Dem
47
GOP
53
Readers will recall the occasion, about a month and a half ago, when Volodymyr Zelenskyy was invited to the Oval Office and was tag-teamed by Donald Trump and J.D. Vance.
Well, yesterday, the same basic dynamic played out (although Trump soloed this time, even though Vance was sitting 6
feet away). Cyril Ramaphosa is the president of South Africa, and he paid a visit to the White House. Ramaphosa knows
how the game is played when Trump is sitting on the other side of the chess checkers Candyland
board, and so he came prepared to kiss some presidential posterior, highlighted by some golf-centric flattery. The South
African even brought props, in the persons of famed South African golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen. But once
that was done, Trump dimmed the lights in the Oval Office, and compelled his guests
to watch
a video supporting claims of genocide against White South Africans.
Once the video was over, Trump presumed to lecture Ramaphosa for several minutes. Here's the key part (or, at least, the most comprehensible part):
They're taking people's land away, and in many cases, those people are being executed, but in many cases, it's not the government that's doing it. It's people that kill them and then take their land, and nothing happens to them. But we have thousands of people that want to come into our country. They're also going to Australia in a smaller number. But we've thousands of people that wanna come into a country and they're white farmers and they feel that they're going to die in South Africa. And it's a bad thing.
And for an encore, of sorts, Trump also turned to NBC News reporter Peter Alexander, and began lecturing him on his network's failure to cover the South Africa genocide story, because NBC is too busy covering Qatari Air Force One.
Here, incidentally, are the facts of the situation in South Africa. Last year, the South African parliament passed Expropriation Act 13, which allows the government to seize private land, if there is a compelling public interest in doing so, and if the government compensates the owner. The United States has the same thing; it's called eminent domain. On top of that, the South African government has not yet used the power. And, despite Trump's claim that he's heard it from "thousands of people" (boy, he talks to a lot of people!) there have not been killings, much less "genocide."
Initially, Ramaphosa was dumbstruck, and tried to push back against Trump's narrative—pointing out, in particular, that the claim about white people being killed is a lie. When it became clear that The Donald had his narrative, and his goals, and that nothing was going to dissuade him, Ramaphosa shifted into button-pushing mode, and said "I'm sorry I don't have a plane to give you." Game, set and match.
We are not exactly sure what Trump's motivation is here, but we have two pretty good theories. The first is that Trump is easily manipulated, and may well have absorbed and internalized propaganda fed to him by white South African Elon Musk—hook, line and sinker. Musk, incidentally, has a giant bug up his a** when it comes to the Ramaphosa administration. Beyond the fact that Musk seems to have internalized some of the apartheid-era attitudes he grew up with, he was not allowed to launch his Starlink Internet service in his home country because it does not adhere to laws about having enough black African ownership/management.
The second theory is that this was political theater for the benefit of the considerable chunk of Trump's base who are racists, to remind them that the Trump administration is a government by white people, for white people (except trans white people). If so, then there's a very good chance that it was Stephen Miller, who is one of those racists, who put the video together. Of course, it could be that both of these theories are on the mark.
When there is one incident (Zelenskyy) like this, it could be a fluke. Two (Ramaphosa) is a pattern. So, what will other foreign leaders do, going forward? Some of them might decline White House meetings, knowing they could end up as targets of ranting and raving from Trump and/or Vance. Most probably can't afford to snub the world's wealthiest and most militarily powerful country, but will come prepared with defenses to whatever lines of attack might come up. Whatever happens, it is unlikely this ambush shtick will work especially well going forward. (Z)