This is a ridiculous title for the article. It might as well be "Trump Knows Nothing About the World."
2
Here's a little test you can take.
How many people live in Congo? 78 million
How many people live in Ethiopia? 96 million
How many people live in Nigeria? 182 million
How many people live in Ireland? 4.76 million
But I'm sure you care a lot more about Ireland than those other places. Why?
I think its called racism.
7
What Trump knows about Africans is that they are not white and not racists against people of color. That's all he needs to know. That means that they are among those he dislikes and would encourage people who are white and racists to dislike. Trump's playbook is not all that complicated: he appeals to his base, which is white and racist. Simple and sad.
See: RevolutionOfReason.com
TheRogueRevolutionist.com
America has nothing in common with South Africa; staring with their farcical 'Constitution' - tailor made for authoritarian rule in the name of social justice. Ramaphosa's land grabs are only the beginning.
2
Who will be our Ramaphosa? And when can we expect that leader to emerge to awaken us from this GOP-laced nightmare?
1
Trump knows nothing of Africa for one reason.
Lack of interest in learning anything new.
4
We are living in the Apartheid States of America, Roger Cohen. President Trump is beyond ignorant about world and American history, and has lumped Africa into the "Sh--hole" countries of an entire continent. We, the American people -- to our shame and horror --are no longer shocked by the demented ravings of our elected 45th president. No surprise, either, that Trump has not named an American Ambassador to the Republic of South Africa. America is governed by narcissicism. We face the entropy that has swallowed up South Africa (Nelson Mandela is spinning in his honoured grave). We, Americans, and you, Roger Cohen -- a "new American!"-- are all wondering if democracy can survive the attack by the right-wing Americans in power in the executive and legislative bodies of our beloved country?
Trump knows nothing about anything that matters and doesn't care to know.
4
"Why Trump Knows Nothing of (fill-in-the-blank)?"
You could write an entire lifetime of columns using that template and still not come close to exhausting the the supply of topics.
Oh, and also because Africa is, well, not Norway.
2
I dont know much about Africa myself.....I suspect I have mispronounced names of vaguely defined African "nations" myself...and I suspect Mr. Cohen has done the same. Tanzania? Tanzanika? What were we instructed to call the Congo several decades ago? oh yeah! Zaire. Ivory Coast? Cote D'Ivoire? Whatever.......Mr. Cohen completely misses the point of modern political developments.....lost in reverie for the Kennedy Administration....relevent for a very short time maybe fifty years ago ... but still self-destructive with all the best intentions. Out there, perhaps deliberately ignored by the US Media....China is usurping control of all that colonial infrastructure in Africa, abandonned by guilt shamed Europeans....Zimbabwe(Rhodesia?) is still driving off the Europeans with machetes and then selling the land to the new colonialists....the Chinese....leaving the locals just as poor and destitute as they have always been......its not unique.
6
Where are America's Ramaphosas?
Nambia or Narnia? A make believe place of magic lions and other beasts in need of saving? Trump appointed clueless Sara Palin as ambassador to Namibia. Probably why he gets close to remembering Nambia. (One can only wonder if Palin has learned to skin endangered rhinos and sell their horns on the black market? Doubtless we'll get to see her dancing again with the stars dressed in endangered leopard skins.)
Africa...by 2050 25% of the world's population and by the end of the century 40%. Since 2000 home of half the countries in the world with the highest annual growth rate. By 2030, 43% will join middle and upper class cohorts (67% will be poor) increasing household consumption to $2.5 trillion--more than double the 2015 level. Combined consumer and business spending totallingl $6.7 trillion. (Source: Washington Post article by S. Booker and A. Rickman). Home to vast opportunities and devastating potential crises --wars, draught, corruption, poverty, pestilence. Africa is the future... Nambia is the future
Wanted an honest, informed leader...
Must we really suffer the gross ignorance, apathy and corruption that brought South Africa low? How ironic that we can now look to South Africa for an example of courageous, right minded leadership so lacking in the White House and GoP.
Where are our Ramaphosas?....
2
June 11, 2018
Does Trump know nothing?
So to say prefers nothing other than his ego - and celebrity questing, and historical precepts are fake so let's deal in the present accommodations for making my world, your world great again or great newly dealth.
1
While Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jacob Zuma and Donald Trump ware all moral degenerate serial adulterers, Gandhi and King each had only one wife. Zuma has had six. Mandela and Trump each had three.
There is only one multicolored biological DNA genetic evolutionary fit human race species that began in Africa 300,000 years ago. About 2-5% of European and Asian DNA is extinct Neanderthal and Denovisan. Trump likely is at the high end of that range. None of that DNA exists in Africa. There is more genetic diversity in one African village or ethnic group than all of the rest of humanity combined.
1
Don't be too sure that Trump will leave office when his time is up.
Right, Cyril Ramaphose is just a wonderful guy who wants to confiscate the farms owned by white farmers without compensation. In the meantime white farmers are being murdered. I guess Mr. Ramaphose looks at Zimbabwe as model he desires to emulate.
3
The title could have stopped at Why Trump Knows Nothing. Period.
3
The title refers to why Trump knows nothing about Africa as if an explanation is required. But since he knows nothing about anything, why should Africa be an exception?
4
Right now he's doing BIG things in Asia, Europe, and America.
I recall GW Bush did big things in Africa.....He was still called a racist.
2
They may survive. What makes you think we will?
Even if corruption were to disappear overnight, overpopulation is the root of every problem in Africa. Until that is remedied there is no hope for the continent.
3
If this is your view, you should be doing everything you can to assist women to get more education, more control of their own lives and fertility. As soon as that happens, birth rates drop precipitously.
5
I would suggest its time for a new, fresh American foreign policy initiative. Mr. Cohen is anti-progress, and simply not caught up to the modern era. If we continue to follow the misguided, narrow-minded policies of the Bush-Clinton Axis of Evil,,,basicly fiddle fahrtin' around in the Middle East with no defined purpose other than to help Oil Corps make money selling oil to China....the death of the American Republic is all but assured. Its the 21st Century, Solar Power is proven to be much more efficient than oil(when the govt subsidy structure is included in the equation plus the military budget used to defend oil wells). Its time for USA to lock in trading partners for natural resources like gold, diamonds, rare earths, etc.....ie Africa. Make Liberia America Again.....invade it. Make it a territory. IMPOSE American Law and Order......Develop it. Sierra Leone. Ghana....all the old english speaking colonies. South Africa, Zimbabwe, NAMIBIA(Trump knows what he's talking about, even if he mis-pronounces it).
1
i ask myself why people voted for trump; who they are; how they could have stooped so low. then i read the comments to this wonderful column, and all the ignorance and biases that are so blatant in trump come blasting out in the denigration of south africa, its people, leadership, history. what kind of discourse is possible when the twin poles of ignorant biased comments and intelligent responses seem so worlds apart right here.
5
Taking Mr. Cohen's question literally, Trump is suffering from the same disease as of most Americans: ignorance of world political map and history.
5
Oh, Roger, how did you miss the reality of South Africa since Apartheid ended?
1
Gandhi was a racist who despised black people. He was not Trump but he sure was racist.
1
Of course, Donald Trump knows nothing about Africa. The real question is whether there is anything, any place, any topic at all about which Donald Trump knows something meaningful or substantive. Evidence is quite scarce.
6
I agree totally. he is a know-nothing.
2
I suppose (politically) being Trump is less worse than being beaten by Trump. It's as if our common political life is the Indianapolis 500 and the Democrats had the best racer, but forgot to fill the gas tank. Being a Democrat, I'm not dissatisfied seeing how Trump is dissolving the simpleton mindset of the Republicans: smaller government, free market religiosity, western values of having smaller/poorer countries pay tribute to us/allies for our powerful yet bankrupt system. Democrats will lose badly this fall because saying "vote for me because I'm not the crazy one" is like exhaling ... we all will wait for the next breath then hope to hear some intelligent reason to do so. The more radical the Democrat, the better.
1
Trump may be ignorant on multiple levels but Cohen misses a key difference between SA and the US. All it's issues notwithstanding, this is a country on the ascent. Contrast with here, where on average, standards of living are declining and nostalgia for a certain past is fuelling much of what is happening, including the election of this president. It is far from clear that this Country will recover anytime soon given that neither Party is being honest with the disaffected.
2
Generally, Mr. Trump doesn't know anything about a country unless he wants to license his name on a hotel in that country.
5
What do you mean? Trump already knows everything there is to know about everything, so what’s the point of telling him something, anything, about anything? That’s one part of the reason why anyone unfortunate enough to be assigned to brief him on some subject has such a tough go. Also, why experts in their fields find themselves so unwelcome in his presence. They arrive expecting to be greeted with respect only to provoke his wrath, outrage, sometimes even screaming fits, door-slamming tirades. Their crime? Committing the unpardonable sin of taking away his precious “executive time”. He has much more important things to do than listen and learn. Watch TV (Fox). Or, golf.
Another part is, he’s like the ancient Bourbon kings of France. They never forgot anything because they never knew anything.
6
Another good reason to listen to the BBC and read the Economist.
7
What if Trump is a minor milepost on the way to a far more lamentable situation?
3
Like Bush Junior, and Reagan before him.
1
It could be argued that America's ever deepening bipartisan divide is the "new apartheid" - albeit by culture rather than race. And Trump is no Mandella.
Even before Trump, America was turning away from its core values: individual freedoms, democracy-based government and economic equality. In its place we now are a nation who speak not of core values but "vital interest" - including a President who's only vital interest is himself. Africa, at least, seems to be growing up even if the United States is not.
7
WILSON: Your remarks are not well thought out and their redeeming quality in so far as the EB is concerned, is that they are critical of our c-in-c, on the eve of perhaps a great diplomatic triumph. Even if N. Korea does not agree to complete denuclearization, which would be foolish on their part since their arsenal is the one asset which has gotten them noticed in the first place, this contact with the c-in-c--let's face it:everybody wants to meet him--will have spillover effects on this final Stalinist holdout in terms of human rights, and opening up the country to the West. Good move by TRUMP, who to his critics has been portrayed at the ultimate buffoon. SOME BUFFOON!Re economic equality, no one has done more for the Hispanic American and African American communities than he.Is an open borders policy-"What the heck, let em all in-"Obama's core philosophy,not the most pernicious thing you can do to those AMERICANS struggling to find work at a decent wage?How is Africa growing up? Friend wrote me from Ziguinchor that President Macky Fall contained peaceful demonstrations in Dakar by ordering troops to fire on demonstrators, resulting in multiple deaths! Is this the sign of political maturity?Sounds like turmoil and instability to me, and I worked in west AFRICA as a TFA volunteer for 3 years, plus a year as a Fulbright, in addition to all the field research accomplished in the Mahgreb. Many governments in the bright continent are democracies in name only.
1
An excellent cautionary tale. Thank you.
Meanwhile, we have abdicated to China which is buying up the world everywhere. They play the long game. Trump, our wannabe godkingemperor, has an attention span of a few seconds for anything but flattery and ginning up dangerous crowds of punters who don't recognize that he is a big part of their problems, not of the solution to them.
What a shame. Earth's apex predator is in deep deep trouble, but it should not look to the US for leadership. At the moment, quite the reverse.
10
No US ambassador nominee to SAfrica doesn't mean anything in particular about SAfrica - there's no nominee for Sweden or Mexico, either. What it appears to mean is that Trump views diplomacy and diplomats the way he views justice and judges - with utter disdain, probably contempt.
11
Another almost farcical demonstration of the American/USA idiotic, moronic and imbecile attempt to regulate the life and lives of citizens of other nations or communities by sponsoring and advocating rule of genuine human interest WHILE it, the presumed reformer was, alas still is,in the grips of a social-economic system of the base values of the doctrine of racism and colonialist exploitation ; readily accepted by his people and officially recognized by thr state: racism and imperialism-Neo colonialism. Which had to fail as it did !
That the USA could not see the basic contradiction and built in negation of ITS own practices that could never support, neither by emulation nor basic logical consideration, the impossibility of its success : Living and Flourishing by a certain mode of life derived from a false democratic visions and an exploitative / clonialist economic system would succeed in selling that nefarious duality WHILE still living and flourishing under it.........that is farcial,yet deeply unsettling that the Rotten was seriously attempting to sell his Rotten merchandise would, inevitably fail, is highly farcial and tragic at one and the same time!
2
Is this a trick question?
There's a pretty darned good chance that Trump knows nothing about Africa because Africans live there. If there was a place he knew of to drop in a Trump Hotel or golf course and make some money, then maybe he could find it on a map.
19
But in order to place a Trump Hotel and/or golf course there he would have to be able to find it on a map. Hence is ignorance limits his investments.
I understand that Africa offers many excellent investment opportunities, but Trump will probably not go there -- unless he suddenly wakes up which seems unlikely.
2
Now Trump is responsible for the suffering in Africa? The situation in South Africa is as dire as Argentina. Where is the nytimes. I understand If Kennedy lived things would have been much different. Fifty years later we not only have the world bank bleeding the economies of many African countries we have the Europeans, America included deciding their future. What they can drill what they can mine what dam they can build. All it takes is another speech from the risinig star of the Democratic party rep Joe Kennedy.
They might be better off with China.
6
NYT doing great job of covering South Africa. See recent story on Zuma, previous coverage of his political demise, and decades of coverage of ANC and Ramaphosa. The 50-year anniversary pieces focusing on RFK provide such a stark contrast with today's democracy-defying Trump regime. Not surprised JoeG mentions China, though his reference does not add anything substantive -- just intended as a zinger, it appears. China and TrumpWorld becoming increasingly similar, with both placating and seeking to forever empower authoritarian rule. RFK would know the difference between U.S. and Chinese systems. Trump -- not a chance.
2
Try reading the column and thinking. Nowhere is Trump blamed for the suffering in Africa.
Trump knows nothing of anything, is anyone surprised he knows nothing of Africa? Trump treated the world to a host of unpresidential behaviors and language that suggested he is either completely stupid or he left his medication behind in the US. The damage inflicted may be permanent. He then headed off to North Korea in no position to make any demands on Kim Jong-Un. The Koreans probably spent the weekend laughing and eating snacks while watching Curly Howard, er, Trump bumble about Canada.
9
I thought Roger Cohen was dead!
2
Great question for Jeopardy - "The capital of Nambia." Uh, what is ... um ...?
As trump governs from the bottom-most end of his gut, we get to live with his improperly digested edicts he flushes down his 'what he described African nations as.'
One thing is for sure. Like many current and historical tyrants before, trump will never give up power to suffer the consequences like Qaddafi and Zuma and other disgraced leaders have.
With the help of the Koch Bros., like the Gupta Bros. with Zuma, trump is making America 'what he called African nations,' certainly not making America great.
How do we stop, let alone reverse the damage trump is doing? How do we contain the extreme-right apartheid white supremacists bigoted right here in America supporting the awfulness in the oval?
He hasn't been in office for two years and he has insulted and threatened Canada. CANADA!!!
The elections later this year may be too late to contain this disaster.
As for America's Constitution, "Trump would, well," DISAPPROVE.
16
Okay, I give up. What's the answer?
South Africa is a third world bastion of corruption and filth, nothing more....
What else does one need to "Know" about it?
7
Could have been an informative article about South Africa. Instead more Trump Derangement Syndrome writ large. And the usual cacaphony of progressive fools commenting.
10
Oh Bob. I think the derangement syndrome is actually for folks who can't see why the norms, traditions, and laws of democracy are important and how they are being breached. I take issue with your comments, not with conservatives or Republicans as a whole. I'd appreciate it if you could restrain from lumping all progressives together so they can be so easily dismissed. It's not helping anyone.
5
Strangely, the parallels between South African and Israeli apartheid escape Mr. Cohen. I encourage the empathetic Mr. Cohen to go to Gaza and ask the residents to reflect on Gandhi and Mandela.
3
To the few Trump voters who read the New York Times.
Is this how you want our nation to be viewed by the world? Are you happy to see an ignorant, hateful buffoon represent our nation on the world stage?
These are rhetorical questions, of course. I already know the answer. You’re thrilled with him. But understand this. Those of us who aren’t, are in the majority in this country. Those of us who despise this ignorant tyrant have values you’ll never understand – respect, decency, integrity. You have none of these, and neither does the man you elected to this nation’s highest office. Because of your actions, our country is now viewed at best as a laughing stock and at worst as a pariah state. Now we can't hold a candle to countries your leader mocks, such as "Nambia".
But understand this. Our patience isn’t infinite. At some point we will take our country back. You know, the one that strived to provide equal rights and opportunities to all people, regardless of race, religion or gender? The one that functioned under a separation of Constitutional powers rather than as a dictatorship? The one that, despite mis-steps sometimes, did strive to be a force for good in the world? The one that was respected on the international stage? This is the country we want. And this is the country we’re going to get back. At least if there is a country left after the devastation caused by your “dear leader”. We will not submit to you or your tyrant. And we aren’t going away.
13
I am afraid that this, in the person of the 45th President, is what this nation is at her core.
Trump and his followers delight in their ignorance of the world beyond US borders. It is a badge of honor to be so focused on "American Greatness" that all other nations must be minimized, dismissed, or seen as leeches on American skin. The Trumpians know nothing of the nations of Africa, because they truly believe there is no good reason to know. After all, the inhabitants are dark skinned. eeew.
8
DONALD J. TRUMP passed geography at a very prestigious military academy. DONALD J. TRUMP willfully rented to tenants from Africa. DONALD J. TRUMP hired Ben Carson, who appears to be from Africa. DONALD J. TRUMP is in control. When Africa is ready to live like kings, DONALD J. TRUMP will rent to them. DONALD J. TRUMP knows Africa.
2
You're joking, right?...
3
Given Trump's questionable historical awareness it's a little surprising he didn't refer to Namibia as "Deutsch-Südwestafrika" or worse still "South West Africa"!
Ha. Those errors would presume a nonexistent knowledge of history and the verbal acrobatics to emit words more complex than "great." I'm just relieved that his shrunken brain didn't conflate the place with nambla at some point.
1
"How we in the United States have fallen, electing a president who incarnates ignorance, would erect walls on borders, knows not what dignity is, nor integrity, nor common humanity, nor the meaning of America’s alliances; nor even that a president’s Memorial Day message should honor the fallen, not trumpet low unemployment numbers."
One is put in mind of H.L. Mencken: -- “As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
14
He couldn’t know less than Obama.
4
How can you say that? -- After all, it was Trump who kept maintaing that Obama was born there.
3
Is Roger Cohen seriously preaching at the US about the success of South Africa's pretty works engraved in stone?
Roger, you fled South Africa, remember? What you wrote about your mother's decline and death... you told us it was because she was essentially forced out, lost her home.
Now you're standing on the pretty preamble? Stick around and see how well you are treated, as a white man Jewish person. Then come to America... It's really not so bad here, and even Trump voters that you condescend to would take in a motherless and fatherless orphan like yourself.
And you talk about Trump being against a Free Press? Do you think an inherited industry where young ladies are hired because they have cultivated sources by sleeping with them, is Free? I don't. There's no competition there. You're not even telling us the true stories.
5
Trump habitually denigrates people with dark skin. He called for the deaths of 5 black men accused of killing and rape even before they were convicted. Later, after they were exonerated, he refused to apologize. He fomented racial dicisions by denying President Obama's citizenship, began his Presidential campaign by labeling Mexican immigrants to the US as rapists and thieves, he encouraged violence against black and brown protesters at his rallies while promising to pay for the attackers' legal fees, and he refuses to denounce acts of racial hatred whether committed by white nationalists and neo-Nazis or by the police against innocent black men and women. He is proudly ignorant of American racial history, and of any knowledge of the economic foundation that shackled black labor laid to make this nation the monied powerhouse that it is. It should thus be no surprise at all that he would be dismissive, minimizing, and in all ways insulting to the dark-skinned peoples and nations of the African continent.
7
Why Trump Knows Nothing about "choose any topic" other than sexual harassment and hate and you've got an accurate statement.
1
You forgot about Obama's race-baiting ... oh wait, you were taking a shot at trump, not pointing out some very remarkable comparisons between Obama and Zuma. While you whine about Trump, Obama set the stage for imprisoning journalists. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/30/opinion/sunday/if-donald-trump-target...
3
There was no "race baiting" by Obama and there is no comparison whatsoever between Obama and Zuma. There is also no such thing as "whining" in written comments.
To the extent that the Obama administration was not held as accountable as it should have been, it was the result of your team sucking up all the media oxygen with assorted fake "scandals" that perpetually dominated news cycles. A credible opposition part is vital to democracy and your party's politicians and pundits do nothing but lie 24/7.
1
Ignorance can be very expensive -- especially by leaders. I am shocked that South Africa does not have a U.S. ambassador -- a reflection of ignorance about the country and the continent by the Trump White House & State Department. This will be expensive because China and India are engaged in competition to develop long-term economic ties with Africa -- a region that has seen one of the fastest economic growths in the world this past decade. Meanwhile, U.S. leaders are stuck with ignorant stereotypes of naked people in mud huts and living in "shithole" conditions....Sad!
6
I was in South Africa for two weeks in January, shit hole is being polite, the townships are huge, 100's of thousand live in squalor, the major highways have warning signs instructing drivers not the stop in high crimes zones. Trash and trash fires reek for miles. Crimes is high, whites live in gated communities with high walls and electric fences for security. People in South Africa have little hope for the future, i people are grateful when family members leave the country for a better life
4
Alas, the headline is a bit misleading! We are not to be told "Why" the Leader doesn't know anything about Africa. It is just as well; the answer is obvious: for the same reason he doesn't know anything that might contribute to his accumulation of wealth, power, and adulation. Africa? Asia (ex China)? Who cares? Kim Kardashian? Dairy tariffs? Roseanne? Now we're getting into the ambit of the Ruler of the Planetarchos! The only important question facing America and the world is this: Can we survive Trump?
3
Ramaphosa insists upon “land reform” in the form of expropriation without compensation.
Yeah, sounds like democracy to me.
2
Tell that to the Nez Perce, the Yakima, the Shoshone, the Blackfoot, the Salish speaking people. That was their introduction to "European democracy".
"America, like South Africa, will survive the Zuma-Trump test of a democracy’s essential character."
This column advocates smugness & complacency, which is exactly what got us into this mess to begin with.
6
Why would he care? Let the Chinese sink a trillion or two into Africa first and get nothing back. Then, take a second look, maybe even a third.
3
After reading about taxes is South Africa, I'm not terribly sanguine regarding their ability to again create a robust economy in the near future.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/10/world/africa/south-africa-corruption-...
If we can elect some more Democrats and maybe even some reasonable Republicans in November, we can turn this around. If we as a country can stop Trump following the next election - and then throw him out of office in 2020, we will send a message to the world that democracy works. "We elected an idiot. We got rid of him and we are getting our act together." Our friends will forgive us, and we will show our enemies the power of democracy.
The possibility of the discharge petition 'allowing' the House to actually vote on immigration is encouraging. We can survive this.
Support your political candidates and vote, vote, vote in November!
2
I just spent six months in South Africa and President Cyril Ramaphosa, who the "writer" calls decent, strong and smart, advocates the forced confiscation of farm land from White South African farmers.
5
Seriously, don't you mean to say that Trump knows nothing about nothing? And if he doesn't, then I doubt South Africa is in his lexicon.
1
If one cares to look at the history of civilisations, going back a couple centuries or much further back, one fact is obviously clear: there is no such thing as the status quo, at least not for an unlimited period of time. Pages eventually get turned and what could have looked at one point in time as an impregnable hegemony from one nation/empire, eventually shifts to a new equilibrium. This change can happen extremely quickly, particularly when the change factor(s) is/are not widely anticipated. How long did it take for the Roman Empire or the British Empire to lose their dominance?
What about “America” today? The US still have the mightiest military and a very respectful economy, but for how long? Trump is a very unconventional president and clearly a bull in the China shop, and therefore he might very well be a trigger for (global) change, although I wager that few are able to predict in which direction and of which magnitude?
Drawing a parallel between the USA and South Africa is in my opinion definitely not silly.
And on many people’s lips is the obvious question of when China’s time is really going to come? And how benevolent will the Chinese Empire be?
2
The only concern I have is that Trump is not deranged.
1
Let me save you the thousand words of prose. The answer to the headline's question, 'Why Trump Knows Nothing of Africa,' is much simpler: He doesn't care.
1
I wonder why he wrote "...Africa" in the headline, given that we haven't found anything yet he does know anything about outside of his children with his first wife.
"Why Trump Knows Nothing" would just be such a useful, all-purpose headline for every story.
2
No chance of a go there for a Trump branded property to bring him riches so why bother learning anything.
He does know that for a few paltry dollars his children can slaughter wildlife and play ''great white hunter''.
2
He knows nothing of Asia either. "While G7 ends in disarray, China and Russia spearhead enlarged Central Asian bloc."
This meeting includes India, China, Pakistan, and Russia - four nuclear powers plus a host of other nations that could easily make up half the world's population. Trump is playing a fiddle and dumping gasoline on the fire.
https://globalnews.ca/news/4265214/shanghai-cooperation-organization-sum...
2
Infant Terrible has no concern for any modicum of knowledge about any country that he can’t put in a tweet. He simply makes up his own facts and lies, then pretends it’s knowledge.
Add that to the fact he’s an overt racist and you can easily see why he’s not even interested.
2
Sorry, Mr Cohen, I tuned out after reading we have no ambassador in South Africa. I have to give up reading the news. I simply cannot cope with the gross incompetence, churlishness, and stupidity of our present POTUS--and the Republican house and senate that enables him. I am so disgusted.
6
Mr. Cohen,
From your lips to God's ears.
1
South Africa may count itself fortunate in not having a US ambassador considering the one we sent to Berlin.
9
Mr. Trump’s sons are busy charging $1 million for their services to kill big game in Africa. I am sure Mr. Trump knows about that.
4
He knows it is the "dark" continent. That's all he needs to know.
1
The problem is that Zuma misdeeds had national and, to an extent, regional consequences. The dimensions of the Gasbag in Chief´s predations are planetary.
2
Roger, what is distinctive and critical for Trump is that he has not the slightest interest in knowing anything about anything, least of all Africa or more to the point, each of its countries.
For that matter, how much do my fellow Americans know about Africa and its countries? Chimamanda Ngotze Adichie in Americanah gives readers bold type sections that illustrate what a real Somali, or Nigerian, or Kenyan faces on entering America, the country that puts people in race boxes.
My Somali friends in the US are suddenly made into African Americans, a designation I think fits best for people like Michelle Obama who have a line of descent back to a slave very likely brought from West Africa.
I know by name a couple of hundred Somalis in Linköping, mostly high school students at the time of first meeting and mostly female. In Lkp every single one wears hijab, if at the Red Cross Träna svenska or Läxläsning, prays faithfully. They do not want to be seen as belonging to a "race".
Read Adichie to learn more about the points I want to make.
Trump does not know much but as the former editor of I think it was Ebony wrote in the Brown Alumni news, when she was a freshman a real African would be asked on arrival by members of the Black Student Union, "What Are You Anyway" My Somali friends in Minnesota and elsewhere tell me that still happens "What are you anyway", you do not fit into our boxes.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
Given that 85% of Africans are black or people of color may have a lot to do with trump's hostility toward African nations and their people. I don't know how or if our democracy will survive trump as we have both a congress and the Supreme Court stacked with his Republican enablers. Our system of checks and balances is broken, our constitution is under attack. We have a would be king at the helm who not only works against his own people in order to enrich himself and his friends but defies our allies. The mending process will be long and painful.
4
So, why should the US care?
What has been the downside to Americans that there is no US Ambassador to South Africa?
Ask anyone on main street how their lives are better or worse because of corruption in South Africa or the absence of an ambassador. Result: blank stare.
President Trump is correct: focus only on things that matter to America and Americans. Africa should take 0.01% of his time. At most.
5
The Untied States is dead. Our children and our grandchildren will justly curse us in our graves.
4
"In 2020, or just possibly before that, or perhaps not until 2024, the United States is going to face a similar question in the aftermath of Trump. His unrelenting attacks on a free press, an independent judiciary, truth, decency, and America as a nation of laws will have taken their toll."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Please no.
Trumpler must be indicted or impeached in the next several months. We can't possibly continue on like this for two more years.
In a few short hours at the G7 conference he disrupted alliances that have been built up over almost a century and seemed to suggest that the US align itself with the non-aligned nations, Russia, North Korea, China.
Please Mr. Mueller. Hurry up and indict the orange clown before he takes down Western Civilization with his antics.
5
Roger, I hope you are right. But I can't help but think, and I hope wrongly, that South Africans are cut from a different cloth than North Americans.
1
Cohen's concluding sentence: "America, like South Africa, will survive the Zuma-Trump test of a democracy’s essential character" is more than excessive optimism. It's delusional. Democracy is a failed political system. It fails because it ignored human nature's selfish instinct and ignorance. Competing self-interests & self-righteousness tear apart social fabric when left unchecked.
Senator Moynihan's famous words deserve a public monument: "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts." Based on "democratic election" Zuma-Trump & similar reigns emerged, accompanied by corruption, contempt of rule of law, attack on free press, cronyism, narcissism etc. These are all facts. Democracy's "essential character" is just an opinion.
2
Thanks for mentioning Bobby Kennedy. One of my most clear and imprinted memories was of my Mother, crying for days, when " Bobby " was killed. That's what she called Him. She had to drop out of High School, as the eldest of 15 children, to take care of the Kids at home. They knew poverty. She also knew when a person was genuine, and was serious about improving the lives of everyone. Anyone that has been poor, even "just" temporarily, understands the Con man Trump and his regime.
Poor people and all the working class, are ignored by Trump, at best. Otherwise, it's anything goes, to cull the herd. Just saying.
2
Not sure you know what you're talking about, Mr. Cohen, not sure at all.
Racism, prejudice and hatred are hard to stuff back into the plain and discreetly packaged box that they were (mostly) wrapped in, pre-2016 in the US. I know it from my personal experience as a brown man living in NY for the last 20 + years. I had never personally encountered any of the above, except once while driving through rural Florida, a scary enough experience to last a lifetime.
Since the 2016 election cycle, however, there's been a distinct, perceptible shift. Emboldened white middle aged gentlemen since have specifically instructed me to 'go back to India' on at least 3 occasions at and around my place of work. This may not be a statistically significant difference in such occurrences, but I know. The one at the receiving end of discrimination and prejudice always knows, heightened sensitivities notwithstanding.
The Jack is out of the box, Roger. However, we watch in silence and we hope you turn out to be right, we sure do. Hope is all we have...
3
Today the American nation is consumed with the erratic rule of Donald Trump. The institutions and laws governing investigations of the allegations of "collusion" between the Trump campaign and Russians only make for a long drawn out process. But really, couldn't all of this have been avoided?
Candidate Trump absolutely refused to submit his tax return. All candidates since the 1960's, and including his own V.P. candidate Pence submitted, but he didn't. On this score alone, Trump should have been deemed ineligible to run for the presidency. On the campaign trail, over and over Trump engaged in bigotry and racism; in one case he openly urged his followers to sucker-punch others they don't like and offered to pay for their defense. He said the electoral system was rigged - he was really whipping up his followers to engage in riots and violence in the event he lost the elections.
The Hollywood tapes really exposed the true Trump character - yet the party did nothing. All these and more should have disqualified Trump from running for high office in this great nation.
Both Republicans and Democrats should take heed and institute rules to disqualify candidates like Trump from running in future elections.
1
In an extended trip to South Africa in 2017 we surveyed a number of South Africans of every race and status. The question was posed as an offer that we would trade them Trump for Zuma. Each and every one declined. They know more than we do how awful he, and the Republicans, are.
2
You note that the survival of South Africa's democracy is due to "a vigorous press ... and the strength and independence of its judiciary."
I worry very much about the damage Donald Trump is doing to America's judiciary by loading federal benches with radical rightists and feckless tyros who could be there for decades.
May the institution of the judiciary impress its obligations on the individual more successfully than the presidency has done in Trump's case. Otherwise an increasing number of judgeships could become the long-lived radioactive waste of his administration.
2
I see an uncanny resemblance between Trump's conduct as president and that of Jacob Zuma. Hopefully, Trump will share the same fate -- but I'm not holding my breath while waiting for the GOP to grow a spine.
".... Why Trump Knows Nothing of Africa"
Well ... that statement implies that he may actually know something about other places or subjects. I sincerely doubt it.
Has anyone analyzed Mr. Trump speeches when he is not reading off the prompter? If one does, it quickly becomes clear that he is extremely superficial.
In almost all such speeches, he states his "facts" out of context, which is a clear indication that he is desperate to squeeze into his talk what others have told him to say. And, once he is finished with those points, because of his limited knowledge of the world and unfamiliarity with classical disciplines, he has very little else to say. So, he goes into a tirade of abuse attacking his predecessors, or the Democrats in general, or anything or anyone that comes to his mind. After he is done with that, he meanders back to the same points and parrots them again and again.
Adding to his superficiality a super-sized ego and mixing all of that with the enormous powers of US presidency then, I am afraid, we have the recipe for a disaster of inconceivable scale.
2
Trump is dividing the world into spheres of influence: Russia gets Europe, the Middle East, and India; Trump gets the Americas and the Pacific, and China gets Africa.
While Trump is busy alienating and insulting even our friends, allies, and existing trading partners, China is busy expanding its circle of frinds, allies and potential trading partners—including several African countries. China is investing heavily in foreign and domestic infrastructure—including several African countries—while Trump has little interest in infrastructure either foreign or domestic beyond his silly Wall.
Guess which strategy will “be best”?
1
Comparison between Zuma and Trump are absurd and another crude and disgusting attempt at Trump bashing. I would not wish Zuma on any country leave alone the USA. Zuma put the South African economy on a downward slide. Trump has placed the US economy on a stable footing with upward mobility. Zuma made a ton of money for himself from his position. Trump is eroding his personal wealth taking not a single penny in salary. Zuma was a floundering president, Trump is decisive, bold and very clear in his message. Zuma did not keep his promises to his people. Trump has try to keep every promise that he made. Maybe some of us may wish that he would not keep some of the promises. If there is any injustice being done here it is being done to Trump.
3
Trump is a symptom but is not the cause. Trump was elected with substantial population support and still have a solid upper 30% strong approval from his base. Unless we change the mind of his base, an even more dangerous, more competent, and more destructive person may rise after Trump.
1
Trumps' ignorance of Africa - for that matter he may not know that Africa is a continent with many countries and not a country itself - is well known by now. In fact it is also known that he is incurious. In other words, a man who knows nothing and also does not care that he knows nothing.
In of itself that would be a dangerous combination. But adding fuel to this smoldering and dangerous fire are 40% Americans who don;t seem to care that this demagogue is isolating America from her allies. In a world that is already networked and only getting more intricately interwoven, such behaviors will lead to isolation that is self defeating and suicidal.
Where do we go from here? I sincerely hope that the upcoming midterm will resoundingly send a much needed message to the world that America is a member of the global community and does care for the rule of law.
1
I hope/pray that Cohen is right! There will be so very many things to restore!
America is not South Africa. It's an empire, and its fall will reverberate for decades.
Trump is destroying the world order that the US built out of enlightened self-interest, and he has no idea how to replace it. Instead, he revels in the childish phantasies of a John Bolton, who believes that an invincible America can bully the rest of the world into submission, when it can't.
At $18 trillion the EU's economy is just as large as that of the US, and Trump won't be able to divide it, despite his best efforts. China's economy already stands at $11 trillion, and will continue to grow. Soon these two economies will make common cause against the US, not because of shared values but because of shared interests.
The US no longer dominates the West or the world as it did under Nixon, and, if isolated, will lose the network of alliances that made the greenback the world's reserve currency, and gave American businesses a huge trade surplus in *services*, even with countries like Germany.
The loss of America's empire and prosperity will make Trump's white base even angrier, more racist, and more nationalistic. 73 years after the end of WWII, the UK has not yet over its Empire hangover. Don't expect the US to do better.
3
Trump has much in common with Nelson Mandela' successors Mbeki and Zuma. All three are crooks who destroyed their country's racial harmony, economic redistribution, and moral leadership. America won't take as much time as South Africa to repair Trump's damage. His election reflected the death throes of a moribund base that can only hope for an apathetic America not to respond to its tribalism. Good luck with that. See you in November.
The "give it a rest, Roger" comments are horrible. I spent quite a few months in S Africa in the mid-1980s. I was so glad to see the Zuma era end. One thing that I believe has helped S Africa at key crisis points is wide familiarity with and a critical mass of respect for their long legal traditions - like the US, highly, horribly imperfect, but there IS rule of law and has been for a very long time. The "give it a rest" guys don't know, or don't want to know, you don't bring a great country down from internal rot overnight. By the time the rot is undeniable to all, the "give it a rest" guys have slunk back under the rocks they came from.
1
America’s Zupta has yet to be named, however his modus operandi is well known.
Ronnie Kasrils describes Zuma as an expert seeking out potential benefactors to help him realise the life that he thought he was entitled to.
There shared rules on rigging the system include: loyalty over competency, 10% off the top and government capture is better than no government at all.
Javanka, Pruitt and Zinke lead the trump takedown tag team. Living large, lavioushly with luxuriance their goal.
1
The damage done by Trump defies any rationalization or logic, or in fact knowledge of whole continents, including the one where he lives. Trump does not realize the real power in his being that could be actualized as he is not a wholly mature or intellecutally sound individual and the damage he does to all, not only those of us in this country, is profound and fills us with despair.
I'm fascinated by how Mr. Cohen is convinced that the problem of corruption in South Africa has been solved by ousting Zuma, a relatively small-time country boy grifter, and replacing him with the suave Ramaphosa, whose net worth is usually estimated as somewhere around a half billion dollars.
2
From your lips to "god's "ears. We can only hope. Given the numbers of lost americans who voted for this effluent and continue to support him with a blindness never seen in my 70 years, the task is a large one. Sadly, trump brought out a disturbing amount of evidence that Americans, the ones that attended lynchings, voted for George Wallace and David Duke, hated Ali, Tommy Smith, and John Carlos, and think Fox news is their voice of record. May we rise quickly after the voters rid ourselves of this miserable blot in our history.
What is really scary in the USA today is that net neutrality might be used to silence voices opposed to the administration, if the price is right.
5
Because he knows nothing about ANYTHING.
“The sin which is unpardonable is knowingly and wilfully to reject truth, to fear knowledge lest that knowledge pander not to thy prejudices.”
~ ALEISTER CROWLEY
7
I spend part of the year in CapeTown, and have so since the mid 90's . I'm trying to understand if Roger knows less about the USA or SA ... not sure?
SA is in trouble .. real trouble -- trouble not to be discounted with any comparison to the USA.
The problem with the USA. We are teaching tribalism and grievance instead of working together and moving forward. All of my immigrant forbearers were viewed as "others" at one time .. in a generation they were getting married to each other. Look at the NYT wedding section .. that's where progress is ... and why it's not happening in Africa.
1
I remember Kennedy's trip to south Africa and how controversial it was at the time.
the usa isn't the most introspective/self aware of countries so reading Kennedy's words again is surprising and rather demoralizing.
3
With only the changing of the name of the country, the preamble to South Africa's constitution would be an excellent addition to the new United States Constitution. Did I say "New?" Yes, absolutely, because the old one, if one looks at the laws that exist in America today, has become not just anachronistic but irrelevant, particularly in regard to religion. Legislation passed to ameliorate racial conflict is routinely ignored. Government now is of, by and for the boards of directors of business, not for the people. Trump is trying to change the latter, to make everything of, by and for Donald Trump.
10
"America, like South Africa, will survive" Trump is your conclusion. Survival is not enough. We have much to learn from South Africa's remarkable transition from the horrors of Apartheid to the difficult task of building a country that "belongs to all who live in it, unified in our diversity." South Africa did not run from its sins. Its Truth and Reconciliation Commissions confronted the crimes and criminals of the past with an honesty that allows for reconciliation.
We covered up the truth of our crimes for so long that even when exposed it is too late to reconcile. The genocide of Native Americans, Slavery, Jim Crow, Segregation, Japanese Internment all left for history to reveal truth and no one left with whom to reconcile. The perpetrators of crimes related to the invasion of Iraq, its occupation and torture have yet to be confronted. The architects and promoters of those crimes still avoid the truth. Bolton, for example, stands next to the President to advise him on national security policy. Where is the truth? Where is the accountability or the hope for reconciliation?
6
Eight years after electing--and four years after reelecting--a man who championed "individual integrity, human dignity, and the common humanity of man," this country, thanks to our bizarre electoral college, elected a huckster who is determined to undo not just what Obama did but all of his predecessors did as well.
Who would have thought that a president of the United States would get into a tiff with Canada? Who but Trump would say that Obama was "the one that let Crimea get away" and not only let Putin who took Crimea off the hook but champion for Russia's inclusion into the group of industrialized nations, something other members of G7 oppose?
Perhaps the Canadian Prime Minister's statement that asking Russia to rejoin the G7 is "not something we are even remotely looking at" is what set Trump off. Makes you wonder if Putin does have damaging video tapes--worse than the Access Hollywood one--on Trump.
36
I've no doubt that Putin has serious compromat on Trump. It's certainly more substantial than embarrassing videos of some strange sexual activity that he may indulge in. Trump is likely guilty of money laundering for sanctioned Russian well before the election and now, of course, of selling America out for his personal gain. He is obviously doing the bidding of his master, Putin.
4
I have always believed that those "golden showers" video tapes do exist. I think the Russians have them.
1
Frankly, it's time we Africans weaned off this belief that unless we engage with America or the West, we are doomed to remain behind. Perhaps that may be a blessing. Trump ignores Africa? So what? Ignore him too.
Will Africa suffer without America? Perhaps. But that should also be a wake up call for us Africans to start putting our own house in order. We (or at least "I") do not want Western largess forever. A significant number of Americans believe that more than 50% of their budget is channeled (and wasted) in Africa through aid (it's actually about 0.1%). It's time for us to start developing solutions to our own problems.
Perhaps it will take hundreds of years for us to catch up but at least when we "catch up", we won't have to rely on the wisdom or otherwise of the electorate in America or other places to do the right thing.
30
A tragedy. Likely Greek, those things we do to ourselves knowing the result. You have the only asset of true value, hardworking people. Use it. Invest in it. A world class education is available for free from the Khan Academy. Take a close look at the New Zealand Miracle where they were falling into 3rd world status. They’d run out of things to borrow against. They had to fix everything, so they did. And so can you. Ask your expats for help, As well as some of your 3,000 millionaires. Ask New Zealand for help. And Israel too. As well as any of your neighbors who are doing better. A trade union perhaps. Once you have a container port the cost of shipping one more ton is zero, so trade unions can now span the globe. Find a T who is a true populist Like our Andrew Jackson. Who ran as representative of the people because no one else was. And Survived a Coup. You’ve seen how we’ve reacted to the use of chemical weapons. Fight hard and we’ll strike back ten times as hard. If wmd or equiv is used to put down a people’s attempt to overthrow your government. I’ll pray for you, to have the strength to do what is required.
Mr Cohen's concern is well placed because Americans completely underestimate the extent and the rate of destruction that is being inflicted by one man on it's moral standing in the world, its institutions and democracy.
17
The current attempts at devastation of our environmental policies will impact the planet for generations as well. Many of us do see "the extent and rate of destruction" perpetrated by this man and his supporters. We are doing everything we can to resist it. Thank you for your message. We need Trump supporters and Congress to hear it.
Thank you for printing that fine preamble to the South African constitution. I had not read it before. No future can be built without a clear acknowledgement of the past. We can all learn from that.
11
Comparisons between the Zuma regime and the Trump regime are valid, but only up to a point.
The post-apartheid South Africa ANC government aimed at writing a new constitution, based on an American inspired democratic process. The fact that Zuma and his corrupt cronies easily managed to subvert that process is sad witness to the weakness of that 25 year-old fledgling system. But with the new leader there is hope that it can be turned around.
The Trump regime has inherited a 240 year old system with a long and deep familiarity with the democratic process. It has weathered all manner of threats. The fact that he is dismantling our institutions so quickly, with the full acquiescence of the Republican congress and a sizable chunk of the American people, is truly frightening. Turning this destruction around will take far longer, if ever.
Racism in America runs far, far deeper than anything South Africa ever experienced. It is woven into the very core of the American culture.
Even though apartheid left a scar on the South Africa psyche, it doesn't remotely compare to the deep wound America inflicted on itself over the issue of slavery.
That wound is still open and festering today. It is gleefully picked at by Trump and his congressional lackeys on a daily basis, and loudly applauded by his sizable base. It will take generations to heal.
12
I admire you optimism, Mr. Cohen. Alas, I don't share it.
I return, again and again, to the 63-millions in whom Donald Trump is the metaphor for America's history, particularly its racial manifestations which largely parallel those of pre-Mandela South Africa and most of colonial Africa and Europe's hegemony in the slave trade that found blessings in Christian countries and despair among native inhabitants of free lands in the Caribbean and North America.
The American president can't be bothered with racial sensitivity and 63-millions agree.
The American president can't be bothered with honesty and fairness and 63-millions agree.
The American president can't be bothered with an independent and free, inquisitive press and 63-millions agree.
The American president can't be bothered with an independent judiciary and 63-millions agree.
The American president de-regulates industries that formerly oversaw the health, welfare and safety of America's citizens in areas from drug prescriptions to food to clean air and clean water. But 63-millions prefer a de-stabilized America.
The American president is one-third of a tripartite system of government in which the legislative is as much a rubber stamp for Donald Trump as the Guptas were for Zuma.
The American president stocks the lower federal courts with right-wing ignoramuses in what's becoming a successful attempt to turn America into the South Africa we all once knew and hated.
Sixty-three million Americans agree!
42
I agree. However, I will have to remind everyone of this fact: 65,844,954 Million Americans voted for Clinton, Ie more than the 63,000,000 who voted for Trump. Is our electoral system in need of serious rethinking for future elections? 2016 may be a moot point now, but I for one will be ( and was in 2016) out there voting blue and promoting those who support HUMAN values. And no I'm not implying Clinton was always right by any means, but lets face it: there was a clear and meaningful difference to say the least. There will also be clear choices in November. All who care about saving our democracy, please do all you can and I will too.
13
Soxared, I share your despair. I am not sure that all 63 million "agree." Certainly, some of them can be bought by the white supremacist music that is the undertone of Trump's behaviors and policies. But I think there are also many who "agree" because they do not have the courage to see that the leader of the free world is a shallow and shameless charlatan and huckster. Then there are many who don't understand what is going on but are afraid to admit that they don't understand and need to appear as if they do. This is the most dangerous class because these are the people who lap up the sound bites that Fox News and Christian radio feeds them and repeat it so it is amplified. They are the ones who -- in George Will's words "don't know what it is to know." These are the agents of propaganda -- the ones who spread the false word. Of course there is much overlap in these categories. I am hoping that there are also those who agree because they don't know any better and are willing to be educated and wake up. But the economy is too good for that. I am hoping that the liberal religious institutions -- churches, mosques, temples, societies -- can get it together and spread their word. I don't see the Democratic Party doing this well enough.
4
South Africa under Zuma sounds like the United Sates. And it has taken only 500+ days for us to arrive at this point. We have the Electoral College, Trump voters and the Republican Congress to thank for that.
12
After recently re-reading Yale history professor Timothy Snyders's "On Tyranny" I am far less sanguine about our nation's future than Mr. Cohen. While I admit to little knowledge of South Africa's political system, I doubt it allows money influence to nearly the extent as here in the US, and in fact I am not aware of any other so-called democracy that does. Until that changes our downward spiral will continue - to full-blown authoritarian oligarchy. We're now well down that path.
25
Our democratic republic, created well over 2 centuries ago, was imperfect but provided the framework for increasing security and opportunity for more and more of our own - and eventually more of the world.
It's hard to imagine it could be revived after these last decades. Trump is merely the accident that happened to America (and the world!) when enough people in a few states thought Trump was the cure for government-by-the-most-privileged for-the-most-privileged. Our legislature, in the hands of Republicans owned by corporate powers for all but two years of almost the last 4 decades, tolerates Trump's rule because for the most part he's doing the bidding of corporate will.
Democrats may gain the majority in one or both Houses next year - but it now takes millions to win an elected seat in the national government. Can they win without the money? Or can they gain the money without selling out to the people they claim to represent?
And if Democrats should gain the legislative majority and govern honestly and as pro rights-for-all and opportunities for all, is it too late? Or are we as a people now accepting of the crude, rude, hateful behavior that has become acceptable ?
Will people who believe that science and history are worth knowing, understanding to the best of our ability, and acting as if they matter, be heard once again? Or is the unleashed freedom to be selfish and hateful and crude the road down the isolation path that Trump has selected ...
16
Roger Cohen is unduly optimistic about Ramaphosa and South Africa. As an American living in Pretoria, I see that Ramaphosa still supports the redistribution of land from white farmers to black without compensation. Granted a minority of white farmers control the farming but a lot of it is now corporate farming in a country twice the size of Texas. This will certainly put a damper on outside investment.
Although people compare this to what happened in Zimbabwe and which led to vast food shortages, the situation is different in South Africa, I've been told by farmers. Those white farmers were more recent immigrants from the UK and most were able to move to South Africa and Zambia with their passports. The South African white farmer knows no other country and intends to make a stand if such a policy is put into place. What that entails is a frightening thought.
Although the court system is legitimate in South Africa, it will have no choice if such a policy is incorporated into the constitution (lauded as one the world's greatest) as has been suggested. White farmers mentoring black farmers, a program in KwaZuluNatal, a province, has worked well, as many white farmers are aging out of the business and not being replaced by their heirs. Ramaphosa has to take a rational approach if he expects outside investment of South Africa, a country with great beauty and potential.
11
Cohen's deep family ties to South Africa seem to inspire his hopes for its long term future. That would be nice. It is possible. However, we must be honest about where we are, before we can venture wisely to build something better.
The South Africa of today is the one Zuma made, and it was not doing very well even before Zuma. Since the end of Apartheid, is was a long steady disaster of disappointed hopes and dreams. Zuma did not wreck something wonderful, some great success. He just took it further down on its path.
Trump's description was accurate for South Africa. With a few small and partial exceptions, it is accurate for all of Africa. That may be an awful thing to say, but it is also true. That is the Afrcia that has been made by the last half century of what we've done and not done since de-colonization. And colonization was no good thing before that, one long horror show from the Belgian Congo to German Africa to the concentration camps and mass death of the Boer War.
More of the same, or a little bit better, is not going to make a livable Africa for those desperate 1.3 billion people Cohen mentions.
The real hope is the rich resources of Africa make possible something much better. It is a vast opportunity, waiting for good government and wise industry to build a future. Some people could get very rich doing that. Just as with green energy, it is not merely a burden, it is a vast opportunity.
16
The history of exploitative capitalism does not bode well for the future of resource-rich regions, whether African nations or Appalachian states. The "opportunity" it gives is to extract and export wealth.
22
Mark is mistaken. From the post by Nancy (Great Neck):
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=hDv8
August 4, 2014
Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for United Kingdom, South Africa and Botswana, 1992-2016
The trend was upward until into Zuma's presidency. Please look.
7
You know nothing of Africa if you define every single person on the continent as desperate. The legacy of colonialism has created systemic corruption in some countries, yes. White supremacy is poisonous. Your perception that all of Africa is desperate and needs oil, gas and mineral companies to exploit its natural resources—and is the only hope for economic prosperity—reeks of white supremacy and Western hegemony.
3
Reading this makes me wonder if Jacob Zuma served as a proxy for Putin to test his strategy. It seems Mr. Zuma and Trump have much in common and the the Putin game-plan has only improved when it comes to U.S. interference and sowing discord through the chaos President.
3
Putin is a mere boogeyman to excuse Democratic Party failures. Stop that, and instead do better, offer something better. Enough with the distractions. Russia is not coming, and that is not how we got ourselves into this.
It is the donors, and the politics of elitism, that got us here. Empty promises to minority groups long disappointed in such promises does not change that, only aggravates that.
27
We have met the enemy, and it is us.
Not Russia.
It's the less-than-half of Americans who are cheering for our country to fail because they don't understand the American people, the American character, or the American will.
They see us all as richer than though, guilty for working for what we have, and judge us by our skin tone color. They think our job is to... "Save the World!" and beat our backs with the misery America has caused.
Nope. The other half of the country understand the cost it took to get us here. Roger should stick to his homeland of South Africa, and work to make the words to their Constitutional preamble come true. He's not a missonary, and I suspect he and his people have benefitted from exploiting the South African people just like he wants to continue exploiting American workers and sending our profits and earnings overseas.
We built this country, Roger. You're welcome here, but you should learn a bit more of American history before you start preaching, sir: Robert Kennedy talked pretty too, but in the end, he was a rather ineffective wealthy son too.
1
One real reason for optimism in South Africa is that, albeit slowly, the government now seems committed to putting in place a strong independent- minded judiciary - including women judges- to uphold their constitution.
One real reason for pessimism in America is watching the commitment of the Trump administration to appoint the most extreme and politicized figures as federal judges, right up to the highest court in the land. These “apparatchiks” will have the ability to influence the tenor of our society for many years to come.
We will eventually emerge from the other side of this misbegotten presidency, but we will be badly wounded.
36
To characterize Justice Gorsuch as an "apparatchik" is nothing more than arrogant kindergarten name-calling that exemplifies the reason Trump was elected. Want him to be re-elected? Keep it up.
The USA also, by no stretch of the imagination, should be thought of as a democracy.
Our President is appointed not by popular vote, but by something called the Electoral College. Our current President trailed his closest opponent by 3 million votes, yet sits in the White House. Our laws can be made or broken in an institution called The Senate. The Senate allows only two votes per state regardless of population. Our states vary in population by as much as 73 to 1. By no means does such a system qualify to be called a democracy.
92
You are correct ... the US constitution makes us a republic. The founders were quite wary of it being a democracy.
28
Aware they were. Wary they were not.
They founded a system they expected to evolve.
It has evolved. Women got to vote. Then people of color got to vote. Now people can marry who they want. It will continue to evolve. Some day, post-Trump, it may well become what the mass of finally-eligible-but-still-fighting-for-the-right-to-vote believe it should be: a democracy.
Read your history, please.
Well said Alexander!
Jan from Florida, who wrote the first comment, did you read this?
The USA, at the Federal level, is a Constitutional Republic!!
It was never meant to be a classic democracy.
Well, a "test" does not necessitate that all are guaranteed to pass. Let us hope that we have had enough study.
8
The sobering and appropriately grave concern about America's present course I normally hear and relish in Mr. Cohen's voice seems overnight to have been replaced with a new blind faith that everything will be just fine. I am also seeing and hearing that everywhere these days, as Trump's approval rating and that of his historically corrupt political party continue to rise and the resistance seems to be suddenly a relic of the past. Meanwhile the Democratic Party is more adrift in confusion and malaise than I have ever seen in my lifetime, when they have reason to be more unified and powerful than ever. I genuinely wished I shared Mr. Cohen's optimism, but I am afraid there is no drug or pair of rose colored glasses I could find anywhere that could blind me or numb me to the stark offenses to my sensibilities that I experience daily and, sometimes, hourly. America has never been in such peril, including during the Civil War, and it is getting worse and not abating. If things continue on the present trajectory, we are far away from our darkest hour in this country and it is very possible there will be no return from where we bottom. We all need hope, but more urgently, we need massive action now to impeach Trump and reset the course for a once promising America.
55
"as Trump's approval rating and that of his historically corrupt political party continue to rise and the resistance seems to be suddenly a relic of the past"
Don't just moan about that. See the lesson.
It wasn't and isn't enough to bash Trump. That may whip one side into a frenzy, but it does not win over those not already convinced. It drives away objective people.
Offer something better. Show how much better things could be. Show that a Democratic victory would bring specific good things people want.
Show it with specific proposals offered. Show it by Republican defeat and obstruction of those proposals.
Where is the national health care plan we'd get from Democrats? Where is their plan for students? Where is their plan for housing and home ownership? Where is their plan for a green energy future? Where is their infrastructure plan? There is so much more to do. Do it.
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There are no objective people who support Trump. So the rest of the argument for appealing to them is nil.
The lack of objectivity is easily seen in the things overlooked and supported that are accepted for the sake if expediency.
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Marie -- There are objective people who must be persuaded to support Democrats, rather than sit home or vote some protest.
So it is true that Trump supporters won't be persuaded, but that is not the point. The other side always has some supporters, but the winner is the one who gets the uncommitted, those not true believers of that candidate.
It is sobering and humbling to hear the argument that America needs the nation-building guidance and role-modeling of South Africa, rather than the other way around. But, as Mr. Cohen ponders, "How we in the United States have fallen?"
It takes only a year to tear down the institutional achievements of the preceding two centuries.Wielding the wrecking ball is a misfit team of which Donald Trump is only a small and late-coming part.
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They said that about Ronald Regan, and now he is revered
"America, like South Africa, will survive the Zuma-Trump test of a democracy’s essential character."
I'm not so sure. When accepted cultural norms are shattered, they don't go back. Look at censorship on broadcast TV. It started with Ozzie and Harriet. Look where we are now. Censorship is on a one way path.
Trump has taken us down a similar path. His pornography is one of truth destruction. It is one of words don't matter. Agreements don't matter. Commitments don't matter. Nothing matters, except getting what you want when you want it to satisfy your demagogic needs.
His pornography is based in hatred and racism, some of the lowest most basic failings of humanity. These are commodities that society, any society, will never run out of. Their supply is infinite. Because of their universality and unlimited supply, once they are unleashed, the tide of destruction cannot be stopped.
That's what Trump represents. That's where he has brought this nation. I don't think there is any turning back now.
America was never what it was idyllically intended to be. We were making progress, but that's over now. Our great nation will never be what it could have become. And we can thank Donald Trump, his supporters, and the soulless cowards in Washington who have allowed his trashing of our values and principles resulting in our nation's demise. All that's left is the poetry.
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We, the people, put those soulless cowards into Washington.
This is no true democracy by any means. Thank the Electoral College for this jam we are finding ourselves in!
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"Our great nation will never be what it could have become." Little hyperbole, perhaps?
America is the greatest nation this planet has ever seen. Even if the world stopped today, it would remain true till the end of time.
And as for your "soulless cowards" -- such nauseating, hackneyed rhetoric should have offended even the NYT online "moderators" for "civility" -- but it's what the NYT panders to. It's about reader-"base" and revenue, it seems.
One more time backstage crew:
“Our great nation will never be what it could have become." Little hyperbole, perhaps?
America is the greatest nation this planet has ever seen. Even if the US disappeared today, it would remain true till the end of time.
And as for your "soulless cowards" -- such nauseating, hackneyed rhetoric should have offended even the NYT online "moderators" for "civility" -- but it's what the NYT panders to. It's about reader-“base” and revenue, it seems.
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https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=hDv1
August 4, 2014
Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for United Kingdom, South Africa and Botswana, 1992-2016
(Percent change)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=hDv8
August 4, 2014
Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for United Kingdom, South Africa and Botswana, 1992-2016
(Indexed to 1992)
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Thanks for the numbers, Nancy. S.A.'s economic performance correlates pretty well to Zuma's presidency: the longer he was in office, the worse the economy did.
The splendid Nelson Mandela became president in 1994, there followed presidents who were unfortunate leaders, but South Africa's economy has shown sadly little growth since 1994 and asking why should take questioning the country's economic structure.
What must be done for there to be growth and equity in South Africa?
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For heaven’s sake, Roger … give it a rest.
Ours remains a nation of laws under Trump – while he may disagree with federal rulings, as Obama disagreed regularly with the many who chastised him for exceeding his authority as president, Trump has obeyed them just as Obama (mostly) obeyed them. His basic geopolitical ignorance, his failures of politically correct behavior and even of character, were known to the electorate before he was elected; and his persona has been demonized by the left and a healthy klatch of #NeverTrump Republicans since before his nomination as Republican candidate; yet he was elected despite them – largely because your guys couldn’t offer up someone whom Americans could believe had a chance of breaking the cycle of useless, polarized politics that had afflicted us for eight long years. He’s accomplishing things everywhere, only in ways that the losers obviously deplore.
So … how’s #TheResistance working out for you guys? It doesn’t seem to make much of a difference to an increasingly prosperous America under Trump, except to keep Democrats off the streets. And your derision for “Nambia” sounds like the public school (British, not American) version of a fourth-grade playfield. Trump’s numbers are rising, and if North Korea pans out and the Trump recovery gathers steam as it’s expected to, they could be above 50% by November. His overwhelming support by Republicans must give Democrats SOME pause.
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My, so touchy, Richard. Is "give it a rest" your new catch-phrase equivalent of "Giveth me a break"? Why, indeed, do you feel a need to keep going on about The Donald's (currently stalled) approval ratings if you don't have some apprehension about what may happen in November if people start to realize that salary increases are barely keeping pace with inflation, that those precious tax cuts went mostly to people like Trump, that income inequality remains absurdly high, that the great deal our feckless leader is likely to make with the honorable statesman formerly known as Little Rocket Man will involve nothing but promises of slow-moving disarmament in return for taxpayer-funded "tribute" and that Mr. Mueller has got a poker hand he isn't yet ready to produce that might ultimately make Jack the Ripper look like just another guy who gunned down a few people on Fifth Avenue. Yes, he's accomplishing things everywhere- especially in Quebec where he spurned our democratically-elected allies in favor of further endorsements of the conquerors of Crimea. And so casually disregarding emoluments regulations- quite a feat, eh? Come to think of it, just give it a rest, Richard. To shed your soul for the sake of the world profits a man nothing. But to do so for a man who's earned most of his support for having shared/validated the prejudices of the most ignorant of Americans...?
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You don't know when to stop, do you? The whataboutism re trump's predecessor and nyah-nyah-ing about “his” economy, actually inherited from President Obama (who himself painstakingly guided recovery from the depths he inherited) isn’t enough.
You have to overflow beyond 1500 characters into suggesting that any attachment of sleaze to trump is somehow mere innuendo.
Let's ignore the obvious sleaze in his administration which every day outdoes the day before. Let's also ignore that there's one and only one foreign leader, friend or foe before whom he always genuflects and finds excuses for (one wonders which country he was representing at the G-7). And let's also ignore the Mueller investigation, rolling on after a year and still gathering testimony, plea bargains and indictments - no innuendo there.
No, let’s just talk about his adult life, which left a trail of bankruptcies, fraud and bad faith with customers, clients, associates, suppliers, contractors, employees, wives, women not his wife, and other kin. All of these are reliably documented (see, e.g., David Cay Johnston) though the mass media did not dwell on them once he had floated down the escalator and announced his run for president to a bunch of "supporters", aka paid show-biz extras.
The leopard doesn’t change his spots.
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"Trump’s actions are scrutinized under electron microscopes ... – and they can’t find ANYTHING..." So you've seen his tax returns, Richard? Don't keep them to yourself.
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Trump knows nothing except how to flip commercial real estate and how to attract attention. Let's just stipulate that and stop trying to understand why he doesn't know any of the things a President is expected and required to know.
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I hope you right about the US recovering after Trump. We will still have a free press, but unfortunately our judiciary will have been destroyed by the extreme appointments being forced through the Senate.
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Cyril Ramaphosa, like the corrupt Jacob Zuma he succeeded as president of South Africa, is a member of the African National Congress. In other words, the ANC survived Zuma's presidency as a party capable of producing competent, policy-directed, and non-corrupt officials at a high level. Who in today's Republican Party here in the US would be Ramaphosa's analog? What Republican of national stature has retained sufficient integrity to succeed Donald Trump?
The answer is that there is no such person. For the foreseeable future, the United States is a country in which only one party can produce national leaders reliably committed to democratic institutions and values. And a one-party democracy is no democracy at all.
I'm not nearly as confident as Roger Cohen is that American democracy will so easily survive the Trump presidency.
politicsbyeccehomo.wordpress.com
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This, among other things, is the problem with a two party (company) system.
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I don't want America to "survive" the Trump presidency. I want the GOP to clone Trump so's he can serve as president for the next thousand years.
Do Democrats have a national leader?
When I was in school, we learned that the power of the UN to keep the peace was limited by the Soviet veto, and the US had never used its veto. That changed in 1975 when the security council voted condemning South Africa’s occupation of Namibia, and the US, UK, and France vetoed that condemnation. Plus ça change.
13
Just another excuse to pot-shots at Trump.
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Who needs an excuse? Like finding fault with the Knicks there's not much effort required.
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No excuse needed. The way he conducts himself invites them.
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I think you meant to type "reason" instead of "excuse."
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It's not just that Trump doesn't know anything about Africa, but that he just doesn't care. But, sadly, he probably is not alone in that respect when it comes to the US. How many people know that there are 54 countries in Africa? How many know that the entire continental United States would fit in the northern part of the African continent? How many realize that Africa has an amazing array of diverse and vibrant cultures, or that its peoples have contributed to Western culture, both historically and currently, in many ways? How many know that, for hundreds of years, the natural resources found throughout the continent have been the source of our enrichment at the expense of its impoverishment?
As the head of our government, Trump should rightly be shamed and derided for his indifference and ignorance. And while the excuse for that ignorance and indifference could be his innate racism mixed with America first blindness, what is the excuse for the rest of us?
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I do. I would need a blank map to avoid missing any countries though. The same is true for European geography. I probably couldn't even name all fifty states without a visual queue. I'm probably an exception regarding Africa though. Africa is immensely large and diverse. Three times the size of the United States at least. The environmental diversity is staggering alone even before considering cultural and linguistic variation.
You're right. I don't think the average American takes the time to wrap their head around what Africa really is and what Africa is not. Most Americans don't even know how to ride the New York subway. Africa is a world far beyond their consciousness. Trump is the poster child for this ignorance and disregard. Add the unrelenting self-importance just to balance the insult. You'll find our typical American somewhere in the mix.
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