What, Me Worry?

“So, did your candidate win last night?”

It was 8 AM, Wednesday morning after the election. I was standing in line at the hardware store to buy paintbrushes. Prescott, Arizona — where I live — is a town and state that narrowly went for Trump. The guy behind me, a complete stranger and out of the blue, had decided to engage me.

Ignoring for one second the glib impertinence of the question, the implied familiarity in asking it, and the strong emotions most people invested in the election’s results, I was glad I hadn’t voted for either Clinton or Trump. A “wrong” answer might have opened a door into territory I didn’t want to explore with this hayseed. I answered, “I voted for Johnson and Weld.”

“So you wasted your vote, eh?” The statement phrased as a question hung in the air like an olfactory assault. As I mentally scrambled for an appropriate explanation (not that he deserved one) or at least a bon mot, he beat me to the punch: “I didn’t vote.”

Enough said.

* * *

I couldn’t believe the spring in my step that morning, the sunny disposition that overwhelmed my otherwise dry-verging-on-the-cynical humor, the optimism that still refuses to let go of me. Some of it was relief that it was over; but I know some of it was schadenfreude. Watching the supercilious, condescending Left eat crow is extremely gratifying — Obama’s “Men, get over your sexism and vote for Hillary” to the fore.

I’d hoped for divided government, with a narrow Clinton win and a Republican Congress, with a nod to Ted Cruz’s glimmer of hope for a reduced Supreme Court.

How do I hate thee, Donald? Let me count the ways: Trump’s nuclear triad of ignorance; his “If I get elected I’ll be richer than I’ve ever been” declaration; his “Trump discount,” whereby he withholds payment to his contractors unless they — after the fact — agree to a 10% reduction in their bill to avoid taking him to court; his treatment of Vera Coking (I’ll stop here) made him anathema to me.

Still, knowing my candidate would never win, I look for the silver lining: goodbye Obamacare, hello Supreme Court.

That night, Trump — of all people — added another tiny ray of hope. In the wee hours of that reality shifting morning, right after Hillary Clinton called to concede, Trump took to the stage to convey her concession. Approaching the podium with family in tow, I saw a side of him that I didn’t think existed, a side so out of character, so unguarded, even unbelievable, that I played it again: he and Melania were fighting back tears.

I don’t know what other folks made of this or even if they saw it. But to me it indicated a degree of humility that I couldn’t conceive in the man. He didn’t gloat, he didn’t smile — he was (dare I say it?), classy. I can’t but imagine that it was at this moment that the full realization that he’d become president of the United States sank in (though I also imagined him in a panic calling all his advisors and asking, what do we do now?).

But there’s one more glimmer of hope that I later discerned, and it came from President Rodrigo Duterte, the Filipino Trump — and, admittedly, it’s a stretch.

For the past four years Chinese ships have blocked Filipino fishermen from plying their trade near Scarborough Shoal, an incipient piece of land in the South China Sea that China claims as its own, in violation of international law. The Philippines, under President Benigno Aquino, took their case to The Hague, where an international tribunal ruled in the Philippines’ favor. China has ignored the ruling.

Souring the situation further, the US has signed an Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement with the Philippines and regularly plies the South China Sea in an effort to uphold the right of free passage through what all but China consider international waters. Enter Rodrigo Duterte, the tough-talking, loose cannon successor president to Aquino.

The Philippines hold no cards to, er, trump Chinese power, so Duterte has changed tactics from confrontational to affable. Verbally distancing himself from the US and vividly insulting President Obama (“son of a whore”), he has extended a hand of friendship to China. Last week Filipino fishermen were back fishing at Scarborough Shoal. Mind you, it has all been talk — there have been no substantive changes in Filipino-American or Filipino-Chinese relations.

Donald Trump’s sweet talk about Russia and Putin might be an analogous tactic: sweet foreplay for a more productive engagement, possibly leading to favorable results. I don’t know, and I question how creative Duterte or Trump actually are, or how consciously aware of their tactics. Can either think that many steps ahead?

And: a buffoon in charge of the Philippines is one thing; a buffoon in charge of the US, an entirely different proposition.