ELISA ENGLISH's Blog 英語園地

柯文哲的政治精算 Ko Wen-je's political calculation

I kept thinking about what the best word would be to describe 柯文哲.  He doesn’t look like a fence-sitter (牆頭草) to me.   A fence-sitter is someone who does not make decisions or take sides because he or she doesn’t want to offend either side.  He definitely is NOT that type of person.  He has his own agenda from the start.  He is very good at manipulating people and giving the false appearance of being honest or sincere.  You can definitely call him phony, double-faced, or a back-stabber or a double-dealer who practices the work to people's disadvantage behind their backs.  Then I found the world “political chameleon”.  Wow!  That’s the perfect word to depict him.  A political chameleon (政治變色龍) is a person who changes their opinions or behavior according to the situation.   

柯文哲 is a political operator without loyalty.  One day, he would say that his strategic goals are the same as those of the DPP, so he could get the votes and support from DPP to become Taipei Mayor.  But later, he befriended 旺旺中時集團董事長蔡衍明 when the majority of his voters despise Want Want as the Chinese Communist's lapdog (走狗).  Furthermore, he has now switched from pretending to be pro-Taiwan to revealing his true color to be pro-China as he works towards preparing for future (2024) presidential election.  Yet again, he changes his color.  Around one group of people, he seems to be pro-Taiwan (green).  Around another, pro-China (blue or red).  In yet another, independent (white). He is a political chameleon, someone who keeps engaging in a type of social shape-shifting as a sort of camouflage in order to gain more votes. 

Written by Elisa English

On October 7, 2019 in Minneapolis