Spooky future

In less than a week, America will go to the polls to elect a new leader. As the acknowledged world leader, although such acknowledgement is slowly but surely getting eroded with each passing day, America does not seem to present a very healthy prospect for the world given the choices Americans have to make on election day. Never perhaps in American electoral history have the choices been so bleak and unpalatable.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in the nasty, obnoxious, lowdown, and highly negative character that the campaign has taken on. Whoever wins the election wins it not on the basis of possessing the great qualities the world often expects from an American president, but on who lacks those qualities less than the other. In other words, the next American president will not be he or she who is the better person, but he or she is the lesser evil.

And while Americans go through the final motions of abiding by their looming sad and sorry fate, their traditional political rivals are slowly but surely consolidating their own gains in the emerging vacuum when America finally gives up its sole leadership in the world. China is amassing territory in the South China Sea and is winning over by opportunity and default the traditional US ally the Philippines. Russia has its eyes set on Europe and the Middle East.

Outgoing US president Barack Obama once boasted that "America remains the greatest power in the world. Period." There is something proverbial in his capping that bold statement with the word period--because to a growing number of people in the world, the period rightfully belongs to the end of the boast. For of what use is it to be the greatest power in the world and not being able to use that power.

It is not suggested that such power be used to blow away its enemies to hell. But such power ought to come in handy in asserting what is right and good in the world. In fact, that is precisely why the world used to look at America as global policeman. But not anymore. Not only are its enemies thumbing their noses at America, but even its friends are starting to lose their respect for the US.

The steady decline of American influence and power obviously started with some bad decisions made several presidencies back. But it is not only political decisions that determine global influence as far as America is concerned. There has been a steady character change in America that is eating up that country from the inside. This change is being caused by the twin viruses of hypocrisy and political correctness.

Once hypocrisy and political correctness took root, it became difficult for America as a government and as a society to make tough decisions for fear of coming out offensive or inappropriate. And so America vacillates and vacillates until it ends up either doing nothing or doing it wrong. It meddles in Philippine affairs even as it calls it a friend. Then it abandons Israel, its only real friend in the Middle East, in favor of Iran, its sworn enemy in the region.

It left Ukraine out in the cold because Obama is scared of Russia, a fact that emboldened Vladimir Putin to venture further into the Middle East where it is doing all it can to prop up the Assad regime at the cost of thousands of innocent lives. Not wanting to look the wimp, Obama and his hostage coalition (hostaged by a common fear of terrorism, not by a common humanitarian principle) joined the bombing, not for any end to the tragedy, but for the appearances it provides.

Now Turkey just arrested the editor of an opposition paper, after jailing thousands without charges in the aftermath of a failed coup and Obama has remained deathly quiet. Not a word of condemnation. China continues to grab territory in the South China Sea and has unveiled its latest stealth fighter jets. Obama can only sputter or stay quiet. North Korea continues testing nukes. Obama can only sputter still. But soon it will be Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. Spooky, isn't it?