The Un-US Politics Discussion Scenario

[Deleted]

It looks like Macron to be re-elected. The French projections are fairly accurate to the results.
Phew... I was worried for a bit.

Edit
Le Pen has conceded defeat to Macron

Vive La France!

[cremetangerine82]

Thank goodness that Le Pen didn’t win. Macron’s a saner choice.

[Deleted]

So the U.K. had local elections and in Northern Ireland also had the Assembly elections and for the first time Nationalist Sinn Fein looks to lead the Assembly over Unionist DUP who will reluctantly but hopefully agree to form an executive with a Nationalist First Minister.
What is even more interesting is that the party that made even more gains in NI was the Alliance party who do not align to neither Nationalist or Unionist ideals. link

It’s going to very interesting times. Incidentally tho in opposition in ROI Sinn Fein is hugely popular in the South aswell.
I think ROI next general election is due 2024 and I see if they have the candidates Sinn Fein becoming the largest party both sides of the border. Interesting times indeed. That wouldn’t mean a United Ireland there would be a lot more to happen before that most certainly referenda to the people but there is increasing noise along with Scottish independence.


Also in U.K. Westminster local council is now held by Labour the Tories got trounced in London and lost many council seats elsewhere. Next General Election in UK will also be interesting times indeed.

[cabbagekid]

I've posted here and there about what's happening to the Philippines and largely Southeast Asia regarding China and it starting to encroach on the sea and land of other countries. Why I'm mentioning this now is the Philippines is having their Presidential election on Monday, May 9th. Elected Presidents can only hold one term of 6 years. A previous President, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, sat longer because she was VP when the President was impeached, when she finished that term, she was able to run for her own 6-year term. Who becomes President has a very large impact in the Southeast Asian area plus on Democracy in general in Asia.

The two leading candidates are current Vice President, Leni Robredo, and Bongbong Marcos, the son of former dictator, Ferdinand Marcos.

The atrocities of the regime of Ferdinand Marcos never used to be questioned, it was a very dark time in Philippine history. For the last 6 years, there has been a social media campaign of revisionist history of the Marcos regime, some people are referring to it as the Golden Era of the Philippines (rumored to be headed by Cambridge Analytica, yes them). During Marcos' presidency, he stole up to $10B from the country, very little of that has been recovered. I could make this a post about Marcos' atrocities, but I won't. For those curious,here are two that came up in my feed recently: Sugarland and Manila Film Center. Many surveys have Bongbong Marcos leading significantly over Robredo.

Many of my family and friends are supporting Leni Robredo, I probably would as well if I held dual citizenship. I also have a few outliers where they support Marcos, thankfully, they're few and far between. Marcos refused to participate in any of the Presidential debates. He also has not released his platform. His contingent is blindly following him. Having gone through the US Presidential elections 18 months ago, where I was often left with shaking my head wondering how very smart people that i know and love could support Trump, I didn't think I'd have to go through the exact same scenario so quickly again, but here I am.

Robredo's campaign has been AMAZING to watch. Led by her campaign manager, Bam Aquino (nephew of former Senator Benigno Aquino who was exiled to the US by Marcos and then returned to the Philippines in 1983 to continue fighting Marcos. He was assassinated at the Manila International Airport upon his arrival). Her campaign, if she successfully wins, will be because of her large contingent of volunteers, who went House to House (H2H) to educate voters on Leni's platform and to convince them to vote for her. Her volunteers going H2H were not only famous actors/actresses and singers, former reporters, but also ordinary citizens. Groups formed from all walks of life like Lawyers for Leni, Doctors for Leni, Teachers for Leni, and Sumilao Farmersall done with the focus of getting her elected. Her very last rally had a goal of getting 1M people to attend. Official numbers had the attendance at around 700,000-800,000 people. They may say this isn't 1M people, but it's pretty damn close. This last video shows the crowd as Robredo is introduced by her 3 daughters.

I am scared to death that Marcos will actually win. There is vote-buying going on, there are plans of smudging people's ballots if they don't vote for Marcos so then their votes will be rejected by the machine. There are rumors that putting Marcos as President is all a ploy to get Sara Duterte (daughter of current President) to become President since she's running for VP. (President and Vice President are elected separately in the Philippines.) And though the Philippines is a little country in Southeast Asia, its location is vital. I fear Filipinos may not survive another Marcos or Duterte Presidency.

I'm going to closely watch the outcome of these elections. In the meantime, as I fear the absolute worse results, I will listen to what became the official Robredo campaign song, that the organic growth of volunteers did enough to combat the vote buying and the cheating, and that Leni Robredo will be the next President of the Philippines.

(It will also be interesting to watch if Google Trends which has accurately predicted the last few elections in the world, including France, if they will also accurately predict the result of the Philippine elections. Although official surveys have Marcos winning in a landslide, there have also been questions on the legitimacy of these surveys, as some think they were bought off by the Marcos campaign. Google Trends has Robredo significantly ahead of Marcos.)

ETA: My FAVORITE part of her campaign is when the crowd sings along to Robredo's campaign song. Those are the voices of almost 1M Filipinos.

[kanding]

I'm scared to death, too, that Marcos could take office. I lived in the Philippines shortly after his father bolted from the country. It's heartbreaking to think that history could repeat itself.

[tabby]

Sounds like it's Marcos in a landslide. Yuck.

[cabbagekid]

May 9, 2022 16:12:41 GMT -4 kanding said:

I'm scared to death, too, that Marcos could take office. I lived in the Philippines shortly after his father bolted from the country. It's heartbreaking to think that history could repeat itself.

I feel exactly the same way as felt when Hillary lost. I never thought I'd feel this way again, especially for politics. It's astonishing. I moved to the states when I was 4 years old, but went to college in the Philippines. A lot of my friends who are Professionals in the Philippines, from Nurses to Professors to lawyers to doctors are looking to leave the country. There's already a brain drain that's going on there, it's going to get worse.

[cremetangerine82]

The French can be more smug than ever that they made a better decision of whom to vote for their leader than another country.

[chiqui]

I can't believe Bong-bong won. Last I remember of him was just after Marcos was deposed -- I'm old enough to remember that -- and all these ridiculous pictures of the family were coming out in the press, like Bong-bong running around at some party with a balloon twisty animal on his head. Heaven help the Phillipines. I hope the US wasn't involved in putting him into power.

[Ridha]

Really sorry to hear that cabbagekid. There are only a few countries* in the world at the moment where it’s a choice between Good and Evil as extreme and black and white as any Star Wars saga, and it is genuinely heartbreaking and inexplicable when Evil wins.

*for 2 reasons, in many countries public leverage is such that even the completely self-interested politicians can’t afford to be brazenly evil, but also because there are only a few good souls that come along in every generation who literally have no agenda but betterment of others, so often it’s a choice between bad and less bad.

We have a similar battle between, as I see it, Good and Evil in my country at the moment, and I can see the start of the brain drain you mention with many professionals looking to move out after the ouster of last month, many who actually had been abroad and who moved back in 2018.

In your opinion, and in terms of what unofficial word on the ground is, what happened in the Philippines that Marcos won? Was it voter apathy, rigged elections, foreign (US or Russian) interference? Does Marcos have true supporters there, or are too many of the elites wealth tied up in the family? Does he have any platform that taps in and purports to answer any genuine discontent?

Anyway, sorry again to hear of this result, both for the Philippines and because it’s just fucking disheartening for the world and the Good Fight generally when there seems to be a hopeful and obvious choice and a light, and instead evils gets it’s way again.