‘Will we ever see ourselves in the people we vote for, and therefore take far more time and care in considering the implications of our vote?’
IN three weeks, close to 200 million Americans will have trooped to the polls to elect their 47th president. If Republican Donald Trump wins, he will only be the second president in US history to serve two non-consecutive terms in office. The first and only one to have done so was (Stephen) Grover Cleveland (a Democrat) who was the 22nd and 24th president;
Cleveland lost his reelection campaign in 1888 to Republican Benjamin Harrison despite winning the popular vote. Trump, who was president #45, will be the first Republican and only the second ex-president to achieve this feat if fate is kind.
On the other hand, should Kamala Harris be successful, she would only be the 16th vice president to become president and the seventh to ascend to the presidency by being elected on her own terms. Nine others ascended to the presidency because the president died in office: five by sickness, three by assassination and one by resignation.
More significantly though, Harris would be the first woman and the first of mixed race to ever become president.
As of this writing, Americans are deeply divided. This is not really recent, but what is recent is that the divide is no longer simply along partisan lines based on programs and principles; today the divide is along values, values that used to keep America united and in the leadership position of the Western democracies.
These days even the values that are critical to a working democracy — like fair play and “sportsmanship” — are challenged. For the first time in US history, you have a significant segment of the population supportive of the idea that a loser refuses to admit defeat and rejects a peaceful transition of power from one president to the next.
I do not know, though, whether democracy is in greater danger in the US or the Philippines. Trump aside, the two-party system remains robust with clear differentiation among the more liberal Democrats and the more conservative Republicans. I expect (hope?) that after Trump disappears from the political scene the Republican Party will find its way back and contribute to a healthy and constructive battle for the political soul of all Americans.
This is not how it is in the Philippine version of democracy. Here it is all about personalities, personalities, personalities. No one talks about policies, even about vision. Our democracy is founded on shallow expectations and, as a result, we get shallow leadership.
I’ve always wondered — will the Philippine electorate ever mature? Will we ever see ourselves in the people we vote for, and therefore take far more time and care in considering the implications of our vote? Will we ever ask our political wannabes what exactly they stand for and what their vision of a future 10 twenty or 50 years hence is? Or is our democracy condemned to be shallow forever because we ourselves are shallow?
We get the leaders we deserve, Jose Rizal warned us. Because democracy — at the bottom — is not so much about who our leaders are, but about who we — you and I — are.
