The winner

As in most other US elections in the past, what impressed me in the just concluded presidential race was the swift and gracious concession by loser Hillary Clinton and her call, together with President Barack Obama, for Americans to rally behind winner Donald Trump.

There are people who still can’t say “President Donald Trump” without choking on the words. Yesterday we watched protests erupt in several US states over the election results.

But after protesters have blown off steam, emotions will likely simmer down (though not the talk show jokes). And Americans will accept – if not rally behind – Trump as their duly elected 45th president.

It helped that Trump was also gracious and conciliatory in victory, asking his compatriots to “come together” and promising to be a president “for all Americans.” He sought “common ground not hostility” and “partnership not conflict” as he vowed to “get along with all nations.” Trump seems to be warming up to statesmanship quicker than someone we know…

Since Trump has been inconsistent in his remarks during the campaign, however, the more reassuring statements came from Obama and Clinton, who urged stunned and disappointed Americans to support the new president.

The call for support was more for the institution rather than the person. But it was calming enough for stocks at least in Asia to make a dramatic recovery yesterday from a Trump-triggered plunge.

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Trump won by a convincing margin, to the dismay of pollsters and many analysts in the US. With Clinton’s swift concession, it quickly became clear that it was a credible victory. The world knows the predictable cycle of leadership changes in America will continue.

As of yesterday, even as protests raged in several US cities, world leaders began sending their congratulations to the American president-elect. Several world leaders publicly expressed wish lists in their ties with the incoming US administration. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon hoped that Trump would support global efforts to confront climate change, despite his campaign rhetoric to the contrary. I don’t think Trump would take Ban’s words as “intervention” in US affairs. Mexico’s Enrique Peña-Nieto is preparing for a meeting with Trump, who had promised to build a wall between the two countries (paid for by Mexicans) to keep out illegal immigrants.

The groups the president-elect had offended during his campaign are dismayed by the public support, expressed through the ballot, for the world according to Donald Trump. There are expressions of dismay over the pitfalls of democracy. But the frustrations are balanced by the iron-clad belief in the stability of American democracy. Those unhappy with the election results are certain that this, too, shall pass, and the next presidential race will be around sooner than we think.

So when Obama and Clinton ask their fellow Americans to give Trump a chance, you know many people will come around to it.

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US officials have told me in the past that for them, elections are the true manifestations of people power – the bedrock of a government by, of and for the people.

The world’s bastion of democracy, as we all know, was not always a paragon of suffrage, denying American women the right to vote until 1920. (Filipinas won suffrage in 1937.) While the US Constitution gave African-Americans the right to vote, various types of barriers were set, which were fully lifted only in 1965.

But Americans like their elections to be held regularly, as scheduled, except of course when circumstances such as war make this impossible.

And we have seen how they put a premium on the holding of free elections as an integral manifestation of democracy at work, or democracy taking root in previously authoritarian states.

Democracy can be an unwieldy system, even for advanced economies. Without capacity-building and institutional strengthening to accompany free elections, fledgling democracies – especially those that are new to the system – can implode and become violence-torn failed states.

We had decades of democracy before Ferdinand Marcos imposed his dictatorship, so post-people power Philippines did not implode.

But you can see that we have failed to do our homework in institution building and structural reforms. Among the manifestations is the public support for murder as the ultimate tool of law enforcement, and the looming burial of Marcos in a cemetery meant for heroes, thanks to the Supreme Court and big Marcos fan Rodrigo Duterte.

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Rude Rody has been called the Philippines’ Trump, but the US president-elect has not killed or ordered anyone killed, and he knows how to control public expressions of profanities.

Regardless of the criticisms hurled at Trump, Du30 reportedly looks forward to working with his incoming US counterpart. Du30 has also promised to stop fighting with the US – although this was yesterday. But perhaps Du30 is simply glad that the guy he believed would lecture him on human rights, Obama, is on the way out.

Du30 probably believes his “independent” foreign policy jibes with the inward-looking Trump. But the insularity also means Trump will likely follow through on his promise to bring jobs back to America. Many of those jobs are currently held by Filipinos.

We wonder if Trump is also preparing for his own metamorphosis. The leader of the free world cannot be seen as an unstable, insular loose cannon. He has to outgrow his reported fondness for groping women.

It will be interesting to watch if Trump will grow into the job, especially since our own populist President seems unable or unwilling to do so.

My favorite line from Hillary Clinton during her campaign was this: America is great, she said, because it is good.

Or at least it makes an effort to be good.

In the US race, democracy has won. Warts and all.