TRUMP’S FACT-FREE ELECTION DIET

The conduct of the US midterm elections will be a template for SA in 2019 and for many other countries

The noisy, divisive and rather dispiriting American midterm elections have come and gone. Don’t expect the heat to be turned down. The US presidential elections are due in 2020, and so expect more sturm und drang, insults, lies and rowdiness now that the results of the midterms have been announced.

This was just a practice run, but it’s a game changer. Many elections across the globe will follow this rhetoric-filled and fact-free script.

Why? Turn to any TV talk show before an election and one of the pundits is likely to predict a win for some candidate because “it’s the economy, stupid”.

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SA’S presidency next year? The economy is in a parlous state. Unemployment is high, growth has stalled, the fiscus is bare and the home affairs minister lies to the courts.

So, what will sink the ANC?

The economy or priapic Malusi Gigaba? The economy, stupid, is the answer most pundits will go with.

The economy matters to voters. US President Donald Trump is trying to turn that truism on its head. Trump and his Republicans went into these elections with one of the most enviable weapons any electioneering party or candidate could have: a pumping US economy.

Bloomberg reported last week that “American workers enjoyed the biggest leap in pay since 2009 as job gains topped forecasts and the unemployment rate held at a 48-year low … Average hourly earnings for private workers advanced 3.1% from a year earlier and the unemployment rate was unchanged from September at 3.7%.” That’s a major boost for any individual or party running for elections. Plus, under Trump the Dow, S&P and Nasdaq have all hit record highs — something he has crowed about in the past despite the fact that this trend started under his predecessor, the Democrat Barack Obama.

Yet one of the key mysteries of this election is that Trump has largely ignored these positive, relatable facts and instead focused on divisive issues that have led to unprecedented criticism of his utterances and his suitability for the White House.

He has focused on immigration, claiming that the US is being “invaded” by hungry Hondurans who are marching through Mexico to seek asylum in his country. He has dispatched 7,000 troops to the border despite the fact that the army says it expects only about one in five of those immigrants (they are more than 1,000km away as we speak) to reach the US border.

“This is an invasion of our country and our military is waiting for you!” Trump tweeted.

Worse, he threatened to order the troops to shoot any migrants who threw stones at them.

In the days after crude parcel bombs were sent to political opponents who have criticised him, and in which one of his supporters had mowed down 11 innocent congregants at a synagogue, Trump has continued stoking anti-immigrant sentiment.

He does so using half-truths and outright lies to ram through his message.

This week The Washington Post wrote that “in the first nine months of his presidency, Trump made 1,318 false or misleading claims, an average of five a day.

But in the seven weeks leading up to the midterm elections, the president made 1,419 false or misleading claims — an average of 30 a day.

“Combined with the rest of his presidency, that adds up to a total of 6,420 claims through October 30, the 649th day of his term in office, according to The Fact Checker’s database that analyses, categorises and tracks every suspect statement uttered by the president.”

So what will be the aftermath of these elections? What kind of America will the president bequeath to the people who will vote again in 2020? A post-truth America where it’s all rhetoric, or one that is about hard facts?

America’s voice carries weight across the globe. The conduct of these elections will be a template for SA in 2019 and for many other countries. Look and learn, people.

Here come noise, lies, political shamelessness and subterfuge. The economy?

“Sometimes it’s not as exciting to talk about the economy,” Trump said last Friday. So there.

So, what will sink the ANC? The economy or priapic Malusi Gigaba?