We’ve got right recipe for demagoguery

AS Abraham Lincoln once cautioned: “Don’t believe everything you read on the internet.” A quote attributed to Zhou Enlai in response to a question on what he thought of the French Revolution, “It’s too early to tell”, is about as credible as the Lincoln reference. But legends take on a life of their own.

As with most revolutionary societies, it is far too early to tell what kind of president Donald Trump will be.

What is extraordinary is that, in a year in which Leicester won the premiership, the Proteas roundly defeated Australia in the first test at the Waca, and Britain voted to leave the EU, so few saw this coming.

The country that twice voted for George W Bush this week elected a man seen by many as an inept, bigoted misogynist as president over Hillary Clinton. She won more votes, but the US system gave Trump the edge into the most powerful office in the world. Whether it stays that way is up to him.

We can learn a lot from what has happened in the world this year, and there are plenty of warning signals.

History teaches us that populism needs a number of elements to thrive, and, when they are present, politics can change dramatically. Depending where you sit in the political food chain, those changes are either good for democracy or catastrophic.

A friend recently returned from France and had visited the Palace of Versailles. “It’s Nkandla!” he quipped. He’s got a point.

But Nkandla has been a populist rallying cry for South Africans protesting at the continued hold of Jacob Zuma on the presidency.

Stanford historian Niall Ferguson points to five conditions that lead to a rise in populism.

The first is a rise in immigration. The US might pride itself on being a nation of immigrants, but there were large parts of the 20th century, during which it became an economic powerhouse, when the mass movement of people was severely curtailed. The number of foreign-born Americans rose from about 5% in 1970 to more than 13% in 2014. Immigration was also a reason cited by many in Britain who voted to leave the EU. In South Africa, you only need to see how foreigners are targeted in times of economic distress to recognise the phenomenon here.

Inequality is another ingredient. It’s probably why the US’s largely East Coast media and polling industry missed the trend and why Londoners are still trying to fathom why mostly older people in the north of England voted to dump the EU. There are few better case studies on inequality than South Africa.

Corruption, even the perception of corruption, is part of the equation. Recent figures from the US show how confidence in Congress and business has plummeted since the financial crisis. When ordinary people lose faith in government and politicians generally, it provides fertile ground for populists. The serious allegations in the public protector’s State of Capture report, rising community protests and anger at universities point to this being a pivotal issue for South Africans who are questioning how the country’s money is being spent.

Add to the mix a financial crisis. The biggest market crises over the past 100-odd years have all been followed by years of economic underperformance. That corrodes confidence in the future and provides a fertile breeding ground for the final component: the emergence of the demagogue. In the US, Trump. In the UK, it looked like it might be Nigel Farage, and it could still be Boris Johnson, now foreign secretary. Johnson’s Winston Churchill biography makes it clear he believes that one determined individual can shape history. No doubt the leader of France’s National Front, Marine Le Pen, is feeling emboldened by Brexit and the nationalist fervour that swept Trump to power.

South Africa’s local government elections showed that the populism of the EFF is gaining traction more slowly than many expected. Maybe we don’t have the right demagogue. Yet. Whitfield is a public speaker on the political economy and an awardwinning financial journalist, broadcaster and writer