Friends, take a gander at my latest article, which analyzes the lessons of South Africa's recent general election. I suggest that the racialized nature of South African politics mirrors what Democrats are trying to achieve in this country -- and South Africa's decline could presage our own...
Democrats Look at South Africa, and
They Like What They See
Even
in the wake of its latest free election, held on May 8th,
South Africa is not, on the face of it, a model of vibrant democracy.
The country suffers from persistent racial divisions, a stagnant
economy, poor service delivery, rampant crime, and the world's worst
income inequality. Surely this would not be the kind of society that
any American would want to transplant to our shores. And yet...the
America that Democrats envision and are striving to create looks very
similar to dysfunctional South Africa. We should therefore view the
country's steady unraveling as a cautionary tale.
South Africa's
democracy got off to a promising start in 1994 with the end of
apartheid and the election of Nelson Mandela as President. Mandela
strove to reconcile whites and blacks, and to improve public services
for the nation's poor while safeguarding private property and
expanding foreign investment and tourism.
In more recent
years, however, South Africa has suffered under corrupt, incompetent
leadership. Its economic growth rates slumped (averaging less than
1%), unemployment is close to 30%, rates of murder and rape are among
the world's highest, and the government has embraced a policy of
expropriating white-owned farmland.
Mandela's African
National Congress has kept a firm grip on power, but the Economic
Freedom Fighters, who espouse socialism and demonize whites, are
gaining support. Voting preferences also remain overwhelmingly
race-based. Large majorities of whites, Asians, and people of mixed
race support the opposition Democratic Alliance, while less than 10%
of blacks do so. Only 4% of whites vote for the governing ANC.
A racially
Balkanized and dysfunctional one-party state: that is, sadly, what
South Africa has become. It is also what Democrats want to turn
America into.
Yes, Democrats
claim to want racial harmony and opportunity and rights for all, but
in fact the modern Democratic Party cannot survive without constantly
stoking racial hostility and reopening old wounds, from slavery and
reparations, to police brutality, to illegal immigration, to
so-called voter suppression. Simply put, the day that Americans set
aside their racial divisions and view one another as brothers is the
day the Democratic Party ceases to be electorally viable, and
Democratic insiders know it. They want to keep racial minorities on
the Democratic plantation for as long as possible, and the media,
which pushes every narrative emphasizing white racism and the
oppression of non-whites, is helping them do it.
Economically,
Democrats claim to want to narrow income and wealth inequality, but
look at the evidence: the most unequal areas in the U.S. are the
bluest of blue cities and states, mostly on the coasts, where
Democratic policies of high taxes and expensive government programs
have been in place for decades. If anyone wants to know what a
thoroughly blue America would look like, they need only visit San
Francisco, Boston, Washington, D.C., or New York. There, the rich pay
taxes through the nose, yes, but the poor and even middle class
Americans can barely afford to get by. Housing costs are exorbitant.
Education and other public services are theoretically egalitarian but
practically abysmal. If one wants to live a decent life in these
“socialist paradises,” the only way to do so is to become rich.
Money talks — especially, as it turns out, in blue America.
The important
thing from the Democrats' perspective, though, is not that the
problems of the poor and the middle class are ever truly addressed.
It is that their ongoing, even escalating, grievances are useful
rather than threatening to Democratic dominance. The worse
inequality, crime, and public services become in these blue areas,
the more Democratic politicians can blame old bugaboos like the KKK
or the GOP. And Democrats keep on winning elections — just as they
were always supposed to.
None of this
should surprise the American people. The same Democratic Party that
spent the last two and a half years hoping against hope that the
President could be proved a traitor does not shrink from exploiting,
or even manufacturing, racial and class divisions to ensure its own
electoral success.
South Africans
are slowly coming to realize that the political elite that governs
them is more parasitical than patriotic. Unfortunately, they are too
mired in racial animosity to do anything about it.
Americans had
better wise up before it is too late. The Democratic Party thrives on
racial hatred, economic misery, and democratic dysfunction. It is a
cancer on America's body politic, and in the long run the survival of
it and of democracy itself are not compatible.
