People Power, from Manila to Pennsylvania

What does a popular uprising in an Asian nation decades ago have to do with Kamala Harris’s campaign today?

A lot.

Nearly Forty Years Later…

In 1986, after Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos stole his country’s presidential election, hundreds of thousands of Filipinos demonstrated in what came to be known as “People Power”: They jammed Manila’s streets to block his tanks from crushing a pro-democracy military rebellion. His regime’s collapse days later capped months of opposition mobilization throughout the nation.

In 2024, Harris is similarly mobilizing massive numbers of supporters across America. Many thousands of volunteers are knocking on doors, making phone calls and otherwise doing get-out-the-vote grunt work down the home stretch. She closed her powerful D.C. speech tonight by emphasizing that “each of you has the power to turn the page.” Here’s the Harris campaign link, to pitch in; even at this late date, such help could prove pivotal in an excruciatingly close election.

I lived and worked in the Philippines for six years, starting in 1987 for an American democracy-assisting foundation. Flying in from California to Pennsylvania earlier this month because it’s the most important swing state, I recently completed over a week of volunteer door-knocking for Harris in electoral bellwethers Erie and Bucks Counties. (I wasn’t nearly the most long-distance volunteer; two other Americans came in from Singapore and New Zealand.)

So Many Similarities…

Though worlds apart, the Asian and American struggles still share distinct similarities.

First, there’s their grassroots nature. Filipinos rose up against the overconfident Marcos by campaigning for opposition leader Corazon Aquino in communities across the country and then launching that People Power Revolution.

Key  aspects of Kamala’s  campaign are correspondingly community-based. On a recent Saturday in Erie County, nearly 200 volunteers knocked on thousands of  doors in an effort to identify and reach pro-Harris and undecided voters. Nationally, Harris door-knocking and phone canvassers made it to over 600,000 homes and made more than three million calls in a single week. Utilizing its canvassing app, the campaign will further seek to ensure turnout for Harris and fellow Democrats.

This get-out-the-vote drive gets precious little media attention, particularly in gloom-and-doom depictions of Harris’s prospects. Yet it could prove decisive.

While the national Trump GOTV effort is well-funded in some states, it’s largely outsourcing such work to often inexperienced outfits. And it’s divided and limited in certain areas – not least Erie (as well as Bucks), where it seems tiny, featuring a display sometimes parked by the lake.

Approaching the display, I introduced myself and chatted with the head of that Erie effort, who’d lost his city council reelection bid last year. Suffice to say that we disagreed about his claim that the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests equaled the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection. Our conversation was largely polite, though he got somewhat edgy in wondering why someone from California should come to Pennsylvania for Harris. I pointed out that it’s still one country.

What’s at Stake…

Another obvious similarity shared by the Aquino and Harris movements is their being about far more than nominees or parties – a point Harris’s speech highlighted concerning her campaign. Both efforts have confronted candidates who’ve tried to steal elections.

Indeed, democracy itself is at stake. In the Philippines, this was about defeating a dictatorship; here, it’s about preventing one. Filipinos helped inspire other democratic movements around the world. Our election outcome could do the same.

Is such voter turnout work here worth all the effort? A seminal study, updated over the years, contends that it is. Any one canvasser may matter little; but crucial cumulative impact can flow from millions of door knocks and phone calls.

Canvassing may make an additional, intangible difference by fueling enthusiasm during these dark, Trump-shadowed days. Though knocking on unanswered doors or facing indifferent residents is drudgery,  positive encounters can boost morale among  canvassers and voters alike, with ripple effects on other folks they know in terms of action, donations and eventually votes.

Who Are We?

For me, the fuel includes a woman who’s raising seven grandkids and making “damn sure” that those over eighteen back Harris. Another woman, nearly in tears, reported that she can barely sleep at night for fear of a Trump triumph but is buoyed by the pro-Harris outreach. An apparently staunch conservative declared that he’s voting straight Republican, “except for the dictator.”

There were other, more disturbing conversations. The enthusiastic Harris supporter who reluctantly declined to volunteer for the campaign due to concerns about doing so being dangerous. The pro-Harris fellow who asked me to speak in a low voice so that neighbors could not hear our talk. The pro-Trump woman who railed that prices are (supposedly) three times as high today compared to Trump’s time and claimed that the Affordable Care Act made health care much less affordable.

But most chats were far more positive. Ironically, the one that most inspired me and my co-canvassing friend was with a fellow who can’t even vote, at the close of a long, drizzly day of door-knocking. The person on our voters list had moved; instead, we found  a family of Kurdish refugees who’d just arrived in the country. As is the admirable wont in their culture, they insisted we come in for  tea.

In broken English, the economist/accountant father explained that they fled war-wracked Syria in 2011 for Iraq’s Kurdistan Region. Years later, they were on the verge of obtaining asylum in America when Trump banned immigrants from numerous Muslim nations. They finally made it here last month.

The family illuminates what else is at stake along with our democracy: Does our nation of immigrants still welcome them, or cruelly blame them for our ills? More broadly, do we go with our better angels or our darker demons?

The Philippines holds a final lesson for America today: Supposed strongmen can seem that way until people gather the power to rip away their facades and reveal their fundamental weakness.

It also offers one final difference: Filipinos risked their lives for their freedom. We’re just asked to invest some money or time.

Kamala’s People Power could prove decisive. The democracy we save will be our own.