Trump and Zuma two peas in the same political pod
Who would have imagined that SA and American presidential history would arc in exactly the same direction at exactly the same moment?
This time last year, SA had a president who believed he had to retain political power to stay out of prison. His quest to remain a free man nearly brought the country to its knees.
We have not yet discovered the half of what he has done, but it was a very dark time. Prominent figures in Jacob Zuma’s own party grew accustomed to looking in their rear-view mirrors to see if they were being followed. House break-ins and muggings were assumed to be the work of security agencies.
Zuma was itching to bring down the entire edifice of our constitutional order; he would have had the country under martial law had his security forces played along.
Now, across the ocean, Donald Trump’s lawyers, accountants and advisers are making deals with the Mueller investigation one after the other. The president is watching in horror; he has come to believe he must win the 2020 election to stay out of jail.
Trump does not have the authority to order his security personnel to stalk his opponents or assassinate his rivals, but he can command them to do much worse than that. While the US president is not permitted to declare war without the consent of the legislature, he can, as commander-in-chief, start and sustain armed conflict for 60 days without congressional approval. And were he to do so, who would stop him?
Refusing to execute his orders would itself provoke a constitutional crisis from which the US would take a long time to recover.
The notion of a president igniting global war to stay out of prison may well sound like the plot line in a bad movie, but there is no rule against reality imitating the worst art.
The parallels between Zuma and Trump go further than that. Both men hold the values of constitutional democracy in contempt; they came to lead an order to which they have no moral commitment.
Both fell into legal trouble because they refused to distinguish between their commercial interests and the duties of their public office; they understood political power as yet another tool for enrichment. And both carry heavy chips on their shoulders, believing that the experts and technocrats who make states work are out to deceive them.
How will their respective stories end? Short of starting a war, there is other harm Trump might inflict.
When he thought he was losing the 2016 presidential election he threatened to contest the outcome.
Were he to lose in 2020, with the stakes now so much higher, what might he do? Will he call on his supporters to attack the undocumented migrants he is sure to claim voted against him? Might he wish to go down in a blaze of violent glory?
As for Zuma, we should not forget that his campaign to stay out of prison goes on. He still believes his best hope is to reacquire political power.
His enemy is president now, but his enemy is trying to govern through a recession with one hand tied behind his back. Elections are less than a year away and his enemy is not sure whether his poll numbers are looking so good.
The man with the quest to stay out of jail is plotting and scheming and he sees a glimmer of hope.
BOTH REFUSED TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN THEIR COMMERCIAL INTERESTS AND THE DUTIES OF THEIR PUBLIC OFFICE