What if Trump led SA to a new golden age?

Four days ago, Donald Trump’s inauguration speech promised a new era for America.

Concomitant to that, his proposed policies and actions on the campaign trail may change geopolitics and global trade forever, not just the length of his term.

His message was strong, libertarian and nationalist. A middle finger and a hug at the same time.

Sometimes you need a badass to take the reigns of government. To fix what’s gone awry and to break a few things along the way.

Now, imagine that Donald J Trump didn’t lead the United States, but South Africa. Stretch that thought to contemplate what it could mean for Mzansi.

In his inauguration speech, Trump would have also announced a new golden age for South Africa.

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Just like he directed thinly veiled insults at former president Joe Biden, he’d look at the ANC with disdain.

But, if he had to list the organisation’s shortcomings and failures, as he did with the Democrats, South Africans may have been at risk of a list that went on for days.

Trump would have probably summarised 30 years of rule with a single phrase: “It was a glorious cock-up. Now it’s a glorious new age.”

A Trump Cabinet would include South Africans who have advocated for change and justice. Outa’s Wayne Duvenage, Thuli Madonsela, Zackie Achmat.

Technocrats would fill the balance of high office.

In South Africa, expansionist policies would include an invasion of Namibia, because it used to belong to it before the world made Mzansi give it away.

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He’d call it Southwest province, just to give the United Nations the middle finger.

Within a year, Trump would have constructed a wall between South Africa and its neighbours, reduced border posts and deployed military patrols.

Trump would deploy a retrained and re-equipped military to aid the police in nailing and jailing criminals.

There would be no mercy, with mobile courts deployed to dish out justice and send crooks to newly built, privatised prison factories that manufacture everything from widgets to key components for big tech.

Chain gangs of convicts would be deployed to clean up our cities and towns.

In an extraordinary move. Trump would appoint Jacob Zuma as chief anticorruption officer. He’d say anyone who can evade the law and pull off state capture knows all the tricks of the trade. He would also not pussyfoot around previous flaccid attempts at extraditing the Guptas.

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He’d bring them home, by unprecedented forceful intervention, to face justice and pay back the money.

Prosecution of all those named by the state capture commission would be swift, their assets and bank accounts seized and redirected to paying for pothole fills.

Trump would sell off Eskom to Elon Musk and allow South Africans to enjoy Starlink, the satellite internet service that will slash costs and improve access to the internet for everyone.

We’d be able to buy Teslas and know that 300 days without load shedding is no celebration, it’s an indictment of 14 years of load shedding cockups.

Coal would never be wet again.

A Trump presidency in South Africa would slap massive tariffs on cheap purchases from Shein and Temu. Proudly South African would be reassigned to promote domestic production growth beyond badging stuff with a flag.

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His target would be a 70% drop in unemployment and minimum wage would be suspended for a decade to encourage domestic industry to thrive.

Zama zamas would be decriminalised and then formalised; his message to owners of nonproductive mines: Use it or lose it to the zamas.

Mass deportations may affect public transport as every available bus would be needed to send millions packing.

New roads would be built and crumbling streets repaired. Streetlights will work for the first time in decades and cable theft shut down because the bad guys who buy the copper would be jailed first, killing demand-side influence.

SA may get a working rail infrastructure again. Musk would deploy his drill sergeants to SAA, Transnet and the other 600 or 700 state-owned drains on the fiscus.

Because here, too, there’d be a department of government efficiency in the Presidency.

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South Africa will get an NHI but modelled on something economically viable. Sassa grants would encourage employment and not remain freebie handouts.

The Karoo will start producing shale. Big oil will be back. Natural gas exploration will be expanded.

Trump may solve unemployment because there’s so much broken and so many things wanting that it may take an entire nation to put in the sweat to Make South Africa great again.