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It's hard to miss the parallels between President-elect Donald Trump and Rodrigo Duterte, a mercurial anti-crime crusader who earlier this year rode a wave of dissatisfaction to the presidency of the Philippines.
The New Yorker disapatched Adrian Chen, a Reed College graduate and onetime WW intern, to the Philippines to profile the country's new leader—who promised and has delivered a war on drug dealers that has left more than 3,000 people dead in a wave of extra-judicial vigilantism.
Here's how Chen describes the new president:
"Duterte thinks out loud, in long, rambling monologues, laced with inscrutable jokes and wild exaggeration. His manner is central to his populist image, but it inevitably leads to misunderstanding, even among Filipino journalists. Ernie Abella, Duterte's spokesman, recently pleaded with the Presidential press corps to use its 'creative imagination' when interpreting Duterte's comments."
And if that's not enough to create a parallel, there's this:
"He is also hypersensitive to criticism," Chen writes. "'Duterte's weakness is, really, he's a tough guy," Greco Belgica, a Filipino politician and an ally of Duterte's, said. "You do not talk down to a tough guy. He'll snap.'"
Sounds familiar.
Willamette Week