Donald Trump not doing great with Maga

Once, Julius Malema stood unchallenged as the world’s greatest flip-flopper… but he’ll have to surrender that title to incoming US president Donald Trump, who is backtracking on his election promises faster than a Republican Party supporter can yell “Sell out!”

Trump and Malema would (allegedly) have something else in common: white South African men who are backing them financially…

In Trump’s case, it is mega-billionaire Elon Musk – who contributed at least $250 million (about R4.6 billion) to his successful election campaign – who is showing that he who pays the piper calls the tune.

The supporters of Trump’s Make America Great Again (Maga) philosophy seem to be suffering from a bad case of political post-coital depression. They voted to keep immigrants out of the United States, yet Trump has backed down before Musk’s insistence that foreigners with tech skills be given visas.

So, Trump’s pledge to keep jobs in America is tossed into the dustbin of history.

The incoming head of state wants to make major tax cuts – which, translated into real-speak, means the rich getting richer and the middle class specifically getting poorer.

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Trump’s vow to cut government spending at the same time means those who don’t own mansions on golf courses are not only worrying about how they’re going to find money to pay if they get sick, they’re also concerned about just putting food on the table.

Trump pledged to bring down the cost of living. It’s going to be interesting to see how he manages to do that with his xenophobic strict import tariffs, which will undoubtedly push up prices for ordinary Americans.

His back-pedalling and kowtowing to his backers has shown up clearly the lie that Maga is a populist movement aimed at improving ordinary people’s lives.

It is exactly the form of elite dictatorship Trump and his cronies have claimed to have been fighting.

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