Has our state been captured?
Have our President and Government been acting to improperly benefit “others”?
Find out here [PDF, 2.65MB]
Spoiler: It’s basically a yes and a yes.
Category: elections
Destroying Donald Trump
I’m no fan of Donald Trump.
Just putting that up there nice and clear before the hate mail starts coming in. “Don’t @ me”. Save your pixels; save your bandwidth.
I’m no fan of Hillary Clinton either, mind. I think she’s a dreadful woman and a terrible excuse for a politician; one who has just got very lucky in who she’s been put up against in this ridiculously binary race for (one of) the most powerful positions on the planet. Hobson’s choice. Take Trump out of the equation and compare HRC with anyone else out there, and you’ll see what I mean.
Except it seems that you can’t take Donald Trump out of the equation. He’s undestroyable. So many have tried – look:
Some yellow cartoon people:
Evening TV show host “Jon” Oliver:
Evening TV show host Stephen Colbert:
Er… Evening TV show host Bill Maher:
Evening TV show host Seth Myers:
Actual Evening TV show Last Week Tonight:
A rapper:
An old actor:
A Scottish author of kids books:
Drone-bomber in chief and current President of the USA, AND “a Nicaraguan-born American Republican strategist and political commentator for various news outlets” – bilingually nogal!:
An American actress, author, poet, and film director:
Hillary’s husband, briefly:
Barack’s wife, emotionally:
An entire social media platform:
Another rapper:
Another evening TV show host (after analyzing and explaining):
Author, philosopher, and neuroscientist Sam Harris:
And a previous reality show “star”:
I could go on, but I think you get the idea. This outpouring of enthusiastic (yet apparently utterly futile) attempted destruction by showbiz stars and other public figures is interesting and – depending on your political and/or moral standpoint, I guess – very worthy, but perhaps tells us more about the hyperbole of modern media than anything else.
Because even though Donald Trump has been “destroyed” countless times (and not least by his own big mouth and seemingly unending stream of stupid comments), he’s still just three or four points behind Clinton at this point.
Let’s face it – look at his completely unprepared, slipshod campaign, lurching from one disaster to the next and you’ll see that there’s no-one more surprised than Donald Trump that he’s actually got this far.
And, as we’ve mentioned above, given that Clinton is an utterly horrendous proposition and the American public are a bit daft, you’d be wise not to write off Donald just yet. Because if he’s still going after this guy had a go:
…then you know that he’s still got every chance of winning next month’s election.
[Deity] help us all.
Done
I’m finished. Someone call a doctor. My sides have split.
This then, is the response of the official ANC twitter account to their defeat in Port Elizabeth and their utterly dismal showings in Johannesburg and Tshwane.
If you don’t laugh, you have to cry. It’s either hilarious or it’s tragic. It’s both.
For the other parties, this seeing the ruling party adopting this stance must be like manna from heaven. If this seemingly blind obliviousness continues towards and into the next (general) election in 2019, the ANC is not just going to be beaten, it’s going to be obliterated.
However, for the people, with another 3 years to go before the start of any possible change in government and/or attitude, it’s pretty galling. I don’t think (and the election results do kinda support my view) that things are going well here at the moment. There is a massive amount of dissatisfaction, irritation, anger. I’m not saying that the ANC is solely responsible for this, but nor do I see their current, rather apathetic approach doing enough (read “anything”) to combat it.
Incidentally, I’ve left JZ in the background there on the screenshot because his imperious, somewhat sour, face seems to me to be the perfect analogy (and possibly the biggest reason) for the ANC’s – and therefore South Africa’s – current woes.
UPDATE:
It’s stuff like this that makes me wonder if they’ve actually seen the results…
It’s Election Day
Oh joy! The Municipal Elections 2016 to be exact.
And, for just about the first time since 1994, we could be looking at some big changes.
Always a politically active country, South Africa is not a particularly happy place right now and this has been a bitterly fought campaign. But with big cities like Johannesburg and Tshwane, and villages like Port Elizabeth (Nelson Mandela Bay) virtually neck and neck in the opinion polls, the previously all-powerful ANC looks set to incur significant losses.
Quite how they will take that remains to be seen.
Things Mmusi (actually) said
Much mirth and merriment yesterday as DA leader Mmusi Maimane told us all how “he voted for Mandela” back in the 90s. Trouble is, Mmusi was only 13 in the only presidential election in which Nelson stood (in 1994). Mmusi was old enough to vote in the following election (1999), but Mandela had already decided to move over by then – the ANC candidate that year was Thabo Mbeki.
A politician, lying? Colour me utterly flabbergasted. And wow, just a bit of a faux pas right before an important election. The ANC jumped straight in on it and it spawned the (actually rather amusing) #ThingsMmusiDid hashtag on twitter (I may have even joined in a bit).
But whatta mistake-a to make-a!
That’s why Phillip de Wet had to listen again:
Joke or no, #ThingsMmusiDid had me doubting my recollection. So I went back to the tape.
And it said?
Yep. You read it right. He never said that he voted for Mandela. He said he voted for the party of Mandela.
But let’s not let the truth stand in the way of a good story. And that’s why I’m just putting this out there. Not because I’m a DA fanboy: merely because of the Trevor Mallach effect. And that quote, ironically by the Mmusi-supported Thabo Mbeki:
It seems to me that the unacceptable practice of propagation of deliberate falsehoods to attain various objectives is becoming entrenched in our society. I also call on all of us as leaders and citizens critically to reflect on this practice in order to avoid the entrenchment of a culture which may eventually corrupt our society.
Vote how you want, and why you want. But don’t believe everything you read or hear.