A large number of the “anti-Duterte forces” are on the wrong side of history. If that statement will make your blood pressure rise, it is imperative that you immediately switch to reading another BusinessMirror section. Your health is more important than understanding what is going on in the world today.
Prior to the US presidential election last November, a conservative web site talked to a large number of self-identified supporters of Hillary Clinton. They were read a brief policy quote, and asked if they agree or disagree. If the statement was attributed to Clinton, they almost universally agreed. If attributed to Donald J. Trump, the opposite was true.
All the statements were, in fact, from Clinton.
Going one step farther, the situation was reversed by making the same survey of Trump supporters. The results were the same. Supporters agreed with their chosen candidate no matter what the policy was. Another group made up fictitious quotes—some even outrageous, such as requiring a certain income or education level to be allowed to vote—and the results were the same.
If you are still reading, allow me to help reduce your chances of having a stroke. A large number of the “pro-Duterte forces” are also on the wrong side of history.
Wanting to believe that we are rational beings that make decisions as focused as possible on our thinking ability, we are very wrong. If that were true, the results of the interviews/surveys that I noted above would have been entirely different. And remember that is true for those that voted for your favorite candidate and those that did not.
Through the millions of words of discussion of government policies, not one position is changed. It is like championing whether vanilla ice cream is better than chocolate ice cream. And we know what the final word is: “Hitler ate only vanilla. So there!”
An article in the Washington Post written by Nick Miroff, titled “Protests sweeping South America show rising antigovernment anger”, sums up the current situation. “Whether leftist or right-wing, the governments of Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador and even tiny French Guiana are all facing major demonstrations, abysmal approval ratings or both. Nearly every nation in South America has been jolted by large protests or violent clashes in recent weeks”.
The conclusions that Miroff reaches—bad economics and politicians fueling “populist” discontent —are wrong. This is about those who support the faces who represent the old “New World Order” versus those who want the new “New World Order”.
Even China’s Xi Jinping represents the “new”. While in power for several years, it is only in the past two years that he has consolidated his authority. Xi is unique in that he really is a true Communist Party member.
Xi’s style would make the egalitarian dream of Karl Marx proud. On his first trip outside of Beijing, he went to Guangdong. Rather than dining out, Xi and his entourage ate the regular hotel buffet. He traveled in a large van with his colleagues rather than a fleet of limousines.
In a basically free and fair universal suffrage ballot measure in Turkey over the weekend, the people voted in effect to change their form of government to a “dictatorship” with the face of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
According to an unofficial and completely unscientific poll, the supporters of both winners in the Philippine and US presidential elections prefer chocolate ice cream. The losers prefer vanilla ice cream. Who needs to talk about the issues? Case closed. And no, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
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