The new world (dis) order
HEART & MIND Paulynn P. Sicam
Today is the first day of the rest of our lives. It may well be the last of normal life for the next four years for a lot of people. The most powerful country in the world is now run by Donald J. Trump, a billionaire and reality show host who has shown little respect for persons, institutions, ideas and values that have held our fragile world together.
Many Americans are furious and fearful at this turn of events. They cannot believe it is happening in the US of A. How has it happened that Trump, who is the anti-thesis of the American idea of a statesman, intellectual and patriot, could be occupying the White House right after the refined, eminently educated, erudite, urbane and compassionate Barack Obama?
The world so loved Obama that we cheered his Nobel Peace Prize awarded soon after he was first elected President. But the Republicans could not accept the idea of a black man running the country so well and winning the hearts and minds of the world. My guess is it embarrassed them that the “help” turned out to be far superior to all the presidents before him since Abraham Lincoln. Obama was so well-liked by the American electorate, they gave him two terms and, in spite of an obstructionist, Republican-dominated Congress, the country he represented grew in the world’s esteem. Barack Obama is so charismatic and likeable, he has found a permanent place in the hearts of people the world over.
Except perhaps for two people: Vladimir Putin, and the one heart in our country that beats like Donald Trump’s — and incidentally, for Putin — Rodrigo Duterte. Putin, because Obama stood in the way of his attempt at world domination, and Duterte because Obama warned him about human rights violations in his drive to rid the country of the drug menace through extrajudicial killings. Many Filipinos are furious about Duterte’s governance, his abrasive style, his crass language, his murderous anti-drug policy and his lack of respect for persons and institutions that question it, his pivot towards China and Russia, his lack of self-discipline. Getting rid of drug users and pushers drives his entire governance. But, like in the US, the election resulted in his victory. And our lives have not been the same since.
Trump, too, has totally spooked America and the world with his shallow appreciation of world events, his lack of respect for institutions, his belittling of US intelligence, his pivot towards Vladimir Putin and Russia, his focus on repealing Obama’s Affordable Care Act, his misogyny towards women. In the run-up to the inaugural, he showed little interest in uniting his divided country. With his infamous tweets, he has displayed an ego so large, an intellect so addled, and a vocabulary so limited, we started missing Obama’s brilliance, eloquence and humanity long before he actually stepped down. I fear that not even the majesty of the office will camouflage the unpreparedness of Donald J. Trump for the presidency.
Meryl Streep’s scorching commentary on his behavior in her acceptance speech at the Golden Globes last week and Saturday Night Live’s continuing parody of him elicited bratty, un-presidential retorts that must have satisfied his humungous ego but impressed no one. I suspect even his adoring Melania must have rolled her eyes upward in exasperation. Shouldn’t a president-elect be more concerned about matters of state and be above the fray of popular entertainment? Will this continue to be part of our daily diet of news from the White House?
In the Philippines, the president does not use social media himself. He doesn’t have to. He has an army of mindless trolls who defend his every act and create fake news disparaging his critics, and slavish spokespersons who try but fail to creatively massage his every brutal statement to sound like a joke or, at best, theoretical muni-muni. Still, he continues to spook the public with daily threats of murder and mayhem, and lately, threats to impose martial law.
Interestingly, Trump’s spokesperson Kellyanne Conway seems to have taken a page from Duterte’s interpreters, telling the US media that her boss is not responsible for the words he uses and journalists must instead focus on what’s in his heart. Say what?
We’ve had a head start of seven months with our president and he has become predictable, though no less upsetting. Now the agony of America and the rest of the world begins. In the larger scheme of things, Duterte is merely a pesky fly who annoys other world leaders with his careless insults, the latest of which involves North Korea strongman Kim Jung Il that his handlers are begging the media to forget. But the volatile Trump has the entire world as his oyster, with Twitter in one tiny hand and another finger on the nuclear button in the other.
Welcome to the new world (dis) order. Let us hope we survive the next four to six years.
