The New York Post runs an article about caucuses in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where locals will fight over GOP delegates for Trump vs. Haley. For me, this brings back memories of a year the DrsC spent living on Guam, another US island possession with its own local micro-politics.
A bit of our history is needed. Based in California and with faculty jobs there, on three occasions we spent a year or two elsewhere because (a) it was fun to do so, and (b) our occupation made it possible.
The second of these was a year in the mid-1980s we spent on Guam as civilians visiting on the faculty of the small University of Guam. We were filling in for faculty on leave, off island.
While there we made friends with other expat “haoles” from “the mainland,” aka “the big island.” From them we learned the two political factions on Guam at that time were called “Democrats” and “Republicans” but were in truth two powerful extended family groups and their adherents and followers.
Think of them as the island version of the Montagues and Capulets, minus most of the bloodshed. The governorship and its associated patronage passed back and forth between them, as those not attached to either were persuaded to vote for one or the other depending on how happy or unhappy folks were the current “ins.”
What we knew of Democrats and Republicans back home in the States didn’t apply on Guam. Its politics at the time probably resembled more closely those of the Philippines.
The hundreds of years both spent as Spanish colonies with Guam being where the Manila galleons stopped for fresh water en route to and from Acapulco means there was a lot of shared culture. Guam has only been a US possession since 1898.
I have no particular reason to believe politics in the US Virgins are like those on Guam, but they sure could be. Both have a long history of various colonial masters.
BTW, while on Guam we spent the year-end school holiday month in Australia and New Zealand, the spring break week in Japan, and visited China on our way home. Good times.
