‘Look what happened’

‘In the US, says Filipino-American Democrat Gabriel Young, a person with a criminal conviction can’t be hired at McDonald’s, in line with corporate policy.

But the person can run for president, and serve if he wins.

Young, the California-based secretary of the Filipino Young Professionals, noted this ruefully as the final numbers in the US presidential race showed Donald Trump romping toward a decisive victory, in both the popular vote and electoral college.

Speaking with “Storycon” on One News in the wee hours of Nov. 6 California time, a crestfallen Young congratulated Republican Fil-Am John PB Jose, founder and CEO of the American Tomorrow Project – a conservative outreach aimed at black, Hispanic and Asian communities in the US.

Like other Asian communities, the Fil-Ams were also divided between Trump and Kamala Harris. The general belief was that older generations of Fil-Ams were mostly for Trump while the younger ones were for Harris. John Jose is proof that there were also younger Fil-Ams who supported Trump – and enthusiastically went out to cast their votes.

Trump, speaking as his electoral college votes approached the winning threshold of 270, summed up the mood in his country, and around the not-so-surprised world.

“Hey, look what happened,” he told cheering supporters. “Isn’t this amazing?”

The US pollsters got it wrong again. It wasn’t a tight race, as survey after survey showed; it was a rout. The voting map as the final electoral college results came in showed a sea of Republican red, overwhelming the Democrats’ hoped-for blue wave.

As Gabe Young, who was hoping for a blue wave, put it, what we saw was a red tsunami.

US analysts said it was an anti-government vote, with inflation and a flood of illegal immigrants the top concerns of the majority – issues that the Trump campaign accurately focused on. The Biden administration’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza, meanwhile, alienated even Democrats, a number of whom apparently decided not to vote.

Harris, being part of the Biden government, could not completely distance herself from that government and promise significant change if she won.

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I haven’t been to the US since before the pandemic so I can only guess why the Americans went overwhelmingly for the Republican presidential bet.

So I leave it to Gabriel Young to provide the post-mortem on what he described as “a race well won.”

“The Republicans have really been well organized. And so all I can say as a Democrat is, we have a lot to work on and we have a lot of lessons,” Gabe told Storycon.

“I still hold the truth that… I still possess the same concerns as any other Democrat in this country will have, that made the messaging about the fight about American democracy, and integrity. Because we still uphold those beliefs,” he said. “That 39 counts of criminal charges and Jan. 6 –  it’s so hard to erase those from our minds.”

But what happened?

“What happened is, the Democrat party and the institution failed. And it failed miserably,” Gabe told us. “What I mean by that is, tokenization, ignoring the issues that really matter to Americans, and not meeting Americans where they’re at but instead pushing the narrative.”

Gabe said John Jose brought up “great points.”

“The economy is at the forefront. Immigration is at the forefront. Foreign policy is at the forefront. But the Democratic party didn’t necessarily address those topics well,” Gabe admitted.

“With the inflation and the economy, all it said is inflation is a worldwide problem. We’re at two percent and that’s the lowest in the world. However, it doesn’t address the current needs of, what can the federal government do to address and make prices low immediately,” he observed.

He added: “With foreign policy, we’re still in wars in Ukraine, and also in Gaza. And so unfortunately, a lot of young Democratic voters like myself – although I did vote – a lot of other Democratic voters ended up not voting as a show of resistance. It’s a sort of repeat of 2016 when they didn’t like Hillary Clinton, but they didn’t like Donald Trump, they ended up not voting or even voting third party, which hurt in the long run as well.”

“And so, all in all, the Democratic party has failed. It’s failed in representing its constituents. It’s failed in representing its candidates. And overall it’s failed in making sure that it is the party of the middle and working class,” Gabe continued.

“Whereas the Republican party did a great job, coming off as more authentic, boots on the ground… and really pushing the populist narrative, that is the populist sentiment amongst major constituencies across America.”

Trump, however, is not the only one with a never-say-die attitude. The Democrats intend to bounce back. The process begins with identifying what went wrong, admitting mistakes and learning from them.

“The Democratic party has a lot to work on, especially in breaking down the elitism that has bolted up,” Gabe said. “But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a future for us.”