Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) is spreading faster than Covid and it’s hitting South Africa hard. After years of dithering about an ambassador in Washington, President Cyril Ramaphosa rushes through the appointment of a loudly pro-Hamas former ANC Western Cape leader, Ebrahim Rasool, who gets there days before President Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, on January 20.
This is to our single most valuable trading partner, mind — China is bigger but we run a deficit there and a healthy surplus with the US. Rasool lasts less than two months and is expelled for injudicious comments about Trump. He comes home to a hero’s welcome and warns Ramaphosa not to appoint a white ambassador in his place.
It’s insane, but the symptoms of TDS are not yet fully understood. Much of the world is in its grip, with South Africa singled out for some special attention. US aid has been stopped and Afrikaner farmers offered refuge. It’s not clear how many, if any, will go. But it won’t stop there.
We will at least also suffer the wider effects of Trump’s trade war on the world and his deranged claims on Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal. He just announced a 25% tax on all vehicle imports, that would presumably include the cars we make and export from here. Who will buy them now? Western carmakers are already unhappy in South Africa. Trump promises more tariffs on Wednesday.
Who would have thought South African whites would ever find themselves in the same intoxicated, cheering crowd as the Russians
Is there a cure for TDS? New Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, magnificently, has refused to speak to Trump until he shows him some respect.
“The old relationship we had with the US ... is over,” Carney told his country on Thursday. “But we have agency ... we can give ourselves much more than any foreign government can ever take away from us.”
Meanwhile, the more Trump bashes South Africa, the more fans he collects here, universally among hard-right and also many mildly conservative whites, who are enjoying watching the ANC, and its leader, under real pressure.
Who would have thought South African whites would ever find themselves in the same intoxicated, cheering crowd as the Russians. “South Africa can thank God for Donald Trump,” says one local media star. He’s in the same throng with AfriForum, happy to be counted with Putin the warmonger, dictator and killer as a Trumper as long as he’s sticking it to the ANC.
This is what nationalism looks like in action, though. It’s always ugly, always full of hate and vengeance. Julius Malema, another nationalist, dances like a barefoot kid on hot sand as he screeches “Kill the Boer” and makes machine gun noises at a rally. Ramaphosa says not a word. The Constitutional Court says not a word.
Nationalism lives off grievance, mainly at other nationalisms as in white and black in South Africa. Now both face a nightmare. Trump doesn’t care about South Africa and he could shut us down in an afternoon — stop our trade, stop our credit cards and sanction our friends.
There’s no stopping him. He’s the star again in the ultimate reality show. He is alienating US allies and has even pulled his own country’s cyber intelligence gathering on Russia. Hard to think of anything he’s done that doesn’t solve Putin’s problems. Why? Because even if he is a Putin asset, he gets to be the centre of attention. It’s all he wants.
Meanwhile, apparently, we’re working on a trade deal. But who will read it in Washington? Whatever it is that AfriForum and Solidarity have been telling Americans, it’s becoming widely believed in the US that Afrikaner farmers here are subject to regular atrocities and, where they are not being physically attacked, their land is being taken from them.
It’s all dishonest nationalist grievance but the other nationalists in government have only themselves to blame — they’ve ignored complaints about farm security for decades and the new Expropriation Bill does actually make it possible, however unlikely, that land can be seized by the state without compensation. That’s the ANC for you — play the revolutionary for votes and fleece the state while you can. It has worked so far.
Prepare yourself for more large but empty money promises for BEE even though it is more damaging to black citizens than to whites. Prepare yourself, too, for the introduction of a national health insurance scheme just before the 2029 elections, funded or not.
Even that, then, may be too late for the ANC as the GNU teeters over a budget row now. Ramaphosa has flatly refused to entertain often useful proposals from the DA that involve a strategic partnership in economic policy. The coming week will be huge. Be prepared.
Prepare yourself too for a sudden rapprochement of the white right here — English- and Afrikaans-speaking alike — with Jacob Zuma and his uMkhonto we Sizwe party. Zuma is our Trump — mad and bad but traditional, conservative, popular, easily distracted and greedy. And Vladimir Putin loves him. So will Trump.
The ructions in our politics are just beginning.
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