Volume 2, Issue No. 25
OPINION/COMMENTARY
/ News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobody /
. . . . . A community service of The Filipino Web Channel (TheFilipinoWebChannel@gmail. com) and the Philippine Village Voice (PhilVoiceNews@gmail.com) for the information and understanding of Filipinos and the diverse communities in North America . . .
Our latest as of Thursday, October 8, 2020
~ The decision as to who to vote for in the November 3 US elections will not be hard to make after watching Wednesday night's debate between Vice President Mike Pence, a Republican, and his Democratic challenger, Senator Kamala Harris. Pence's unalloyed defense of Donald Trump has transformed him into a Trump clone. What he is, what he stands for has been clouded by an inordinate shielding of Trump. In contrast, Harris shows her mettle in the face of adversity.
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U.S. VICE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE 2020
Change via Joe Biden and Kamala Harris
By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ
Editor, The Filipino Web Channel
“If you've got the truth you can demonstrate it. Talking doesn't prove it.”
― Stranger in a Strange Land
― Stranger in a Strange Land
Last night's (Wednesday, October 7, 2020) debate differed only in civility, otherwise, it was a reprise of the September 29, 2020, heated exchanges between presidential candidates Trump, the incumbent president, and Republican nominee, and Biden, the former vice president, and Democratic contestant.
The vice presidency, the office now held by Pence, age 61, and contested by 55-year-old Harris, the senator from California and the first black woman to be so nominated by a major party, gains new significance for at least one major reason.
That is, the ages of the incumbent Trump, 74, and his challenger Biden, 77, make them vulnerable to health problems. Trump is infected by COVID-19. Biden takes extra precautions to avoid being similarly afflicted.
Succession is a very real possibility in this scenario: the vice president succeeds the president should he becomes incapacitated to perform the duties of the office. In either case, Pence or Harris (if Biden wins) is primed to take over.
I had expected a more substantive discussion of current issues. But as the debate went on, Pence had assumed a personality unalike the courteous gentleman that he was at the beginning.
He had become slightly less aggressive than what Trump had shown in a prior debate with Biden, interrupting Harris at every point and over-talking her past the allotted time.
Harris was gracious. She let him speak to the growing consternation of journalist Susan Page, the moderator. Harris' leniency had limits so she reminded Pence every time she spoke and he would butt in: "Mr. Vice President, I'm speaking . . . " That was as gentle as she could get.
If cultural differences had any role in this debate, Harris had shown the light on hers. On her shoulders are borne ancient African and Asian customs and traditions manifesting themselves in the 90-minute of the time she was carrying on the discourse with Pence.
Deferential, respectful, tolerant, hospitable to a fault - those she had exhibited without even trying; they come off because those qualities are common among Africans and Asians from which Harris is descended. Her father, Donald Harris, is Jamaican who taught economics at Stanford University. Her mom, Shyamala Gopalan, a biologist, and cancer researcher, hailed from India.
Watching how Pence and Harris interacted, and listening to how they articulated their thoughts, had convinced me that Pence was not his own man; he was a shadow of Trump, a clone of Trump, a mini-me of Trump.
Perhaps, most of the things Pence said had been stated before by Trump. He was merely repeating it, reasserting statements that had been proven false.
I believe that Pence, like Trump, subscribes to the notion made famous by Hitler's propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, that "if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes accepted as truth".
That was what Pence did. He repeated every wrong statement, the false claims by Trump, including that one that proved fatal to at least 212,000 Americans now dead from COVID-19. Pence didn't say anything new, he merely reaffirmed his boss who, after all the bluster, is proven not to be invincible.
I believe that by this time, or even earlier, American voters have already seen what the Trump-Pence duo would do in the next four years if voted again. The best, and only alternative, to stop them in their tracks is to have a meaningful change.
The agents of that change happen to be Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. (Copyright 2020. All Rights Reserved).
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