The President

(Cover image by Louise Velazquez)

Right after Duan Ming-Chuan was elected president of the National Taiwan Association of Journalism, news surfaced that he had taken money from the Hualien governors decades previously. A published graph showing how much money Duan had received annually was circulated online. It showed that over a fourteen year period, Duan had taken ten to twenty thousand US dollars each year, throughout the terms of four different Hualien governors. .

Yi-Ting was in the US, covering news about the presidential election the day she read the online news about Duan. She was surprised. Yi-Ting had worked under Duan for 4 years for the East Coast Daily, her first job after leaving school. She had had an on-again-off-again affair with Duan for some of the time when he had allegedly taken the money. She had learned a lot from Duan about the reality of being a reporter, like the shrewdness required when handling facts versus opinions, and knowing what to present and what to withhold. Duan had insisted that in spite of what she had learned from her textbooks, integrity was not necessarily a cornerstone of her occupation. But at the time she had no idea that her supervisor and lover was being given handsome allowances that almost equaled her whole year’s income. It wasn’t actually a lot of money, but what was it for? And why was it never talked about until now, nearly twenty years later, as Duan was taking on the position of president of the association?

Driving across the US and observing numerous campaign events, Yi-Ting had a problem understanding why Donald Trump had made it all the way to the GOP nomination. She had believed there would be many Republicans opposing Trump and pulling him down at the last moment, but it never happened. Unlike many reports describing Trump supporters as low income,poorly educated blue collar workers, she had actually met a lot of well-educated, well-to-do people who gave her all kinds of reasons why they supported Trump. But none of them were convincing. Yi-Ting began to suspect that these people were actually too embarrassed to admit the real reasons they supported Trump, so they made up all kinds of empty excuses. Yi-Ting was more and more convinced that the Trump opposition was hitting at the wrong targets all the time. The debates,the fact-checking, the mocking, criticisms and condemnations were never the real concerns of Trump supporters.

So what were the actual reasons for their support of Trump? Human minds are sometimes too complicated to explore, especially on the dark side. For more than half a century, American society had operated according to political correctness. That sensibility at least muffled the sounds of hatred, discrimination, and open hostility even if it didn’t help relieve the clashes caused by misunderstanding or ignorance. But now it was as if a giant crack in political correctness had unleashed an opportunity for people to finally vent their resentments brazenly. But there were so many people who were models of society, who appeared to be highly successful, as students, as parents, as employees, who never really made it clear why they would support a volatile, incoherent man to lead their country.

The next day in the online news, Yi-Ting read that the Hualien County Government issued a statement claiming that all the payments made to Duan Ming-Chuan were for his studies on Hualien’s public policies. That was certainly news to Yi-Ting. For the 4 years they had worked together, she had never been aware of any studies that Duan had been conducting on Hualien’s public policies. Duan was a man with great self-confidence, sometimes a little bit too flamboyant in her eyes. He was most proud of the fact that he had never had to work as hard as other reporters, “I don’t have to dig up news; news come to me,” he would say. If the statement by the Hualien County Government was true, that the payments were equal to a whole year’s salary for a young reporter, Duan would have had to produce an academic thesis every year for 14 years in a row. And he would have still been working for the newspaper at the same time. How this was possible? And as a newspaper’s staff reporter, was it ethical to be hired by another entity? Was his employer aware he was working for another organization?

Hualien County was blocked by the Central Range from the western part of Taiwan, thus it was less developed and the magnificent landscapes better conserved. Except, that is, for the notorious cement mines that decapitated the entire mountain. In every election, the right-wing conservative always won the governor’s race and took the majority of seats in the local council, because they repeatedly promised to improve the poor economy of Hualien. Yi-Ting suspected that the sense of poverty felt by Hualien’s people was something they had been taught by these politicians, The public was told they were poor people and should feel ashamed of it, so their votes would go to the candidates who were claiming to save them from disgraceful poverty. But they were not truly poor. Decades had passed, and the economy was about the same, steady but not abundant. Huge developments hardly ever came to Hualien because it took too long for traffic to get there from the rest of the island. Local people were friendly to visitors from the cities because they were believed to be doing the local residents a favor just by coming there.

Yi-Ting applied for the job covering cultural news about Hualien because she thought it was a good place to live. It was quiet with almost no pollution, and rich with historical heritage that was still not fully understood, including the nearby traditional indigenous territories. Yi-Ting never figured out what brought Duan to Hualien. Both Duan and Yi-Ting were graduates from prestigious universities, and they earned their master degrees from the UK and the US respectively. Most of the journalists with comparable education would stay in Taipei, covering news of national significance. So, to be honest, they were treated like royalty in Hualien, a place believed to be inadequate for elites trying to establish a career.

Eight years ago, social media had brought significant change to the political landscape, which contributed to Barack Obama’s victory. But was there any change evident now? Every day news poured out from all the news media, including mainstream, independent and social media, exposing Trump’s sexist, racist, and xenophobic remarks, as well as the bankruptcy and tax evasion of his kingdom-like corporations.. But it stood in contrast to Yi-Ting’s personal experience of hearing people around her saying how Trump was going to reconstruct a stronger, better disciplined and more powerful United States.

“You don’t mind his open discrimination against immigrants?” She asked a Taiwanese man, Jack Shen, who had moved to the US eighteen years ago in order to provide a better education for his two children.

“He is rude, but he is an excellent negotiator; he manages things in a smart way.”

How smart could a man be whose relentless rudeness often bordered on cruelty? “What is smart about the way he manages things?” Yi-Ting pursued,

But the man couldn’t make himself clear. Jack lived in a gated community in Orange County, California. Yi-Ting noticed that the community consisted of mostly white people and Asian people. Asian Americans here sent their children to top public schools and top state universities, and hoped their opportunities wouldn’t be shared with Hispanic Americans or African Americans. Typical middle-class, Yi-Ting thought to herself: hard-working, self-assured, responsible and law-abiding, but never feeling they possess enough to share with people less prestigious than they are.

“He pays a much lower tax rate than you do. Doesn’t that bother you?” Yi-Ting interviewed a young woman, Michelle, who was shopping in a Walmart in Phoenix, Arizona.

As long as he’s avoiding taxes legally, I don’t mind.”

”

“Can you avoid taxes legally too?” Yi-Ting asked.

“No. I don’t know how to do hatt.” Michelle shook her head.

There was no doubt that in Michelle’s mind, a person who knew how to avoid paying taxes was more admirable than questionable. Yi-Ting felt frustrated. Did these people see that if wealthy people like Trump paid higher tax rates, just a little bit higher, it would be a large amount of money compared to their incomes? Michelle was paying almost two and a half months of her salary. With that amount of money she could have a comfortable vacation in Europe, or alternatively, she could work only nine and a half months a year if she knew how to avoid paying the tax.

The news continued to confuse Yin-Ting. Everyday anyone could find hundreds of examples of evidence that Trump was a sexist, a racist, and a tax evader, and it never changed the determination of his voters.

“Do you agree with the idea of building a wall between the border of the USA and Mexico?” Yi-Ting interviewed Samuel, a car mechanic in Las Vegas, a man in his fifties who was earning almost three times the minimum hourly wage because of his experience and excellent skills.

“Yes, I do”

“Why?”

“The undocumented immigrants steal our jobs.”

“How so? There is no wall between Canada and America, Canadians don’t steal jobs?”

Samuel wasn’t sure. He searched to come up with another idea. “The wall is for the security of our homeland.”

“How is that?” Yi-Ting felt this nice guy seemed like he was facing a test. His mind was rummaging through possible answers for the questions the teacher was throwing at him. She took out her tablet and presented Samuel the charts she had found, “This study shows that the crimes committed by undocumented immigrants are significantly lower than native-born Americans.”

Samuel was not interested. Yi-Ting was more and more convinced that people had decided to support Trump before they had even started trying to formulate any of their reasons. And she still had no idea what the real reasons were for their support.

Meanwhile, there was not much progress in Duan Ming-Cuan’s news. Duan’s opposers demanded that the Hualien County Government should present the study reports that Duan had provided. They wanted to see what kinds of reports were worth so much money. But the County Government said they had mixed Duan’s papers with other texts, so it was impossible to distinguish Duan’s contribution from others.

When Yi-Ting was working under Duan, Duan always told her that reporters should learn how to raise issues. At first Yi-Ting did not understand that Duan’s idea of “raising” issues did not mean to bring up issues, but to “foster” issues. He meant to hold back information until small incidents became major crises so they could have inside stories for exclusive reports. Was that what he meant when he said he never had to pursue the news, because the news pursued him?

They did have very different perspective about their work. In the case of insignificant stories that Yi-Ting considered unworthy of attention, Duan might cover them for several days. But then when she believed something should undergo in-depth investigation, Duan handled it like a trivial matter. One example was when the scandal exploded about the Governor’s right hand man taking bribes. Duan never pursued it; he simply rewrote it based on the reports of other news media. And the totally corrupt construction of low-income housing was nothing but an insignificant mistake under Duan’s pen.

Several years later Yi-Ting realized that to her, Duan was an OK lover, but not an OK supervisor or colleague. Had they engaged in different professions, their relationship might have been smoother. Duan read a lot of history; he particularly liked the power struggles in ancient Chinese courts. Yi-Ting remembered that books about power wrestling, wars, coups, or revolutions were everywhere in his place. He read them many times and remembered them well. He liked to give historical examples during their conversations, but Yi-Ting usually failed to catch his points. Yi-Ting did not recall seeing any publications of contemporary issues in Duan’s place. He never read anything about economics, sociology or political science. Traces of his involvement with other women, like a mascara tube found under the bed, or an earring forgotten in the bathroom, were more obvious than any evidence that Duan had ever studied Hualien’s public policies. Regardless, Duan was a fun man to be around in general, no matter whether Yi-Ting was jealous or excited or frustrated. But the gap between their perceptions of their careers obstructed them from building a more trusting intimacy. After working together and sometimes sleeping together for 4 years, Yi-Ting finally left the job and cut off their affair. Or did the end of their affair end her job? She was never sure.

Yi-Ting’s executive editor in Taiwan complained that she only covered Trump’s supporters. “Are you becoming his fan, too?”

Yi-Ting laughed out loud. She understood Hillary Clinton’s supporters, but she did not understand Trump’s supporters. She had great interest in these people, but at the same time she detested their tolerance of Trump’s sexism and racism. Yi-Ting thought to herself that if her editor wanted stories about Clinton’s supporters, she could write about them without even interviewing them.

Suddenly it dawned on Yi-Ting that perhaps that was how Duan practiced his profession.

The point was not what he reported, but what he did not report. If Trump’s supporters did not mind his hateful remarks, then updating similar remarks daily, even hourly, wouldn’t change their minds. Nevertheless the tweets and remarks were good material for the news media. Opponents would read them, curse them, and post them on social media. Then there were more readers and more shares. A lazy reporter could just follow hateful remarks to attract more readers. After all, the advertisers of news media hired the websites with the greatest numbers of clicks, not the most professional journalism. In the same way that twenty years ago Duan was paid off to play down certain topics in his reports, reporters today were not pursuing critical issues of public interest, but simply the readers’ attention. The more controversial, the better.

Bad dramas always attracted a greater audience. Yi-Ting felt defeated.

Duan never made any statement regarding doubt about his past conduct. And opinions supporting Duan began to emerge. A group of reporters said Duan’s payments were earned by his talents, and no matter what he had written for the Hualien County Government, he certainly was not overpaid. They added that those who criticized him were simply jealous. Did Duan motivate these younger reporters to express their support? Nay. Yi-Ting did not think so. Duan was too proud to ask for favors like this.

A middle-aged local Hualien reporter, Chan Ta-Chung, said he remembered helping to compile Duan’s reports, and they were informational, insightful, and very valuable. What the fuck? So those who have captured dubious gains are worshipped, not questioned. Yi-Ting thought of Michelle. What an odd mentality demonstrated by otherwise ordinary, well-intentioned people. None of the members of this group supporting Duan faced the fact that it was not about whether Duan was overpaid or not.

Yi-Ting remembered Chan, a small man with indigenous parentage. He knew many things: plants, animals, local histories and local people. Yi-Ting had learned a lot from him. Chan liked to hang out with Duan and Yi-Ting, but Duan never seemed to care about Chan’s contribution even though Chan had provided him quite useful information about local events, such as who had rough patches, with whom, and for what. Yi-Ting still remembered the contemptuous look Duan had one time when Chan brought him a bottle of wine. She knew Chan was hurt, and she was hurt, too. Yi-Ting drank it with Chan. It was not a heavenly drink, but she had never needed high-end wines to celebrate friendship.

By now Yi-Ting was quite sure that the so-called studies and papers supposedly composed by Duan for the Haulien County Government never ever existed. So what was Chan doing now? Heart of darkness. Chan still cared about Duan’s opinions of him. When Yi-Ting realized that Chan had lied for Duan about the reports, she concluded that Chan had never given up his quest to earn more recognition from him. But it was not going to work. Yi-Ting knew that the more humble a person was with Duan, the less respect he could win from him. She felt so sorry for Chan. With the knowledge he had accumulated from his hard work and inherited from his folks, he could have made himself a much more worthy journalist.

In November, as Yi-Ting predicted, Trump won. And Duan was inaugurated as the president of the National Taiwan Association of Journalism. The questionable events of twenty years ago were never explained by Duan, but by that time few still cared.