Temperament | The Manila Times

Read this in The Manila Times digital edition.

I AM usually an avid follower of politics, whether ours or global. Yet I am so nauseated by what is going on with the Trump campaign in the US and that even without getting into policy, that being a blatant racist and misogynist is not disqualifying is dismaying to me. I don't listen anymore to what is going on. It has reached the point that I cannot even watch one of my favorite segments on YouTube, the monologues of Colbert and Kimmel, as they are mostly mocking Trump, and I don't even find comic relief in that anymore. After the 2016 election, I was so annoyed at the attempt at false equivalences that I stopped watching the news on TV and just chose to read it and at most watched Bloomberg at night. I only started watching the news again after Trump lost. Alas, I may have to stop watching the news again for a long time and revert to reading it. I don't think I understand half the American electorate. In that context, France is much more mature than the US as three times in my lifetime, twice for president and at the last legislative election, the main parties got together to keep Le Pen from taking office or control of the legislature. They understood democracy and what the country stands for is more important than being in power at any cost and a legislative priority or two.

I am so appalled by the American election and that someone who should be seen in my view as unqualified and incompetent even in 2016 has an even chance of winning and that even if he loses it will be by a very narrow margin. I fear even that won't happen.