champion of little people, as a party mate, even as a choice of some Republicans. He seems to come across as an easy sell, the very antithesis to the incumbent Donald Trump. Trump himself happens to possess too many similar unpleasant personality qualities with our own homegrown immature and self-absorbed President for him to stand a chance to win me over. I’m a sucker for character and nobility of spirit in a man.
Anyway, I may be a Democrat at heart but a mere interloper in US politics. For sentimental reasons, I have sustained my interest in American politics, and I wonder if the end of the civil war had settled the American differences, which exist emblematically between the two major parties.
I also ask myself why in the final analysis the national vote is disregarded and an electoral college gets to choose the winner for president and vice president. It’s not so, in our, I think, wiser system, in which what is proving the best part for me is the possibility of a vice president being elected independently of the president.
Time of Camelot
The seeds of interest in American politics grew in me in the five years, in the late ‘60s, that my young family and I lived in Houston, Texas. It was the time of Camelot, when the whole world was smitten with the young and handsome Democrat president John F. Kennedy and his classy wife, Jackie, and their two young children.
Kennedy was assassinated in nearby Dallas, and, like so many, I was shocked and moved to tears. What was even more shocking to me was the reaction of a friend and neighbor, who happened to be white: “He had it coming! His children don’t have to be bussed.”
She was a friend, as considerate and generous as friends come, and a regular churchgoer. She brought me on one of her monthly visits, laden with gifts, to the black nanny who had raised her. We remained friends for many years until so much time and distance came between us and we lost touch.
I couldn’t reconcile how such a nice person could have no compassion in her heart even for Jackie, whose children were the same age as her own.
It took time for me to realize she was reacting as a Republican, thus anti-Democrat, in a very personal way. The Democrats wanted to racially integrate the schools, and her children would be adversely affected. Which makes me wonder even now if the two parties were not like oil and water, impossible to come together.
Imagine my surprise when I saw a dozen Republicans cross party lines to support Biden. I thought that spoke volumes of the man.
I already liked Biden, even if in the beginning he had not excited me as Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama had. Initially I had thought him, like Bernie Sanders, too old for the job; there were other younger brilliant, if controversial, choices, a number of them women who have come into their own. His own choice for vice president, Kamala Harris, could bring youthful excitement to his team.
Free press
I may be saling pusa, but I enjoy watching how Americans decide what’s good for them. I’m not worried about them—they have no reason not to make an informed choice when they have limitless access to information through a free press. I am anxious to see how America addresses the pandemic under Biden or again under Trump, and how it rebuilds its economy and deals with racial issues.
As I see it, Trump needs desperately to win. He could face prosecution once out of office; people around him have found themselves in that situation. The similarities with our case are just too uncanny to ignore.
But we have our own advantages. We have an almost childlike faith in God, and, when the chips are down, courage, patriotism and compassion for fellow Filipinos emerge, and before we know it a miracle happens to tilt the balance righteously.
It’s easy, indeed, for us to believe in miracles, because that’s precisely what we need.