A South African Grift Lands in the Oval Office

3 comments

1. Contrary to the claims in President Trump’s executive order offering refugee status to “ethnic minority Afrikaners,” “there is no evidence that the civil rights of white South Africans have been systematically trampled on, or that white landowners face disproportionate violence,” Richard Poplak writes from Johannesburg for Times Opinion. The white, right-wing Afrikaners pushing this narrative “intimately understand MAGA culture and its feedback loop, and bafflingly, America’s so-called culture wars have found enormous purchase in South Africa’s elite circles. One would imagine that a major upside of living at the bottom of Africa is not having to know the particulars of Nancy Pelosi’s stock portfolio, or being versed in Fox News talking points on the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop. But one would be mistaken. By appearing on Tucker Carlson, by posting on X, and by exploiting the animus to Black governance by white South Africans such as Elon Musk, who is closely tied to the Trump administration, the Afrikaner right lobby has vaulted their cause to the top of the geopolitical discussion.”

   Read the full guest essay [here, for free](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/22/opinion/south-africa-white-afrikaner-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.JE8.6-Yo.LrItT1K4WsTd&smid=re-nytopinion), even without a Times subscription.

2. Ah, one of the experts on grifting wrote an article about grifting. Classic NYT.

3. No evidence? It’s definitely not a genocide or even systematic violence but white farmers have been persecuted and occasionally killed there for decades. Doesn’t help that there’s fringe political parties preaching death to afrikanners

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