When people are unhappy, they want change, and in the past couple years, everyone in America has been so unhappy about everything, so this election result does not surprise me
In a lot of ways, experiencing a United States election is like a New Year’s celebration in the Philippines. Some people spend months planning and sourcing and preparing everything. Others wait ’til the last minute, or wait for someone else to do all the work.
Typically there’s a party, which can over- or underwhelm your expectations, and as the years go by, the fireworks get more and more explosive. When you’re young, you stay up until the ball drops at midnight, secretly hoping to kiss someone when the clock hits 12, excited for the new year. As you get older, you leave the celebration for the kids and fall asleep early, either sleeping peacefully or dreading the morning after.
That’s how I felt as the board turned red before my eyes last night, as seemingly safe places like Virginia were close, and seemingly close places did not end up being close. But it’s honestly how I’ve felt all 2024. When people are unhappy, they want change, and in the past couple years, everyone in America has been so unhappy about everything, so this election result does not surprise me.
We’ve seen this movie before
The first election I really remember was the 2000 election between George W. Bush and Al Gore that came down to the wire, ending in litigation. The son of a rich man, given every advantage by his father, managed to convince the masa that he was their guy. Sound familiar?
To use a Filipinoism, Americans are kinda cowboy. There’s a rebellious anti-intellectual streak that runs deep in American history. While the stereotypical tiger Asian mom venerates grades and makes sure her precious child’s at the top of the class, Americans often want their kids to be the alpha male sports superstar who plays quarterback, point guard, and pitcher, to date the cheerleader, and set up shop on Main Street.
To some extent, there is a part of America that will never accept a woman as a leader, and there is definitely a part of America’s heart that will always choose the cowboy over the professor.
Reality bites
History is the story of many small things adding up to big movements in society. The Internet made information easily accessible — you can literally find something to support the most obscure belief or hobby you have. However, due to the quirks of the US electoral system, voters faced a binary choice between R and D if they wanted their votes to realistically count.
In recent weeks, I’ve talked with so many who consider themselves to be “smart Republicans” — people who will say they are socially liberal but fiscally conservative, who want less taxes and regulation. They tend to be a little richer and more educated than the Donald Trump wing of the GOP, but at the end of the day, even if they make overtures to the center, they end up falling in line to vote for him or the confirmation of his judges.
Hold the line
Meanwhile, unlike a more European system where there are far right, center right, center left, and far left parties, there are only really third parties that are further left, like the Green Party. Just as Ross Perot drew enough votes from Al Gore and Jill Stein drew enough votes from Hillary Clinton for the Republican to win, these parties and their protest voters tend to bleed off people who otherwise would have voted blue. Things like Ukraine and Gaza probably did not help, as war in the Middle East angered voters and further turned people off from the incumbent party.
As I watched last night, Reince Priebus and other former establishment Rs were looking for the 300,000 Nikki Haley primary voters in one of the states, wondering if they stayed home. Well, they may have stayed home, but it seems like a lot of them voted for him and not many of them flipped to the other side. Meanwhile, I see a lot of people on social media mad about the Israel/Palestine situation who threw away their votes in protest. Without making judgements about the rightness or wrongness of either ideology, it seems like one side was more loyal than the other. While this time, third party voters didn’t add up to more than the margin — the people who stayed home and didn’t vote for anyone may have made a difference.
Where do we go from here?
It’s hard to say where we’ll go from here. I do not necessarily think the wildest dreams of the right or the darkest nightmares of the left will come true, but I do think that the Overton window has shifted right in the United States, as it has been doing in Europe, Asia, and the Philippines.
Please join me as I guest on Rappler Talk on Friday, November 8 at 4 pm Manila time, as we discuss this election and what I think the impact will be on Filipinos and Fil-Ams in seasons 2025-2028 of the so-called United States of America. – Rappler.com
Jath Shao is a Filipino-American immigration lawyer who helps people get visas, green cards, and citizenship in the United States. Born in Greenhills, Jath is a proud alumnus of Brent International School Manila. Follow @attorneyjath on social media or visit shaolawfirm.com for more immigration-related questions or concerns.
