The outcome of the US elections in the previous week felt like an earthquake throughout what many of us believed to be real, and true, and good. It was stunning, unidentifiable in its unpredictability.
Back and forth the conversation went between racism, sexism, the fallacy of the liberal bubble. No articulation of the perceived cause would be able to change the outcome. The words we pick to describe the meaning is less than the consequences of events.
South African politics finds itself on an almost perpetually precarious and unstable footing. The recent release of the State Capture report shed light on the extent to which business interests have infiltrated the process of government. The US have elected a business man who has declared bankruptcy six times and boasted about his love of debt. According to the Guardian he will bring unprecedented conflicts of interest to the White House.
As the US grapples with how to regain trust in a government run by a man whose self-interest could possibly influence policy decisions, South Africans are dealing with the reality of the State Capture Report. When the most powerful country in the world normalizes a procedurally abject president-elect, how will South Africa then react to its own scandal plagued President?
The danger of a Trump presidency for South Africa lies not with a direct causal link, but within the natural undertaking of normalization: the process through which we seek to turn abnormal thought into a naturalized state.
Importantly for South Africans, the 2016 US elections seemed to stir conversation among our own commentators in a much more direct way than seen in previous election cycles. The comment sections of news platforms like Netwerk24 echoed similar accusations of media bias that fueled the US elections. Those accusations were swiftly picked up by public figures with large followings. The danger of a Trump presidency for South Africa lies not with a direct causal link, but within the natural undertaking of normalization: the process through which we seek to turn abnormal thought into a naturalized state. When a cult personality like Steve Hofmeyer refers to South African media outlets like The Mail & Guardian and The Daily Maverick as 'l
genpresse' the alt-right, post-truth presence in SA political discourse should not be ignored.
The danger of a Trump presidency for South Africa will only be discerned through hindsight, clear now in discussion of how Trump should have been taken seriously from the beginning, how media and liberal ridicule only further stirred the hatred of the 'forgotten' white. And still, with safety pins earnestly pinned to lapels like liberal bleeding hearts on sleeves, the conversation has turned to ingesting the man, to giving him a fresh start, rather than preparing for the dangers to come.
Since the election last week reported hate crimes in the US has risen to 400. The hateful rhetoric used throughout the campaign has found an active and visceral home in classrooms, message boards and other public spaces. This is similar to the cause and effect that gave us Brexit and its immediate aftermath. With South Africa soon to enter its run up to our general election in 2019 we should be wary of how Trumpism will influence our own public discourse. South African history has long been plagued by the confrontational, and at times violent, tendencies towards nationalisation. With our opposingviews on that sense of nationalisation still influenced by our racial and economic divides, it is potentially more damaging than what our American and British peers are tasked with. The ground for hateful rhetoric is even more fertile.
As we've seen this week post-election, the identification of 'hate' has been a source of confusion to some. We have identified racism as 'bad' but we have yet to understand how our own actions, regardless of intent, adds to its effects. To argue that the US president-elect's words have been twisted from something else entirely into hate by the liberal media is either deliberately obtuse or woefully naïve to an undeniable truth: in many cases there is no difference in outcome between selfishness and hateful intent.
South Africans will need to be even more cognizant than ever of the pitfalls that we've so clumsily ended up in before. The US presidential should be a warning to South African media: do not seek normalize hate, and identify selfishness at its root. Judge actions by its consequences, not its intent.