Burning flag ad: Fear breeds an irrational DA

In the ’50s, US senator Joseph McCarthy made an announcement that he possessed a list of 205 employees who worked in US state department who were communists.

This started a period in US politics that was characterised by a communist witch hunt. It got so bad that it even infiltrated the entertainment industry in Hollywood.

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People were denied work simply because of a rumour that linked them to communism. The period was referred to as the “Red Scare”, a fear of communists.

It is a fear that even dictated government policy. In the upcoming election, the Democratic Alliance (DA) has resolved to create a fear not unlike McCarthyism.

A fear of an ANC/EFF/ MK coalition would, as they call it, be a coalition of corruption and violence.

And it is a campaign they are running with to make their voters so scared of voting for anyone else, especially the smaller parties because “a vote for the smaller parties is a vote for the corrupt coalition”.

McCarthyism searched for communists everywhere, including the church. An irrational fear of communism had gripped the nation. But that was the folly of the McCarthyism: fear.

Anything based on fear will not last. And the DA should know this by now.

It is not that what they are saying to voters is entirely devoid of truth, but that they are bringing this truth to the fore by seeking to create a fear of anything anti-DA.

The saddest part of this is that the DA has a good track record of governance in some places, especially the city of Cape Town.

The city is far from perfect because, like any modern South African city, poverty and wealth remain two sides of the same coin.

But the party has avoided the deterioration that now plagues Johannesburg, Durban and even smaller cities like Pietermaritzburg.

Cape Town remains a “world-class African City” in the realest sense. It is well-maintained and has beautiful and clean beaches.

Property development even makes wealthy foreigners consider it a place they can spend a couple of months of the year. And, if truth be told, wealthy South Africans are migrating there, too.

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These are aspects of DA governance that would prompt voters to vote DA – not fearmongering.

It is that McCarthy-like fearmongering that has driven the DA to feel it is okay to flight an election advertisement that features a burning South African flag.

The need to instil fear in voters has the likes of Helen Zille confidently going on media platforms telling voters that “the people complaining about the DA burning the South African flag were never going to vote for us anyway”.

In her world, that makes it okay to burn the flag in an advert. That’s what campaigning from a platform of fear does, it makes irrationality seem okay.

What Zille doesn’t know is that it has become commonplace for black middle-class voters to say: “I am glad I live in a DA-run municipality because things work, but I will never vote DA because of their politics.”

The attitude that those who disagree with DA tactics would never vote for them is a self-fulfilling prophecy, because the party then goes and does the exact things that alienate those who love their work.

It is for this reason that parties like ActionSA, Rise Mzansi and a multitude of other smaller parties will continue to cannibalise the DA vote.

The burning of the SA flag surely delights extreme right-wing elements. How on earth do Zille and company imagine that act will drive unsure, but rational, voters towards the DA? Fear breeds irrational thinking.