Donald J Trump, the political persona and why Afrikaners like him

Key topics:

Trump’s appeal among South Africans, especially Afrikaners, lies in his strength.
Wokeism is seen as a threat to Western civilization, fueling support for Trump.
Trump’s political persona embodies strength and defiance against Wokeism.

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By Koos Malan*

The traditional media are quite baffled about the wide support President Donald Trump enjoys among many South Africans, specifically many Afrikaners – Trump, the tumultuous bully, felony-convicted, mendacious character, who many claim lacks a coherent political philosophy and who can barely hold a coherent interview or debate.

The only explanation many of his opponents and enemies lament is his commanding of a pathetic discipleship of low-lives – rednecks / hillbillys / basket of deplorables – who voted for him.

Granted, Americans are concerned that immigrants are causing social ills and disrupting the cultural fabric of their society, and believe Trump might have the cure. And true, there are many Americans struggling economically, who also think Trump can mend that.

This is important, but it still does not account for the most important factor, the very factor that provides insight into the inner core of politics, and at the same time also explains why so many Afrikaners and other South Africans support Trump, but to which “mainstream” commentators are mostly oblivious to.

The gist of the matter is that theoretical debate is no more than secondary and ancillary to the core around which politics and political leadership really revolve, namely about guaranteeing security: political leaders must be able to credibly project themselves as guarantors of the security of their folk. They must be able to inspire credible confidence that they can safeguard security. If a political leader is intellectually smart that would be a bonus. First and foremost, however, he must be strong and able to project strength.

Trump despite all his downsides and shortcomings, is masterful at this. Hence, his victory and his widespread local following.

Trump’s forcefulness, assertiveness, belligerence and brutal, even rude treatment of opponents are not his Achilles heel in this; they are his armor, his shield and his sword.

Protection against what?

But what must Trump protect against? To what end and against what should he guarantee security?

The answer is obvious, but the traditional commentariat has been mostly blind to it.

It is that ordinary Americans, like many also in South Africa have too long been harassed and reviled by the aggressive intimidation of left-wing extremism: a mix of excessive absolutist liberalism and contemporary Marxism, encapsulated in the term Wokeism. It has gathered strength in the Western world over decades to become a strong force against Western civilization and against civilization as such. It reached one of various vulgar crescendos in the USA in 2020-21 in the looting and destruction that erupted with the so-called Black Lives Matter hysteria.

Before that Wokeism already took control of much of academia. From within the universities – one of the cradles of the West – in specious language it is preaching its belligerent anti-gospel against the West.

Wokeism involves the cursing of and assault against those things that ordinary Americans consider inherent to the natural, virtuous and moreover, God-given order. It is an unholy, immoral war to supplant Western civilization with an unnatural, foolish, and evil anti-civilization – an assault against a history and cultural heritage that ordinary Americans, Afrikaners and many other South Africans alike hold dear.

I mention but a few manifestations of this.

The sexes

It is proclaimed that there are not two sexes or genders – men and women – but an increasing multiplicity; that the boundaries between them are porous, and that movement between the ill-defined gender categories is a matter of free will, including through invasive medical surgery performed on children.

Evil Westerners

Whereas, according to Christian doctrine, sin is inherent to everyone – to humankind – and forgiveness is a gracious gift from God, Westerners – largely white people but also many blacks and Hispanics, are according to Wokeism’s preaching, the chief sinners of the human race – the worst collective criminal of all time.

Because of their extraordinary achievements since the dawn of the West in ancient Greece, Westerners have been the worst unremitting criminals throughout the millennia precisely because of their achievements since through these achievements they have constantly created inequality and hierarchy, excluded and discriminated.

Especially since the beginning of the first Western European maritime exploration of the non-European world more than five centuries ago, Westerners willfully or otherwise have been evildoers who colonized, enslaved and exploited others and built advanced and prosperous societies fed by the blood, sweat and property of their woeful victims. Therefore, Westerners wherever they are in America, Europe, Australasia or Southern Africa are destined for eternal damnation, punishment, and penance before the vengeful court of the Woke Inquisition.

Their history of achievement must be portrayed for its criminality, and it must be dismantled. Westerners are devoid of all heroism. Curricula in universities and schools must present Westerners as the villains they are. There must be no respectful remembrance of them; not in a book, monument or statue; nothing.

If they seem to have achieved something, that is not because of merit but because of Western exploitation and violence. And when non-Westerners underperform, it is only because of the turpitude of Westerners.

Accordingly, many universities in the USA and elsewhere – including in South Africa – have transformed – degenerated from the Western institutions they once were into breeding grounds for the War on the West, to use the words of Douglas Murray.

Wokeism is a cult

On close analysis, Wokeism is a cult. Therefore, it has no opponents; only evil, sinful enemies. Wokeism tolerates no debate. Instead, it condemns and destroys; it cancels and silences sinful enemies. Such are the ways of a (un)holy war.

Denials of, or defense against the condemnation meted out by Wokeism is insolence. It constitutes aggression, albeit micro-aggression. Being inherently evil, Westerners must endure everything while Wokeism’s preaching and diatribe against the West and Westerners must enjoy unrestrained license.

This freedom also applies when Wokeism perpetrates violent crime. There must be no opposition to or against it, not even by the authorities of the state. Hence, the police must be disempowered and “defunded”.

Wokeism has its concomitant liturgy, of course. It is comprehensive, but Black Lives Matter offers the most striking and disturbing illustration of this. In sacred moments, everyone must solemnly take – bend – the knee for so-called Black Lives, as embodied by a rotating cast of characters, most recently the drug-addled criminal, George Floyd.

Wokeism has become a major force in America – perhaps the most successful cult in history. It thrives at American universities, as it does in South Africa. It is mainstream or close to mainstream in the traditional media. Ordinary Americans have been increasingly victimized and intimidated by it for years. They experience how Wokeism increasingly alienates their country, traditions, and society from them and ridicules and criminalizes their (ordinary) commonsense beliefs.

The answer – the political persona

Many conservative institutes, foundations and publications have built an intellectual bulwark against this in recent years. (Kevin Joubert wrote insightfully about this https://dailyfriend.co.za/2025/01/25/trump-and-the-conservative-reformation/) They have rediscovered the essentials of Western culture and they are ventilating it. Many thinkers have come to the fore and become influential. Prof Patrick Deneen, author of, among others, Why liberalism failed is reportedly the most important intellectual influence on Vice President Vance.

But something significant was still lacking: a fearless strongman; not the paragon of moral purity, Victorian etiquette, religious piety or the like. No, the ruthless warrior doggedly rooting out his and his people’s enemies, allaying the fears of ordinary Americans, and restoring their sense of self-worth and self-confidence.

The strongman burst onto the stage of history: Donald J Trump, no great orator, and certainly not the epitome of careful deliberation and thoughtfulness, but ultimately a prime political persona who would provide a believable vision to make America great again, make ordinary Americans feel safe and strong, restore their commonsense values, and destroy Wokeism on the political battlefield.

Encouraged by this, ordinary Americans triumphantly placed the rumbustious knight Trump in power. And back in South Africa, although someone like myself would have preferred a Pat Buchanan-like conservative, many Afrikaners and other South Africans like their fellow Westerners in the US, sing the praises of the victorious wild cavalier, especially now that Trump in an executive order of 10 February has also reached out to them.

That is not to say that there is any guarantee of Trump’s political success. Trump’s volatility might be the most potent factor militating against him. This, however, should not detract meaningfully from Trump – for the moment at least – being the very epitome of the triumphant political persona.

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*Koos Malan is a constitutional jurist from Pretoria

Donald J Trump, the political persona and why Afrikaners like him: Koos Malan