U.S. Critic Fears U.S. Decline

By: Boy Boyer

 

When a consistent Filipino critic of the U.S. becomes anxious about a possible decline of the U.S., it gets attention. Rigoberto D. Tiglao defi nitely got mine in his April 27 “Manila Times” online article, “Has the U.S. lost control of the pandemic?” Mr. Tiglao even tries to disguise his worries about one of his favorite targets. He initially attacks and belittles the U.S. leadership. He then broadens to his familiar attack on U.S. imperialism and arrogance. But then he admits his concerns about what a decline in U.S. power will mean to the Philippines and globally.

Mr. Tiglao begins by ridiculing the late, stumbling steps the U.S. took at the outset of the pandemic. “The U.S. is now the Sickest Man in the world, given the most infected citizens, which account for a third of the 2,920, 954 human beings now affl icted with the coronavirus.” The numbers have gone up as of this writing (May 2), and the U.S. still has over one-third of the cases and the highest number of deaths.

Mr. Tiglao mocks “the leadership of the U.S. government, embodied by President Donald Trump,” which “is panicking at the same time that it is deluding itself that the disease will just go away,” or be cured by ingesting “Lysol.” Tiglao seems to enjoy the unrest: the quarreling between the president and the governors over supplies and about when and how to reopen the country; and objections by protesters that the lock-down is unconstitutional and economically disastrous, with “some 26 million Americans—more than the population of Australia. . . offi cially unemployed.”

Mr. Tiglao concludes that “a big part of the U.S. problem is hubris,” the sort of overbearing pride that Greeks dramatized in their plays of fallen heroes and tyrants. The U.S, says Tiglao, has been the dominant power— an “imperialist bully” both militarily and economically—and appointed itself the world’s “policeman”. And as with the fall of former empires (he cites “Rome”) there is usually a time of chaos. Mr. Tiglao cites such potential dangers today: “a tsunami of Islamic fundamentalist movements” in the Middle East; more nuclear weapons out of North Korea; a serious hit on Philippine economy which remains very closely tied to the U.S. economy.

At this point Mr. Tiglao can’t hide his ‘wringing of hands’, admitting his worries about all of this. He even states that he is not about taking pleasure in someone else’s problems. He concludes: “What happens now if the policeman is gravely ill, with neither China nor Russia having the appetite to assume that role?”

Mr. Tiglao makes a strong case, but not without some fl aws. First, the U.S. has not “lost control of the pandemic,” as he suggests. While he is correct that the U.S. has a disproportionate number of cases of—and deaths from—COVID-19, the statistics, as always, need to be understood in context. The U.S. statistics are being announced daily and electronically by The Johns Hopkins University for the whole world to see. Many countries (other than South Korea) might not have such complete and independent statistics based on increasingly wide testing. My home state of Wisconsin alone, with a population of six million, does nearly 4,000 tests per day and continues to add more daily, with a goal of 12,000 tests per day.

A second qualifi cation to Mr. Tiglao’s position is that even while federal and state governments might be at odds with each other, and some citizens might be protesting, a signifi cant majority of Americans—seventy to eight-fi ve percent—are in favor of lockdowns and social distancing—according to polls cited on Public Television on May 1 by NY Times columnist David Brooks. Qualifi cations aside, however, Mr. Tiglao’s worries worry me. The wealthiest and presumably most developed country in world history has a disproportionate number of cases of the coronavirus and of deaths from the COVID-19 disease that it causes. The pandemic has exposed an unacceptable lack of preparedness and timely response. It has further exposed the grossly unequal consequences suffered by those who live from paycheck to paycheck and who may have lost their medical insurance, if they ever had any. Finally, it may indeed be time for the Philippines to become less economically reliant of the U.S. economy.

Bob Boyer welcomes your replies at Robert.boyer@snc.edu.