Donald Trump

[OPINION] An epitaph for the era of Trump

Jath Shao

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[OPINION] An epitaph for the era of Trump

Illustration by Raffy De Guzman

'Not all Fil-Ams are nurses, but it bears repeating that a third of COVID-19 related healthcare deaths were Fil-Ams'

Donald Trump was a failed businessman whose image was burnished by his TV show, The Apprentice – which was produced by the same producer as Survivor and The Amazing Race. During his presidency, over a third of a million lives have been lost to COVID – Los Angeles County in particular is suffering death every 10 minutes, or roughly 6 dead in the time it takes Jose Mari Chan to sing a Christmas carol. In a previous piece, we also talked about how history, religion, patriarchal values, and socioeconomic status influence the way Fil-Ams vote.

As the year of Trump 2020 concludes, let’s take a look back before we forget.

Patronized by the patriarchy

Although the grammar of our language is male-dominant, Filipino society is actually matriarchal at heart. As long as the doña of the house is strong, the clan is strong, no matter what happens with the don.

When the Spaniards colonized us, they imposed their religion and their patriarchal values on our society. If you know your history, it shouldn’t surprise you that some Filipinos would be attracted to a strongman figure – you only have to look as far as Dutz or Ramos or Marcos for even more effective examples.

Trump’s antics don’t faze us because we’re used to philandering leaders with a taste for pork, surrounded by sticky bandits who don’t mind getting their hands dirty.

Know your history

Twice this century, a Republican president lost the popular vote but won enough Electoral College votes to take over from a two-term Democratic president who had shepherded the economy through economic crisis and towards prosperity. He then presided over a recession, cutting taxes while increasing defense spending by chasing vendettas and coddling allies in the Middle East. The Bushs and the Saudi ruling family grew up as peers and friends in a Crazy Rich world leader stratosphere that the nouveau riche Trumps would never be invited into. While most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi, Bush had Saddam Hussein as his blood enemy, and narrowly won reelection in 2004 as the American electorate supported their commander in chief in a time of war. 

Due to a cocktail of hubris, stupidity, stubbornness, and subpar advice from sycophant advisers, Trump missed the golden opportunity to treat COVID-19 as a common enemy he could lead the fight against, and instead continued to demonize the other in his distinctly derisive and divisive manner. He didn’t just obstruct his own government’s efforts to procure PPE or distribute masks, but actively encouraged resistance, stoking the flames of a culture war between the left and right.

His voters know all of this. By 2020, they weren’t making excuses; they were arguing. They wanted Trump to fight for them, comparing him to imperfect leaders or prophets from obscure Bible verses with conveniently malleable interpretations. 

Also in the past two decades, Fil-Ams have grown to over 1% of the US population and electorate, becoming a key swing factor when races are won or lost by a few thousand votes in battleground states. Most Fil-Am immigrants naturalize to American citizenship, and there’s a slight majority of immigrants vs. natural-born citizens. We’re also proportionately more religious than the average American (43% Evangelical, 20% Catholic, 26% express no religious preference). 65% of Fil-Ams identify as Catholic and 21% as Evangelical. While only 2% of American Catholics are Asian-American, 75% of Asian-American Catholics are Fil-Am. Depending on which survey, Catholics voted for Biden over Trump by either a 50/49 or 47/46 margin, while Evangelicals voted for Trump 80/20 or 76/24. 

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In whose name?

In hopes of stealing the most secure election in history, Trump packed the court with an alcoholic sex abuser and a radical rightwing religious figure, solidifying a 6-3 majority of Catholics vs. non-Catholics (two justices are Jewish, and Gorsuch was raised Catholic but now identifies as Episcopal) on the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court and Congress are proportionately more religious than the American public. The latter is over 80% Christian, with the lower house at 54% Protestant and 33% Catholic, and the Senate at 60% and 22%, respectively.

Maybe that shouldn’t bother us, and maybe it should, but for believers, it’s often difficult to view things impartially without the lens of religion, and with a Catholic president, all 3 branches of government are now more religious than the general American public.

In both churches, there’s a schism between the more social justice side of the faith, and the law and order Pharisee types. Rather than just exercising their freedom to practice their religion, there are those who feel the government should impose restrictions on others’ freedoms based on their beliefs.

While not all Republicans are racists, not all Democrats are transgender baby killers or whatever caricature each side uses to demonize the other. Not all Fil-Ams are nurses, but it bears repeating that a third of COVID-19 related healthcare deaths were Fil-Ams, yet many of their titos and titas show up at Stop the Steal rallies decked out in the latest from the winter 2020 MAGA downline. 

In an alternate reality

In politics, it’s not about the truth, but how you tell the story. Not that long ago, you’d go to CNN if you wanted a center-left perspective, or to MSNBC or Fox if you leaned left or right. Thanks to the Internet and social media, you can find media to tell you what you want to hear, wherever you are on the spectrum. Four years of Trump shifted the conversation right to where there are now options for people to follow that are even further to either extreme. His bid to steal the election ended when Fox called Arizona, so now the Don espouses networks that are even more right-wing. As Republicans were pulled further right to not be called RINOS, Democrats became a center-left coalition that had to stretch to please more constituencies – but succeeded, partly because Trump motivated many in the middle to vote against him.

Just like rooting for sports teams, politics became about tribalism – identifying as one of the in-group and hating the other side. Many older first-generation Fil-Am immigrants clung to their identity and continued to vote Republican, despite the facts, because they were part of the tribe. Putting on the red hat made them feel more Christian and part of the dominant patriarchy. Many, many Fil-Ams are veterans – the flag means something to them, because their comrades bled and died for this nation.

They might not know or care that Trump celebrated Festivus on December 23 by continuing to air his grievances as USCIS formally canceled the Filipino World War II Veterans parole program that benefited our heroes and their families. It took him a week to sign a relief bill that had been flown to him on Christmas Eve, holding up well-deserved pay raises for the military, along with aid for families, small businesses, the unemployed, and funding for the distribution of COVID vaccines. He was the first president in history to ever veto the National Defense Authorization Act – a final act of vandalism against the service he found excuses not to serve in.

People with no prayer of ever earning or saving enough to ever be affected by wealth and estate tax proposals nonetheless happily voted to cut taxes on the rich, even as their own benefits were cut. Moms in the Philippines texted their Fil-Am adult children to pray for poor Trump who was always being made fun of, oblivious to the effects his administration’s policies had on their beloved children’s rights to their own bodies and their choices of who to love, not to mention the rights to clean air, clean energy, education, and better infrastructure for transportation. Truth didn’t matter to them anymore – they have just historically been Republican, and that meant more than their kids’ rational explanations.

Through a glass, darkly

No matter what our religion is, whether it’s Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, old-schoolism, new-schoolism, or any flavor or sect of any of the above, we need to be schooling the youth with wisdom – at a time when truth is subjective, religion trumps science, disinformation is rampant, and anyone with a different option can become the target of authoritarians and their cronies.

Now more than ever we need fearless journalists, lawyers, and writers willing to tell the people inconvenient truths they don’t want to hear. To do that, we’ll need to understand where the people are coming from – why they feel the way they feel and how best to reach them. The marathon doesn’t end with Biden’s inauguration on January 20 – the marathon still continues. – Rappler.com

Jath Shao is a lawyer, writer, and social scientist who is cautiously hopeful that 2021 will be a better year than the last. An experienced immigration lawyer who has helped clients across the US and the world, even his dog is an immigrant from the Philippines.

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