What comes next for US’ Trump, Republican Party, President Biden?
THE US Senate acquitted Donald Trump on February 13 of the charge of inciting the January 6 assault on the US Capitol in an unprecedented second impeachment trial.
Trump’s acquittal raises questions about what’s next for the 74-year-old former president, the Republican Party and President Joe Biden.
Donald Trump
Although Trump’s acquittal by the Senate was a near certainty, the verdict must have come as a relief to the former president.
In a statement, Trump denounced what he called a “witch hunt” and talked about the future.
He said: “Our historic, patriotic and beautiful movement to Make America Great Again has only just begun . . . We have so much work ahead of us, and soon we will emerge with a vision for a bright, radiant, and limitless American future.”
Trump has flirted with the idea of running for the White House again in 2024 and a conviction would have likely barred him from holding federal office again.
Since leaving the White House on January 20, Trump has been holed up in his Mara-Lago resort, deprived of the Twitter account he used to communicate with his many millions of followers.
Capri Cafaro, executive in residence at American University in Washington and a former Democratic member of the Ohio state senate, said: “The legacy of Donald Trump for many at this point may be
the events of January 6, regardless of acquittal.”
That could carry over to the real estate tycoon’s activities in the private sector, she said. “It’s almost like he has no choice but to continue to try to be in politics.”
Wendy Schiller, a professor of political science at Brown University, added: “If a corporation were to offer him a speaking appearance, the social media backlash would be swift and severe, with possible boycotts of their products ... Even holding conferences or events at Trump properties will be a problem for large publicly traded companies,
or companies that provide a direct to consumer product.”
The Republican Party
The fact that the vast majority of Senate Republicans voted to acquit Trump is a clear signal that he retains a grip on the Grand Old Party (GOP).
“The party is his,” Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of his most fervent supporters, said last week. “It doesn’t belong to anyone else.”
But seven Republican senators voted to convict the former president and 10 Republican members of the House of Representatives voted
last month to impeach him, including the party’s thirdranking member, Liz Cheney, daughter of former vice-president Dick Cheney.
Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell voted for acquittal but said Trump was “practically and morally” responsible for the January 6 violence.
A number of Republicans have distanced themselves from the former president and are lining up to take their own shot at the White House in 2024.
Among them is former South Carolina state governor Nikki Haley, who said Republicans were wrong for supporting Trump’s campaign to reverse the election results, a course that led to the January 6 attack on Congress.
Haley also dismissed speculation Trump will seek the presidency in 2024. “I don’t think he can,” she said. “He’s fallen so far.”
But the Republicans advocating a complete break with Trump are in the minority and most remain fearful of the power he holds over his base.
A group of anti-Trump former Republican officials has raised the idea of creating a centre-right third party but it is unlikely to gain much traction.
Joe Biden
Trump’s impeachment trial has been hanging over the start of Biden’s presidency and the Democrats must be glad it took just five days.
The Senate will now be in a position to swiftly confirm Biden’s cabinet appointees and work on his legislative agenda as the country struggles with the Covid-19 pandemic and severe economic woes.
Schiller said: “President Biden has done a very good job of separating himself from the impeachment trial proceedings and keep his messaging on the Covid-19 crisis and the accompanying economic crisis.”
But Trump remains a force to be reckoned with.
“There’s no saying that we’re immune from more protests, demonstrations, activism from the far right,” Cafaro said. “If and when that happens how Joe Biden deals with them will be something to watch.”
OPPOSITION to Myanmar’s new military regime intensified on February 13 as spontaneous neighbourhood watch groups mobilised to thwart arrests of anti-coup activists and the UN demanded the release of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
The army takeover that brought a decade-old democracy to an end two weeks ago has unleashed a storm of anger and defiance, with huge daily protests bringing urban centres around the country to a standstill.
Since taking Suu Kyi and her top allies into custody, troops have stepped up arrests of civil servants, doctors and others joining strikes to call on the generals to relinquish power.
Crowds defied overnight curfews to mass on the streets as night fell, hours after finishing a seventh straight day of rallies, following rumours that police were launching a fresh wave of arrests.
One group swarmed a hospital in the city of Pathein on rumours that a popular local doctor would be taken, chanting a Buddhist prayer urging protection from harm.
“If I have problems, I will ask for your help,” Than Min Htut told the group who had come to aid him, flashing the three-finger salute that has come to symbolise resistance to the coup.
Than Min Htut on February 13 said he was still free and would continue participating in a civil disobedience campaign opposing military rule.
People in Yangon skirted a junta ban on Facebook to organise neighbourhood watch groups that warned of rumoured arrests.
“We didn’t know who will be taken, but when we heard the sound, we went out to join our neighbours,” said Tin Zar, a storekeeper in Yangon’s north.
“Even if they shoot, we are not afraid,” she said.
More than 320 people have been arrested since last week’s coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners monitoring group.
An emergency session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on February 12 called for the new regime to release all “arbitrarily detained” persons and hand power back to Suu Kyi’s administration.
At the meeting, the UN deputy rights chief Nada al-Nashif warned
Myanmar that “the world is watching” events unfold in the country.
News of more arrests did not stop tens of thousands from returning to the streets of Yangon on February 13, where columns of traffic ground to a halt and blared their horns for five minutes to mark the birthday of Aung San.
The independence hero and father of Suu Kyi is revered locally for freeing the country from colonial control but was gunned down at the age of 32, just months before the end of British rule.
Nationwide protests have remained largely peaceful, though authorities have used tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets to disperse some rallies.
At least two people in the capital Naypyidaw were shot by police and critically injured, including one 20year-old woman who remains in intensive care.
Officers cleared a sit-in protest in the port city of Mawlamyine on February 12 with rubber bullets, injuring several demonstrators.
COVID-19 is far from over. One year after the first case of Covid-19 was reported in Cambodia, there have been more than 105 million cases and over 2.3 million deaths recorded around the world. Although the number of cases can vary greatly between countries, as we have seen recently with migrant workers returning from Thailand, the virus does not respect borders. Until every country is safe, no country is safe.
Although Cambodia has been relatively fortunate in so far preventing the large-scale community transmission seen elsewhere in our region, the impact here has still been devastating. Many livelihoods have been lost, children have been unable to go to school, and life for many families continues to be difficult due to the ongoing uncertainty of the pandemic.
Yet, as we move into our second year of living with Covid-19, additional tools for fighting the virus bring hope. We are now very optimistic about the development of new, safe and effective Covid-19 vaccines, and many people in the Western Pacific Region are asking when vaccines will be available. Unfortunately, there is not a simple answer to this question.
We anticipate that in 2021, at least in the next few months, demand will vastly exceed supply. While this is the case, we must prioritise those most exposed to infection, and most vulnerable to getting very sick from it – that is, frontline healthcare workers and older people. Prioritising these groups is needed in order to maintain healthcare capacity, and save lives. COVAX (the Covid-19 vaccine facility) aims to provide an allocation of doses to advance market commitment countries to vaccinate these highest priority groups (approximately three per cent of the population), as quickly as possible within the next few months.
Following this, the goal is to provide enough vaccine doses to cover at least 20 per cent of the population – including other priority groups, such as people with pre-existing illnesses which put them at higher risk of getting sick from Covid-19 – by the end of this year. In most countries, vaccinations will not be available to the wider population until some time after that. But challenges with vaccine production and delivery – for example, with manufacturing – make the precise timing of each of these phases of the vaccine rollout uncertain.
Governments, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and other partners are all working very hard to try to secure doses for all countries, including Cambodia, as soon as possible. Though vaccines alone won’t end the pandemic, they will be an extremely important additional tool in strengthening our response to Covid-19 when used in combination with the other measures we know work.
Current evidence shows that the existing Covid-19 vaccines are effective at stopping disease, but we still don’t know if they prevent people from becoming infected with the virus. This means that being vaccinated will stop you getting sick, but it may not prevent you from passing the virus on to others. It is also the
case that while these new vaccines are very promising, no vaccine is 100 per cent effective. So even once vaccines are rolled out, we must continue to practice all the other measures that we know work to stop Covid-19 transmission.
In countries with outbreaks and ongoing community transmission, maintaining physical distance, hand hygiene, staying home when sick, avoiding crowed spaces – all the behaviours we have been promoting for the last year – must be continued. In countries that have managed to suppress or even contain Covid-19 transmission, there is still always a risk of future outbreaks. We must continue to prepare for this scenario, and be ready to activate a targeted
response whenever necessary.
And even as the number of people vaccinated increases, we must not let down our guard. We know that everyone, everywhere is tired of the pandemic. But no country is safe until every country is safe. Until the vast majority of every country’s population has been vaccinated, we must use or be ready to use the measures we know are effective at slowing or stopping the spread of Covid-19.
We encourage people in Cambodia to continue listening to your local health authorities, and thinking about how the actions we take as individuals determine our collective health. Individuals and communities in all countries have the power to influence the course that this pandemic takes next.
There is still a lot of work to be done, and WHO together with partners will continue working closely with the Cambodian government in the fight against Covid-19. We are all in this together.
Individuals and communities in all countries have the power to influence the course that this pandemic takes next
IN CAMBODIA people with disabilities are often invisible to most able-bodied people and when they are seen it’s often through a lens of victimhood that focuses on a presumed lack of independence or the idea that begging will be their only source of income.
A Phnom Penh-based photographer and curator originally hailing from Portugal, Miguel Jeronimo is working with several artists to hold an exhibition showcasing people with disabilities’ whose lives defy those stereotypes.
“The From Disability to Visibility exhibition is a platform to provide visibility and give a voice to people with disabilities in Cambodia to show that they have talent and can live an independent life,” he says.
Stories abound of people with disabilities who are able to survive on their own: A man with one leg who climbs palm trees to collect the sap to make sugar; a man with one eye who became a computer programmer and teaches kids how to use computers; a blind man who earned a bachelor’s degree in English literature; and deaf people who are tuktuk drivers or kitchen staff.
There are individuals who were affected by polio in their childhood causing paralysis and forcing them to use a wheelchair for the rest of their lives who are now NGO directors and programme coordinators.
These courageous individuals are examples of people with disabilities who are independent and do not rely on others for assistance for their survival and they are featured in a new exhibition at The Factory in Phnom Penh organised by Jeronimo.
“From artists to rice farmers, from musicians to mechanics, from physiotherapists to computer engineers, I’ve been meeting amazing and resilient individuals who’ve created a life for themselves and have shown society that they are more than their impairments,” says Jeronimo.
“A beautiful case of success, for instance, is a young woman with hearing impairment who came to the NGO All Ears Cambodia and now, after being treated and receiving a hearing aid is now working to help other people with their hearing impairments,” he says.
Jeronimo has also used his photographic artwork to help raise funds to support people without a safety net during pandemic.
He tells The Post: “It’s urgent to break down the stereotypes that people with disabilities are not good enough to contribute to society and we hope with this exhibition we can show that there are incredible people in Cambodia who overcame their limitations and are great at what they do.”
The idea to organise the exhibition was sparked by the Heinrich Boell Foundation who suggested that they do an art show focused on the topic of disability.
Jeronimo says the foundation works in Cambodia to promote projects related to human rights, gender equality and the environment.
“The disability theme is very important to focus on here considering that disabled people still have to deal with many barriers in terms of inclusion and access,” Jeronimo says.
There will be artwork from nearly 20 artists in the exhibition – some of them with disabilities themselves – as well as able-bodied artists who wanted to support this issue and promote a message of inclusion and empowerment for persons with disabilities.
Some of the disability related issues that are important right now are the development and teaching of Cambodian Sign Language, the need for more inclusion in the workplace, accessibility and mobility issues and simply the need for empathy and understanding from the rest of society.
“It has been an incredible learning experience for me as well, and definitely there are many great people in the country working every day to promote better and more independent lives for people with disabilities,” Jeronimo says.
The exhibition will include people with both physical and mental impairments and carry the important message that not all disabilities are visible.
“We attempted to present different views about the topic, from the medical to the social model of disability, as a way to promote discussion about it, raise questions and propose solutions,” says Jeronimo.
Several artists with disabilities who are quite prominent in their fields will also exhibit their artworks during the twenty-day exhibition. The mix-media artist Chan Phoun has an installation made out of painted bricks, while Morn Chear does block printing and Kim San is an established painter.
After interviewing a number of people with disabilities, Jeronimo says they share a common message that as a society people need to stop closing their eyes to this issue and stop thinking that a person with a disability should just stay at home.
He says: “They are some of the strongest and most inspiring people I’ve met, but at the same time in other ways they are just average people like us.
“If given a chance they can do whatever an able-bodied person can do. It’s all about breaking down this preconceived idea that people are disabled solely by their own impairments when they are not.
“They are disabled by the society around them. With a more inclusive environment, for instance more ramps in buildings instead of just stairs – or equal access to education, jobs, health care and justice – they can really excel in their lives just like everybody else.”
From Disability to Visibility will have illustrated artworks exhibited by Khmer talents such as Adana Legros, Vodka, Ket Monnyreak, Sukunthkanika and Limhay Chum & Jin.
The exhibition will also feature photography by Tytaart, Erick Gonzalez and Ten Borey, a video-installation by Mech Choulay as well as paintings by Mil Chankrim and sculptures by Bor Hak.
Krousar Thmey, an organisation developing education for deaf and blind children, has a project with French-Khmer photographer Raphael Pech and traditional dancer Sokha Chim for a photo-shoot focused on the Apsara hand gestures doing signs from the Cambodian Sign Language.
AgileDG will show their Powerwheel, an invention that attaches an electric wheel to a wheelchair which transforms it into a small motorbike.
The Embrace Project is showcasing a sensory wall based on the kind of tactile objects they use in their rehabilitation workshops that help disabled persons achieve independence.
There will also be various portraits displayed of subjects helped by the NGO Exceed Worldwide with prosthetic limbs which make it possible for them to work and have an independent life and also from the football programme run by ISF which provides opportunities for blind children to participate in sports.
As a photographer who curates many artwork exhibitions about the environment, social issues and causes in Cambodia, Jeronimo thinks he’s seeing some progress being made but one issue that has persisted is a lack of information on this topic.
“There’s not even an agreement on the actual number of people with disabilities in the country. It’s a hidden problem and many families still facing discrimination and preferring to keep their children at home if they were born with a disability.
“But it’s gotten better in recent years, with more NGOs and the government paying more attention to the topic, but there’s still much to be done to make sure everyone has equal access to services and the right to live an independent life,” he says.
Jeronimo says one good example of this evolution is with the use of technology – for instance ridehailing apps make life easier for a blind person by providing increased mobility, since public transport like buses is still quite limited.
Jeronimo says text-to-speech apps and the ubiquitous use of smartphones allows some persons with disabilities to communicate easier and engage with social media or use the internet for learning purposes.
On the opening day of the exhibition there will be a small reception at 1pm with snacks and drinks provided NGOs with catering programs employing people with disabilities.
At 2pm there will be a performance by the dance group Epic Arts. The group is made up of dancers with different types of disabilities and they are travelling from Kampot for this event.
“We also have a live painting session by artist Flori Green on a wheelchair with a wood installation by Manon and the wheelchair is going to be donated to a teenage girl in need after the exhibition is finished,” Jeronimo says.
He concludes by saying: “We are hoping many people will come for the opening to support the cause of equal rights, opportunities and access for those with disabilities and also to see the artwork and dance performance. We hope this will serve to inspire discussion about social inclusion of people with disabilities.”
The From Disability to Visibility exhibition opens February 20 at 1pm and runs to March 10 in the FT Gallery at The Factory Phnom Penh.