An Interview about the Election

The following are my responses to an interview conducted by the Macau daily newspaper, Hoje Macau, concerning my thoughts on the Presidential election between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. The interview was conducted via email, which allowed me to express several personal reasons for my vote, while adding thoughts on the critical decisions many Americans are about to make, and observations on how I think Macanese in the diaspora and in Macau might perceive this election. While not all of my responses may be printed, I thought publishing all interview answers might clarify my positions to the readers of this blog.

Which candidate will you vote for in the Presidential Election?

Due to early mail-in voting, I voted several days ago for Biden/Harris.

Why did you vote for these candidates?

There are many reasons, including that I am in agreement with most of Biden’s policies and like his experience as a senator and as vice-president. There are also three principal reasons why I am not supporting Trump:

1.      The divisiveness created by Trump and his administration against liberals, democrats, and anyone who does not support his political agenda. He has made many in our country suspicious and afraid of people who don’t think like them or view the world differently. This what a dictator does: divides and pits different groups against others. He literally plays on their fears, and exploits them for his own ends.

2.      The rampant corruption by Trump, his family members, those working in the administration, and the leaders of the Republican Party. The instances are almost too numerous to recount, including directly benefiting from businesses the Trump family owns while he is in office, without disclosing his tax returns, as every presidential candidate has done in the past. At least 8 members of his inner circle have been arrested and/or convicted of crimes, and there are several pending cases in state and federals courts against Trump personally, including apparent evidence of financial misdealing with foreign governments. Recall that Trump also was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives, but not voted out of office by a Republican majority in the Senate despite strong evidence of withholding military aid from the government of Ukraine, a NATO ally. This was in direct violation of U.S. law, but ignored by those who support him and seek re-election this year.

3.      Trump’s encouragement of white supremacists against people of color, Jews, Catholics, immigrants, and anyone who does not support his social and racist agendas. This includes numerous attempts to withhold health insurance from over 30 million Americans, many of whom are middle class immigrants with pre-existing conditions. The most glaring racist actions include support for Anti-Semitic marchers in Charlottesville, Virginia, the “Proud Boys” demonstrations in Portland, Oregon, and the holding of hundreds of immigrant children without basic sanitation and medical assistance at the U.S. border.

How was the last 4 years of the Trump administration?

It has been a disaster in almost every way for a majority of people, especially in terms of the U.S. economy and by extension the global economy. Trump has taken credit for the growth of the U.S. economy, despite the Obama administration’s policies following the 2008-2010 recession, which led to a recovery in 2016-2019 and concluded with a U.S. budget SURPLUS. Since then Trump created a U.S. budget DEFICIT by imposing numerous trade embargos, particularly with China, that depressed key sectors of the U.S. economy, including auto manufacturing and farming. He then provided subsidies and tax incentives for large corporations. As a result, the current U.S. imbalance of trade is the highest in history. When the Corvid-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, Trump made matters worse by taking no responsibility for leading a cogent government response and created chaos by criticizing leading scientists and doctors in his own administration. He never introduced a plan to fight the spread of the virus, leading to small business closures, high volatility in stock markets, and the deaths of 225,000+ Americans, and continues not to encourage the wearing of masks and social distancing at his political rallies. This has led to several new waves of infections, including among the White House staff, and thousands more deaths concentrated in Midwestern and Southern states in which he has been most active.

Please describe the political position of the Macanese community.

These are only my observations, but I feel that there are significant differences between members in the diaspora (including the U.S., Canada, Australia, and Brazil), apart from some in Macau. Perhaps it is an issue of proximity and how each country is affected by Trump’s policies. In Macau, you may be somewhat insulated from the rhetoric and antagonism that is so evident in the Americas and Australia. Also, I monitor attitudes via social media and personal messaging, so those points of view may not be completely representative.

Many Macanese in the diaspora do seem supportive of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, but are adamantly opposed to Donald Trump and Mike Pence, largely due to the issues I outlined, and other points that I have not listed, including a denial of global warming and a lack of climate policy. A number of Macanese oriented social media sites are directly critical of Trump and his government, while most, if not all, of the comments, sharing, “likes”, “memes”, video, and images seem to be against Trump and Pence.

Among some in Macau, on the other hand, I think it is more equally divided between the presidential candidates. I sense that there may be some admiration for Trump (?) due to his statements against socialism and communism, despite the false labeling of his opponents and a lack of clearly identifying policies that may be representative of these political philosophies. The reasons may be personal, based on individual responses on social media, or simply a lack of familiarity with how the Trump administration has been operating for the last few years. I hope it is the latter, because many people in the diaspora, especially in the U.S., believe that four more years of the same policies will result in dire consequences to global stability all the way down to the local level.

Instead of focusing only on ourselves, or falling into the trap of simply asking: “Which candidate should I vote for ?”or “How will I and my family survive the coronavirus ?, the real question we should be asking ourselves is:

If we have a “choice”, how do we want to live our lives after the Virus and the Trumpian plague are finally behind us?

The answer is to embrace a broader view of life. It is a belief in the benevolence, rather than the avarice, of human nature, the opposite of what Trump’s actions over the last four years suggest. It is, above all, a belief in our ability to make collective decisions that will benefit all of humanity, not just ourselves, our ethnic group, or our social class. That is the essence of the choices each of us in the United States must make at this important crossroads at the end of 2020. Our very existence, and peaceful coexistence with other countries, could well depend on it.