The good must fight smart: Lessons from Trump and Zuma

He has been called sexist, backward and uncouth. In addition to several brushes with the law he has been found guilty on one charge or another and still faces the possibility of being found guilty in a few cases still in the courts.

Add being a constitutional delinquent to that unenviable list and it comes very close to describing the United States’ most popular leader right now, Donald Trump.

That description could also fit a very popular South African leader, Jacob Zuma, whose political party uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party stunned all and sundry to become the surprise package of South Africa’s May election.

In the aftermath of last week’s American presidential election, one political commentator invoked Martin Luther King’s quote to explain how the “good-valued” Kamala Harris lost to the seemingly unpalatable Donald Trump: “…the moral arch of the universe is very long but it bends towards justice.”

In other words, it does not matter that the good guys appear to be losing the battle against the bad guys right now but, in the end, good will prevail.

ALSO READ: ‘We aren’t thinking about Zuma’s departure from MK party’ – Shivambu

Americans and South Africans who took to pounding the pavements to ensure that the good guys prevail have been left stunned, asking themselves the same question: what is it that Trump – or Zuma – have to offer the masses of their people, given that they have already demonstrated their true colours when they had the chance to be president before?

It is the most truthful and honest answer to this question that will ensure that the moral arch Martin Luther King spoke of is not unnecessarily extended in the name of honest struggle.

The truth is that even demagogues who cheat, steal and lie their way to office can communicate successfully with the electorate.

While the ANC and the DA are busy bickering over who truly lost or won the election, the Donald Trump of South Africa has been harnessing his election miracle baby, the MK party, and working on strengthening it from the inside to ensure that when it goes for power, it is truly solid.

When former deputy president of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) Floyd Shivambu defected to MK, it seemed like a desperate move of a man tired of being in the shadow of a dictatorial Julius Malema.

ALSO READ: Hateful ‘cotton picking’ messages hit black Americans, igniting outrage

But now, after Jacob Zuma has elected him secretary-general of MK, the defection is beginning to look like a calculated move to bolster Zuma’s party.

It does not matter that the commander-in-chief of the EFF, Malema, has reassured his rank and file that he is not going anywhere near the MK party, a “criminal syndicate” as he has called it.

The party appears to be making all the right moves to emerge from the next election as Donald Trump did in his country.

The MK party could be moping about it being compared to the Congress of the People (Cope) as a “gathering of the wounded” that lost to the dominant faction in the ANC. Wounded or not, warped values or not, they are building capacity within their party with capable individuals such as Shivambu.

Those that have christened themselves good and consider themselves guardians of pure values that South Africa must be built on must not make the mistake that Harris and the Democrats made in the US, thinking that their “good values” trump bread and butter issues.

ALSO READ: Shivambu dismisses question about congratulatory message from Malema [VIDEO]

The people that voted Trump back in exist in abundance in South Africa… and the “good” side ignores them at their own risk.