Chaos

With just a few weeks before the November 8 presidential vote in the US, the Republican Party appears to have descended into chaos.

One after another, elected Republican leaders have withdrawn support from Donald Trump. This happens after the release of old audiotapes that underscore the vulgarity of the candidate. In one of the tapes, Trump brags about incidents with women that amount to sexual assault.

Just as Trump released an apology for what was said in that particular tape, other voice recordings of his conversations with a popular radio host went public. Those conversations reinforce the image of Trump as a person who objectifies women, treats them as mere sex objects and behaves accordingly.

These tapes become public after a long train of incidents where Trump attacked journalists, wives of his rivals and former beauty queens for how they looked. That long train of incidents cost Trump the support of women voters. Most women voters are expected to vote against the candidate, a number that can only balloon further with the recent release of the audiotapes.

Trump, when he taped an apology for the first tape released tried to picture former president Bill Clinton as having said worse things while on the golf course. But Bill is not the candidate. Whatever he might have said is not recorded. People have discounted Bill’s “bimbo problem” long ago.

Candidate Trump’s chosen line of defense is no defense at all. It is the current candidate who must convince people he is safe to become president of the most powerful nation on earth.  His recent attacks against women undermine that effort to demonstrate he is a changed man.

Over the weekend, the Republican National Committee (RNC) signaled it will redirect campaign funding assistance “down ballot,” to the party’s candidates for state governors, congressmen and senators. The party wants to retain its congressional majority, a goal that is undermined by what appears to be a meltdown in the Trump campaign.

Several of the party’s leading lights, such as John McCain and Condoleeza Rice have declared they will not vote for Trump. The two are joined by Republican candidates for the US Senate and congressional districts who are locked in tight contests and cannot afford a backlash especially from women voters.

Actor Robert de Niro was so agitated by Trump that he declared he wanted to go to the candidate and punch him in the face. Some Republican leaders have openly spoke about the party dropping Trump and installing his vice-presidential candidate instead. That is how bad the situation has become for the Trump campaign.

Not a few veteran electoral strategists have virtually written off the Trump candidacy, although the surveys still show a tight race. We can only hope they are right. The planet will become a more dangerous place if Trump wins the White House.

Bilateral

Trump’s predicament is probably good for our bilateral relations. Imagine if the US has the volatile Donald Trump for president and we have Rodrigo Duterte. The two will probably engage in a word war and even lunge at the other’s neck at the next summit.

Over the past few weeks, Duterte has been on a talking marathon, repeatedly cussing at Barack Obama, ordering the cancellation of future RP-US military exercises and even threatening to break our long-standing alliance. He sneered at the international assistance we receive, calling them “crumbs.”

If he said those things during the campaign period, Duterte might have been branded a dangerous president who would bring uncertainty to our foreign affairs. The results of the election might be different.

Today, secure in his hold on the presidency with the overwhelming support of the police and the armed forces, Duterte dares the CIA to try and oust him. He has spoken with chilling fatalism about dying in office, asking the police and the military to do what they have to do to protect the nation.

There are shades of Hugo Chavez here, the man who brought down Venezuela from being the most prosperous nation in Latin America to the poorest. Not even Brazil, with its terrible economic problems, could ever hope to descend to the level of poor Venezuela.

 Trump, with his immense ego, could not possibly mix well with Duterte and his undisciplined mouth. He will not take Duterte’s threats likely and will respond in kind. Our bilateral relation will go down the drain.

Our bilateral relations with the US should have a better chance of survival with Hillary Clinton. She is deft with international relations and experienced at handling difficult foreign leaders. Besides, Duterte seems to have a healthy respect for matriarchal figures. His beloved mother trained him in that.

It could also be, independent of what is going on at the US presidential contest, Duterte could come around to getting a grip of his language and his propensity for reckless policy declarations. The President’s beef seems to be with Obama, who unilaterally cancelled their sideline talks in Laos.

Call it a learning curve. All presidents learn much more on the job than any previous training. The only difference is that Duterte adamantly refuses to read from a carefully prepared text and launches into stream-of-consciousness monologues like some born-again Fidel Castro. He must soon realize that he needs to shed off some unproductive hubris.

We have a talented and dedicated foreign service that carefully crafted our foreign policy for decades. The patriotic work of our professional diplomats should not be laid to waste by careless off-the-cuff remarks.