Has Trump inadvertently saved America? What can South Africa learn?

I have my doubts that Donald Trump will be remembered for anything great though he certainly played a role in the spectrum of the American presidency.

When President Cyril Ramaphosa indicated that South Africa was ready to share lessons in democracy with the United States, I couldn’t help but chuckle. But, considering how the Irish border was arguably the biggest stumbling block of Brexit and the role that South Africa and the ANC played in brokering that peace, there may be a thing or two to be said of how we go about things.

I mean, peace is great and all, until your policies are driven by simply trying to avoid “the troubles” then maybe you needed a better kind of peace.

Anyway, when idiotic Trump loyalists stormed the Capitol, not only were we subjected to embarrassingly ignorant newsrooms referring to the “breach of the Capital”, but we were also fed with this idea that democracy was under attack and how that is such a sin against the gods of political philosophy.

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It was presented as if life is some game and reaching democracy means you’ve attained the highest level, which is perfectly egalitarian and nothing can be wrong with it.

Wrong!

Democracy sucks in many respects. Yes, in some of those respects it may suck less than the alternatives, but merely because something sucks less, doesn’t make it not suck at all.

Being mindful of the suckiness is vital in order to develop and improve a system. But worshipping the system cannot be said to be a good idea.

So, lamenting the invasion of the Capitol as an affront to democracy is confusing. On the one hand, it is blocking an established “democratic process” but on the other, it is a direct form of democratic expression.

Remember, a foundational cornerstone of American democracy, the Boston Tea Revolt, was started by about 130 men.

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Of course, it does not justify the overthrow of the will of a majority in an established democracy. This, to the 2021 Invaders, was not a matter of defying the will of the majority. It was a defence of their belief, through wrongly held, that they were the majority – well, in electoral votes – which is for some reason more democratically important than popular votes.

America is just weird.

Here are these rioters fighting a system that shockingly put their dude in power four years ago despite so much foreshadowing evidence to the contrary…now all of a sudden, the system is rigged…though we can’t show how or why…allegedly. It makes for great TV though.

But the incredible takeaway from all this is how the speech of a desperate buffoon resulted in an attack on an established democratic process, which in turn resulted in bipartisan condemnation, and you know when Trump goes from “we love you” to “I condemn these attacks”, even he recognises how he’s put himself between a rock and a hard place.

This bipartisan condemnation however is possibly excellent for the US. Former blind loyalists to Trump are even turning away, claiming that his actions and words go against first principles of American values and democracy; something the two major parties have been divisive over for decades.

Other than supporting troops, small business being the backbone of the American economy and killing Osama Bin Laden, nearly every issue was weaponised to drive Americans apart in order to tactically gain votes. So when you get an opportunity that it’s politically expedient to come together on, it would be wise to take it.

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Unfortunately, coming together isn’t really sexy, so we often choose to be blinded by something else.

South Africa had a similar chance, or chances in fact.

Thabo Mbeki’s I am an African speech and ideas on African Renaissance could have galvanised conversation on introspection, but instead we managed to forget about that as we took him on about Aids denialism and his warped idea that crime was not an issue in SA.

uBaba had some fine things to say about letting go of our colonial past, but alas he couldn’t let go of the idea that he had fooled us into believing that a “fire pool” was a thing.

There have been many lost opportunities to define what makes us who we are, in favour of being split along ideological lines. Yeah we’ll always have differences and that’s what makes democracy work, but it also fails if we fail to have any sense of commonality.

If there’s one lesson South Africa can teach the US, it should be that they shouldn’t waste a good identity crisis by avoiding the complicated conversation that comes after it. Do I think it will happen or that that’s the message South Africa will convey?

Who am I kidding? I’ll just be here waiting to hear who gets the tender to audit our R500 billion new dawn.

Richard Anthony Chemaly. Entertainment attorney, radio broadcaster and lecturer of communication ethics.

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