Shen Boyang, the Taipei mayoral candidate of the Democratic Progressive Party, has recently set off an "ocean current" and his performance has attracted much attention from the outside world. Ye Yaoyuan, chair professor of international studies at the University of St. Thomas in the United States, pointed out that Shen Boyang "discussed the matter in an approachable language" and rejected the campaign mode of simply criticizing and throwing dirty water. At the same time, he could actively face heterogeneous or intermediate voters and had the ability to break the circle. He believed that "whether these people are willing to vote for Shen Boyang will be the key to this election."
Ye Yaoyuan also questioned that although some friends from the blue camp would say that democratic countries will naturally change political power, and the green camp should not want to eliminate the Kuomintang, but have they done anything good since the Kuomintang and the Kuomintang won the majority in the Legislative Yuan until now? Do the heads of counties and cities from the Kuomintang have any political achievements that they can talk about? Ye Yaoyuan emphasized that Taiwan deserves a normal opposition party and even more a powerful and appealing Taipei mayor.
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Ye Yaoyuan posted on Facebook, "I haven't written a long article on my platform for a long time. Today I have to write some thoughts for Shen Boyang."
Ye Yaoyuan said that it has been several weeks since the ocean current sailed. We see that Shen Boyang continues to promote his policy ideas to different people on different occasions. Given the basic structure of voters in Taipei City, any candidate from the green camp will actually be at a disadvantage. But what is the reason for Shen Boyang's spirit of "even if there are thousands of people, I will go"?
First of all, although the current objective polling data does not necessarily support Shen Boyang, the policy discussions and people-friendly image driven by Shen Boyang through his "image" seem to have brought another wave to Taipei City. At least more voters have begun to seriously examine Chiang Wanan's words and deeds, as well as his performance in Taipei City's municipal administration. This incident will inevitably bring a certain degree of pressure to the Taipei City ruling team. No matter what the final election result is, they must respond to the policy discussions that occurred during the campaign.
Ye Yaoyuan said bluntly, "Of course you can also say: But I only see Jiang Wanan continuing to mess up or the entire KMT force throwing dirty water on Shen Boyang." Indeed, it seems that the KMT's strategy at present is simply to turn the election into a blue-green showdown, and then hope that the basic base of Taipei City where blue is greater than green can re-elect Jiang Wanan. But Jiang Wanan can hide for a while, but not forever. Unless this election is the last act of his political career, the same issue will be raised again and tested again later. Therefore, no matter how much he likes to show off, when he faces an election that is not necessarily "blue is greater than green", he can no longer hide in the stratosphere to keep warm, and can only continue to stick to his base by throwing dirty water.
Ye Yaoyuan emphasized that the changes brought about by Shen Boyang were not just changes in his own electoral situation, but an election campaign model that used approachable language to "discuss the matter as it happened" and rejected simple accusations. This approach requires two core competencies to assist.
The first is the depth and breadth of knowledge; if you only have a partial understanding of things, you will not be able to successfully explain complex policies in simple words so that the general public (whether supporters or opponents) can understand what you are saying. The second is the way and ability of expression; if you observe Shen Boyang's way of speaking, he does not use emotional language to speak to you, nor does he use elaborate but extremely complex concepts to explain his policy ideas and positions to you. Instead, he uses approachable words and discussions that are acceptable to most people, and uses a humorous and relaxed attitude to communicate with the masses. When faced with questioning from the media or even criticism from hostile camps, many people will be aroused and lose their composure. But this did not happen to Shen Boyang.
Ye Yaoyuan pointed out that the second focus of observation is Shen Boyang's ability to break through the circle. Many people like to stay in their comfort zone or stratosphere to keep warm. After all, this will put much less psychological pressure on the candidates themselves. But at the same time, we also know that Shen Boyang is facing a Taipei City voter structure in which blue is greater than green. If he is only willing to wallow in the stratosphere, I think it will be difficult for heterogeneous or intermediate voters to understand Shen Boyang, let alone compare Shen Boyang with Jiang Wanan to think about which one is better.
So the importance of breaking the circle is shown here. To defeat the KMT in Taipei City, you need the support of an extremely large majority of median voters. Ye Yaoyuan said bluntly, "I don't know if Shen Boyang can really attract the favor of light blue voters through Wang Weizhong and Zhao Shaokang's program, but for those Taipei voters who vote blue and white every time, and then say that they are neutral voters. If they take Shen Boyang's words and deeds seriously, and then look back at Jiang Wanan, I think it is definitely a high opinion." Whether these people are willing to vote for Shen Boyang will be the key to this election.
Ye Yaoyuan analyzed that breaking the circle will not only affect the election situation in Taipei City. After all, it is not only Taipei citizens who watch the programs of Wang Weizhong and Zhao Shaokang. Breaking the circle itself will also have full external effects, allowing voters in other counties and cities to see the strength of the DPP candidates, creating a hen-raised-chickens effect. This may not be effective for some constituencies that have been determined by the general trend, but for those counties and cities where the gap is small, Shen Boyang's ocean current and his personal performance of breaking through the circle may have a critical impact. This impact will not only be reflected on the candidates for county and city chiefs, but will also have the same effect on the elections for county, city, council and village chiefs.
Ye Yaoyuan mentioned that the last thing he wanted to talk about was the Kuomintang's response to ocean currents. Facing this nine-in-one general election, the Democratic Progressive Party has always hoped to break away from the binary opposition structure of a divided society such as blue-green competition, and adopt policy discussions and candidate strength to attract the favor of voters. Shen Boyang is the best demonstrator of this policy. However, in the face of the "benign" election strategy adopted by the DPP, the KMT's response was to continue to direct the hatred and confrontation between blue and green by using hats and slander, simply to consolidate the "anti-green" vote base.
Ye Yaoyuan said bluntly, does this make sense in terms of election strategy? Of course it makes sense, because you can radicalize the public and urge your supporters to vote against Green at a very low cost (it doesn’t cost much to criticize others). However, this approach will definitely do more harm than good to Taiwan's long-term political and democratic development, and there may even be no "benefits" at all.
Ye Yaoyuan pointed out that many of his friends in the blue camp told him: "In a democratic country, there will naturally be a ruling party and an opposition party, and there will also be a change of power. Therefore, the green camp should not want to eliminate the Kuomintang, but should think about how to deal with itself after being removed from the opposition." He agrees that two-party or multi-party politics and the change of power are the normal state of a democratic country, or that the opposition party's supervision of the ruling party is also a democratic phenomenon that should exist.
Ye Yaoyuan emphasized, but what he can't understand is why Taiwan only deserves an opposition party that throws dirty water and wants to kneel down to the enemy to undermine our democracy and sovereignty? As long as the Kuomintang is more normal, green camp supporters will be less critical of the Kuomintang. But since the Kuomintang and the People's Party won the majority in the Legislative Yuan until now, have they done anything good? Do the heads of counties and cities from the Kuomintang have any political achievements that they can talk about? If you can't do it yourself, you still mess around, and you still want others to be kind to you. This kind of mentality is really unacceptable.
Ye Yaoyuan concluded at the end of the article that Shen Boyang was Taiwan's mirror, revealing all the problems between the Kuomintang and Chiang Wanan. He also emphasized that Taiwan deserves a normal opposition party and even more a powerful and appealing Taipei mayor.
