Thursday 8 December 2016

Could a Trump and Brexit style upset happen in Singapore?

Hello everyone. They said it could never happen - and it did. Brexit. Then president Trump. 2016 has been the year of 'never say never'. Both events too everyone by surprise, shock - some more so than others because the polls were wrong on both occasions. Few people could have predicted both events at the beginning of this year. With that in mind, today's discussion will be whether a political outsider in Singapore could cause a major upset at an election - the same way Donald Trump has in America and just what it would take for something like that to happen in Singapore.
You may not like Trump but he managed to win, somehow.

In what form would a Trump-like formula take in Singapore?

Well, Trump's trump card was immigration - he managed to invoke feelings of xenophobia towards the millions of undocumented migrant workers in America, particularly those from Mexico. In Singapore, whilst you don't have the same kind of problem concerning undocumented migrants, there has been a huge influx of migrants from countries like China, India, the Philippines and Vietnam. There has been a lot of xenophobic feelings towards the migrants from China in particular and we are trying to find the right word to describe this kind of Chinese-on-Chinese racism: ie. it is the Singaporean-Chinese who hate the PRC-Chinese. The other side of the same coin is the issue of overcrowding: Singapore's liberal immigration policies have allowed the population to swell, much to the frustration of the locals who are horrified at the PAP's plans to continue to grow the population to 6.9 million.

A Trump-like approach would be to promise to shut the borders to all low-skilled migrants from Asian countries (in particular, from China) whilst significantly raising the bar for those coming for white-collar jobs. Any social problems could be pinned on the migrants, make them the scapegoats. Anti-immigration used to be the rhetoric of the extreme right and most people used to shun such political ideology, preferring a more global view of free trade and freedom of labour. However, in hard times, political consensus tends to swing to the right, in favour of protectionism and anti-immigration - times have been pretty hard for everyone, including those in Singapore in this current recession. Most older low-income, working class Singaporeans have not benefited from this influx of migrants and it shouldn't be too difficult to persuade them to vote for a far-right candidate who runs a xenophobic campaign the way Trump did.
Trump went out of his way to vilify Muslims in his campaign, shocking world leaders when he threatened to put all American-Muslims on a register and even called for a ban of all Muslims entering the US. Such a strong anti-Muslim stance would not work in Singapore given the fact that Singapore is surrounded by two powerful Muslim countries. You have to find another scapegoat to stoke up xenophobia and fear. Well, an easy target would be to target gays: Singapore is already a rather homophobic country anyway and demonizing the gays could be a lowest hanging fruit for a politician looking to score an easy win with the low-income, working class segment of the electorate. Just blame all forms of social ills on the LGBT community and promise a return to traditional Asian family values, echoing Trump's battle cry of "make America great again". Heck, why stop there? Why not vilify single mothers, divorcees and straight adults who choose not to get married whilst you're busy stoking up hatred amongst the barely literate, insecure scumbags of society (who still have a vote each, just like your well-educated liberal elite).

Will a Trump-like formula work in Singapore? 

After what happened this year, I believe it can indeed happen. Despite the fact that there are so many opposition parties in Singapore now, nobody actually tried to run on an extreme-right wing ticket. Even the party called 'Singaporeans First' has totally failed to do what it says on the tin. The problem is that the PAP is unique in that it doesn't conveniently fit into the traditional right wing or left wing categories. When it comes to the economy, taxation and healthcare, it is very right wing. But when it comes to immigration, it is actually very left wing. That confuses the hell out of the opposition who don't quite know how to establish a best compromise to market themselves as a better alternative to the PAP - too often, they simply latch onto the latest topical issues, oppose the PAP for the sake of opposing and do not actually have a coherent strategy. That's part of the reason why I left Singapore - I simply can't wait a few decades for a credible opposition to come along, life is too short to wait that long. It's a gap that no one has filled despite the fact that the Singaporean cyberspace is full of xenophobic hatred for foreign talents/workers - it's like the most convenient parking spot in the middle of the carpark but somehow, nobody has dared to park there yet.
Can you capitalize on popular resentment?

Is it just a matter of marketing then?

It depends on how to pitch it - it then comes down to a matter of marketing. There's a woman many people don't pay a lot of attention to but she is the driving force behind Trump's campaign. Kellyanne Conway. She was Trump's election campaign manager and the first woman to lead a successful US presidential election campaign. She made many of the important strategic decisions in Trump's campaign and helped handle the media in a very unorthodox campaign. I'm a salesman, I believe that with the right marketing campaign and a good sales pitch, you can sell ice to the Eskimos. I've said this before, I'm shocked at how blunt, inarticulate and tactless politicians are in Singapore. That is because if the PAP are always guaranteed victory at every election, what motivation do they have to try to be sleek, eloquent, articulate and witty to try to appeal to the voters? Why even bother when your victory is a foregone conclusion if you are standing as a PAP candidate? Compare this to the West, where the election results are a lot closer and political parties invest a huge amount of time and money in much better PR and marketing.

Wait - you're making this sound really easy. Oo iah boh? Are you for real?

Yeah, totally. Imagine if you're going to take part in a 10 km charity run and you know that none of the other competitors have actually bothered training for it, since hey, it is just a charity run and no one is really taking it that seriously as long as we all have fun. But you decide to train hard everyday for six months, with a personal trainer,  in order to be in peak physical condition for the run - then when you turn up on the day of the run, having trained so incredibly hard (when no one else has bothered), then well, even if we are not going to assume that you're going to win the race, you're going to have a huge advantage over the others who are simply not as well prepared as you. In this context, it means engaging a foreign PR guru, someone like Kellyanne Conway to run your campaign in tandem with a local expert in order to hit a home run when it comes to delivering the most successful political PR campaign that Singapore has ever witnessed. It can be done - just because no one has tried it yet doesn't mean it is impossible.
If you're prepared to use PR consultants to boost your marketing appeal...

If it is really that easy, then why hasn't anyone tried running on an extreme right wing ticket yet?

Good question. I'd like to believe that it is because Singaporean politicians are a decent lot in nature, that they do not hold such extreme right wing views even if a certain portion of Singaporeans do hold such abhorrent views. The vast majority of Singaporeans are descended from immigrants in any case, since there was only a small Orang Asli village in Singapore when Stamford Raffles first arrived in 1819. It is a high risk strategy - nothing ventured nothing gain, but if you do succeed, then it will pay off. Now firstly, it would involve you positioning yourself to the right of the PAP on every issue from gay rights to climate change to feminism to abortion to immigration. It is very easy to demonize a politician or party who takes such an extreme-right stance - Trump was subjected to so much ridicule from those on the left (and indeed from around the world) who were mortified by his comments on everything from climate change to immigrants to abortion to the famous 'grab them by the pussy' gaffe. Bland politicians who make political-correct statements rarely ever stand out and get noticed but Trump had more haters than any other president in American history and he has yet to even take office. You need a really thick skin if you want to go down this road and well, in Singaporean society, it's just not done - it's this whole Asian thing about saving face. Trump doesn't care if he offends a lot of people as long as he gets what he wants. I just can't see a Singaporean politician acting like that - not yet anyway.

How are the conditions in Singapore compared to America? 

Firstly, the PAP has always had control of the government in Singapore whilst in the US, the presidency does swing back and forth between the two main parties: the Republicans and the Democrats. However, Singaporean society is probably a lot more conservative than American society - America is a huge country divided into the more liberal areas such as New York and California, compared to the ultra-conservative Bible Belt states in the deep south. Even within a state like Florida, you can have huge regional disparities between the very liberal Miami to the highly conservative northern parts of the state. In Singapore however, it is a lot more mixed in that you have both liberals and conservatives living within very close proximity of each other in a very densely populated city. Christianity is the dominated religion in the US whilst Singapore is a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-faith country. Of course I could go on listing the number of ways Singapore is different from the US (that list will be incredibly long indeed), but just these keys factors will mean that an ultra-right wing nationalist will need to take a different approach to win in Singapore.
Will an extreme right wing ideology take root in Singapore?

What is the tipping point? 

Well, it's not as hard as you think. Once in a while, you have an incident that explodes and gains momentum. On the 17 December 2010, a street vendor in Tunisia committed suicide by setting himself on fire in front of a government office in the town of Sidi Bouzid. This was the last straw that broke the camel's back in a country where the people were already extremely unhappy with the corrupt government - it sparked huge protests in the town that went national within a matter of days, leading to the overthrow of the government by 14 January 2011. This huge, spontaneous revolution had a domino effect called the 'Arab Spring' and mass protests spread throughout north Africa and the Middle East and within months, the whole region was plunged into turmoil with mass protests in many Arab countries, leading to the downfall of governments in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Libya. What shocked the world was the way two dictators in the region - Ghadaffi of Libya and Mubarak of Egypt - were deposed as a result of the Arab Spring.

Things in Singapore need to get bad - a lot worse than they already are before we will get to that 'last straw that breaks the camel's back' situation. However, this is something that the nation is slowly creeping towards as the government fully intends to keep growing the population towards 6.9 million. With more and more people living in Singapore, the amount of living space each citizen has will diminish - of course, the richer residents in their nice condos will still enjoy a very high standard of living, but those at the bottom of the food chain will find themselves stuck in more and more crowded conditions in their HDB flats. Young couples will be unable to get on the property ladder and the government will try to sell them the blissful concept of 三代同堂 (three generations under the same roof) but you will soon find families of 6, 7 or more people occupying two room HDB flats. Competition for school spaces will increase and even those who graduate with decent degrees find it hard to get a decent job. Everything from the health service to public transport reach breaking point eventually as they are simply unable to serve that many people as the population keeps increasing. The question is just how much of this ordinary Singaporeans are willing to put up with.
Can the overcrowding in Singapore be managed?

Death by a thousand paper cuts

Remember in Tunisia, the whole Arab Spring revolution was sparked off by one incident which in isolation, doesn't seem to be enough to overthrow a regime. One man kills himself in frustration in a small town in Tunisia, it is not the kind of thing to even make headline news even in a country like Tunisia - however, if there are enough instances like that happening all within a short space of time, then it can have a domino effect when it comes to creating the "death by a thousand paper cuts" effect. Nobody would die from a single paper cut, even if you were to shed a small amount of blood. But a thousand paper cuts all over your body, all at the same time, would probably make you lose enough blood and expose you to infections and thus seriously put your life at risk if medical attention wasn't immediately available. Imagine if things kept going wrong in a space of a few months: suicides by Singaporeans who have lost their jobs, the MRT keeps breaking down, students unable to cope with the stress at school try to poison their teachers and classmates, PRC migrant workers beating up elderly Singaporeans and getting away with it. Each single incident in isolation would not be enough to spark off a revolution, But the cumulative effect of many such incidents could be enough at least to spark off a riot - which has indeed happened in Singapore.

But wait, it may not happen. Or will it? 

Singaporeans are generally quite averse to change - so things will have to get pretty darn bad before any kind of popular revolt can happen. It wouldn't take a major accident or disaster to make the people so angry they would revolt and demand change of government and even if we do get to that stage, will there be someone charismatic enough to be able to spot the opportunity and sell Singaporeans an alternative vision of a future quite the same way that Trump has with his "make American great again" campaign? Who knows - right now, there doesn't seem to be but we're in a chicken and an egg situation here: few people would want to pick a battle they can't win so until the conditions are right, few people would want to attempt to take such a controversial stance to get into power. So never say never, after Brexit and Trump, things may yet change in Singapore. So that's it from me for now on this, what do you think? Could extreme right-wing anti-immigrant politics ever flourish in Singapore? Let's talk about it. Many thanks for reading.

9 comments:

  1. It makes me quite sad, and scared, to read this blog post to be honest. I'd like to think that majority of Singaporeans are quite well-educated and have the privilege of having information at our fingertips, and I'd like to believe that the segment of population that holds such extreme right-wing views is not big enough to allow a Trump-like politician to be elected in Singapore.

    But then again, I think about my uncle, who complains about everything under the sun and attributes it to the fault of the PAP. (He lives in a WP-led GRC and is still really unhappy for some reason) He makes such nasty disgusting comments about spousal rape in our family whatsapp group chat (FAMILY WHATSAPP GROUP. WITH IMPRESSIONABLE TEENAGE BOYS AND KIDS IN IT)...it makes me wonder if such Singaporeans are indeed that rare to begin with.

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    1. In every society Delia, you have a mix of people from the well educated to the barely literate - Trump won because he was able to get enough votes from the latter.

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  2. Hi LIFT, These were some thoughts as I read your post:
    1. Why are you so optimistic about Singaporeans embracing change, when last year's election showed theyre the most kiasu people on this planet?

    2. Talking about charismatic but controversial leaders, we have Dr Chee Soon Juan but before he can make any inroads he's already condemned by the public, MSM and PAP. Yet he perseveres, so if he cannot be the figurehead of an alternative government, who can?

    3. Wild outlandish & fiendishly clever party manifestos appealing to deep desires /fears of Singaporeans can be done by denouncing all who dont conform to social norms (immigrants, gays & lesbians, single mothers, childless couples, as you say) who disrupt our population equilibrium.
    But using this strategy is really an art form with no formula to it, and the results will be unpredictable in a small country where the swing of a single segment of society is the make-or-break point.

    4. It will be difficult to play the marketing cum image management game here because the people are too straightforward and dont respond to nuance. Also, after seeing Trump get elected they will compare if someone tries to be like him & will be inoculated against anyone "playing the savior" without the requisite experience.

    5. Speaking of experience, none of the opposition parties have it since they were never given that chance. We may have to look to renegades from within the ruling party to find the "savior" we're hoping for. But the Party Whip is too strong & their salaries too high for anyone to want to turn renegade.

    So that leads back to my genuine question: why are you so optimistic? You got my hopes up but after the last election disappointment will kill me if it happens again.

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    1. Hi CLT, thanks for your post and allow me to respond.

      1. I have come to that conclusion by observing what happened in Tunisia - it is the death by a thousand paper cuts theory. Tunisia is a deeply religious north African country yet the people there can be pushed to breaking point by a very corrupt and inefficient government. Yes Singaporeans are risk-averse but they too can be pushed to breaking point say if the MRT breaks down all the time and the social contract between the government and the people is broken. As to where the breaking point is for Singaporeans, I don't know but remember: it only takes one last straw to break the camel's back. You're focusing on how small that straw is, rather than how much burden there already is on the poor camel's back.

      2. Dr Chee is like Bernie Sanders: full of ideals but crap at PR. Utterly totally pathetically piss poor fucking awful at PR. Nothing against him but fuck me, he's fucking awful at PR. That's why he's condemned by everyone - including me, sorry. You need someone like Trump who will come from the business world, Dr Chee's an academic who has never stepped foot in the business world. Someone who has worked in sales & marketing will at least understand how PR works. Dr Chee is a good man at heart, he is full of ideals but fuck me, he's totally fucking useless when it comes to PR. Totally useless.

      3. You've just described Trumps campaign. It worked didn't it? Crazy promises just to get him into the White House.

      4. Many people would have said the same thing prior to Trumps election - in theory it ought not work but guess what? There are enough dumb people enough to fall for this kinda shit. And as long as you can convince dumb people to vote for you, that's enough to help you win an election.

      5. V good point. It could come from within the PAP should circumstances create a power vacuum (ie. LHL steps down because of ill-health and there isn't a clear successor). Trump didn't run as an independent but as a Republican. But in terms of the party whip + salaries - such a Trump like character will be too ambitious to care about salaries when the ultimate goal is to rule Singapore rather than make more money through politics. As for the party whip, again, a Trump like power-hungry person will rise to the occasion and take on the party whip much the same way Trump has.

      I'm not optimistic per se, I'm merely exploring a hypothetical situation that could happen if the conditions present themselves (ie. overpopulation leading to the overthrow of the PAP). But believe you me, if such a Trump like character takes over, you'll be yearning for the good ol' days of the PAP because things are going to get dark and scary in Singapore when politics lurches to the far right. No, this is a very, very scary and dark road you don't want to see Singapore go down.

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  3. Thank you for addressing every point! Your arguments are valid since the scenario is hypothetical.
    To follow up on Dr Chee, could you elaborate WHY his image is so negative?
    A sincere passionate patriot, gave up his career to get his country on the right track, decent family man with beautiful wife + wholesome children, reasonably healthy & intelligent looking with a manly physique -big solid body with not an extra ounce of fat.
    Since you sometimes perform the role of consultant to those who need an image overhaul, what would you tell Dr Chee if he came to you, asking how to change his appearance or to improve his presentation? Thanks!

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. Sorry had to repost because of typos.

      Hi CLT. Happy to oblige. Actually I've gotten quite a good insight into Dr Chee because my sister knows him, well knew him from back in NUS. He is idealistic and I don't doubt his sincerity or passion, but that's never going to be enough in the world of politics - after all, politics is the ultimate popularity contest and you need a marketing guru to spin a successful campaign to make you appeal. Now that's based on manipulative minds to convince them that you're the best man for the job and that's where a good PR consultant (like Kellyanne Conway) will know how to fight that battle on your behalf. Dr Chee is so freaking naive that he thinks he can win hearts & minds without professional help from someone like Conway or even myself - duh, sorry CLT, but that's just bloody stupid.

      Look, if you and I are going to play a game of tennis, I'd double check with a pro - what do all the lines on the court mean? When is the ball out and in, how do I have to serve? How is a game of doubles different from singles when it comes to the lines etc? What happens at deuce? How does one keep score etc. I would find out all the facts about the rules of game before I even step on the court with my racket. No amount of sincerity, kindness and passion will win me the game if I don't understand what the rules are because I will keep breaking them. And if I keep losing, I'd be the first to find out why I keep losing and change my strategy, rather than blindly carrying on the same way. In sports, we call that 'training a mistake' - when an athlete is so stubborn and refuses to change his ways, say in tennis, he hits the ball too hard when he serves and it keeps going out of court. Unless he's willing to sit down and think about how to keep that serve within the limits of the court, he's just going to keep making the same mistake and eventually he perfects the art of the serve that goes out. That's what Dr Chee has done. Has he ever won an election in Singapore? No. Because his methods have failed but he refuses to change his ways - he's perfecting the art of failure.

      I'm sorry but that's Dr Chee for you - he's trying to play the game with pure passion and sincerity but he's not thinking about his strategy and the rules of the game. I don't blame Singaporeans for not backing him - I blame him for being so ridiculously naive.

      It's not even the way he dresses or speaks or presents himself - he simply doesn't have the credibility to be taken half seriously as an academic. I'm terribly sorry - at least Trump's team presented him as a businessman who ran a business empire (not very well but he does have a business empire) and thus can run America. What experience does Dr Chee have, apart from teaching? Perhaps I'm somewhat biased against teachers because of my own parents whose experience of the real world outside the school gates are so limited because of their career choice - but it's not a simple matter of marketing Dr Chee to the public. He's not a product that I can sell. Give me a successful Singaporean businessman who wants to enter politics and okay, I can work with that. But not Dr Chee, sorry. I can't fix that problem even with my best PR efforts.

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  4. And I thought your latest post might be instead on Treasuri and Louisa getting eliminated from TARA.

    But back to topic. Never say never in the future, but say if in 6 months to a year's time an election were to be held here, it is still only remote possibility that a Trump like candidate could win against his PAP opponent. The reason being that he or she would find it hard to mobilize and large enough movement and following even among the pro opposition. Here's why, by my 2 cents:

    1. Differing agenda among the pro-opposition

    Many pro opposition supporters in Singapore are liberal minded to begin with. It is in fact the PAP who is occupying the most conservative space compared to them. As from long ago, most opposition supporters and by extension the parties campaign on more liberal, more left leaning topics like civil and political rights, like Chee Soon Juan. It is unlikely to expect Chee Soon Juan to become a Trump like person because that just does not appear to be his psyche. Many of these in fact detest Trump and from what I observed, gave their regular PAP bashing a pause even to whack Trump repeatedly online before the US elections.
    There are other minority groups of opposition supporters to tap on. The more racial supremacists for instance, such as old chinese educated men who want to see Singapore pivot to China much more than it is now. A trump like agenda may not be entirely successful with them especially if you are trying to stoke xenophobia against PRC migrants, for one.

    2. Simply a lack of individuals that will be taken seriously

    As it is most of the more credible opposition here already have their flag in the ground somewhere centre left of the PAP, and are unlikely to follow a Trump like agenda. So who can this candidate tap into to join his movement? You're right, none other than guys like Gilbert Goh and his ilk. People for whom the average person, much less Singaporean will have little respect for in the first place.
    Trump, whatever you say, is a successful billionaire. He can be pitched as someone who worked hard with his own two hands. He can claim to have business connections that will boost the US economy. But you will find very few of such people, if at all in Singapore. Instead, you are likely to find a lot of "full time" bloggers, armchair politicians, comments sections keyboard warriors, who will take up the cause. People like these cannot be taken seriously for too long and do not form the core of any political movement wherever you may go.

    3. Nationalism just isn't as strong in Singapore

    Of course, we may think otherwise, but we are a nation of just 51 years. Try as we might, we can't match up to the kind of history and pride of countries who have fought and won wars, and who have achieved a lot track record and identity as a people. Of course, we have things to be proud off, and rightly so, but I'd argue that it is harder to stoke up the same kind of feeling here, as with what Trump did with white American men, for one.

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    1. Raymond, here it is: http://limpehft.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/tara-s5-e9-dont-hate-player-hate-game.html Will respond to your other points later!

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