Did you vote for this? Because I ain't gonna lie ... I voted for this.
For months, South Africa has tried to paint Israel as genocidal for fighting the war Hamas and the Gazans started on October 7. That began a rift with the US that has sharply accelerated since Donald Trump took office, who responded by granting asylum to white farmers claiming to flee from officially ignored and potentially unofficially sanctioned genocide in Cyril Ramaphosa's administration. Ramaphosa signed a law in January that allows his government to expropriate private property, particularly from farmers, based on whatever they determine is in the state interest, which has accelerated the forced dislocation of white farmers from the land.
Ramaphosa decided to visit the White House in an attempt to reset the relationship. In the longer video below, Ramaphosa starts off with all sweetness and light in his conversation with Trump amid media questions on the Kashmir conflict and other foreign policy questions. When Ramaphosa denies any genocidal actions in his own country, however, Trump decided to bring in the AV Club and play a video of Ramaphosa's supporters demanding violent expropriation on the basis of race:
🚨 OMG!! Trump just dimmed the lights in the Oval Office and played, FOR the president of South Africa, the BRUTAL videos of South Africa's leaders calling for the K*LLING of white South African farmers.
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) May 21, 2025
He goes on to show the "burial sites" of white farmers... "those cars are… pic.twitter.com/rWn9p7Aujc
Needless to say, Ramaphosa tried pushing back by claiming that it's not government policy:
Ramaphosa pushed back against Trump’s accusation. The South African leader had sought to use the meeting to set the record straight and salvage his country’s relationship with the United States. The bilateral relationship is at its lowest point since South Africa enforced its apartheid system of racial segregation, which ended in 1994.
“We are completely opposed to that,” Ramaphosa said of the behavior alleged by Trump in their exchange. Experts in South Africa say there is no evidence of whites being targeted, although farmers of all races are victims of violent home invasions in a country that suffers from a very high crime rate.
The New York Times gave an equally skeptical take on the claims, but noted Ramaphosa's discomfiture at the scrutiny:
Instead, Mr. Trump had at the ready a packet of printed articles that he said demonstrated the “thousands” of stories of racial persecution in the country, and cued up a video to make his case.
At least one of the scenes on the screen appeared to be the rallying cry of “Kill the Boer,” which U.S. officials and Afrikaner activists have cited as evidence that white South Africans are being persecuted. Boer means farmer in Dutch and Afrikaans. The governing party of South Africa, however, the African National Congress, distanced itself from the chant, which was popularized by the leader of another political party, years ago.
“We have a multiparty democracy in South Africa that allows people to express themselves,” Mr. Ramaphosa told Mr. Trump. “Our government policy is completely against what he was saying.”
By the end, with the stunned South African president looking on, Mr. Trump began flipping through his printouts repeating, “Death, death, death.”
CNN went into hysterics over "debunked conspiracy theories":
CNN just called Trump showing the president of South Africa evidence of leaders calling for a White genocide and stealing their land an “ambush” of “debunked conspiracy theories”
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) May 21, 2025
Trump literally brought all the evidence and played it.
CNN saw it and are still denying it.… pic.twitter.com/KXVzK3IF7r
Does CNN mean "debunked conspiracy theories" like ... Russia collusion? Hunter's laptop? The lab leak theory of COVID? Joe Biden's dementia? We're gonna need a bigger scorecard...
And it doesn't help CNN's batting average that Ramaphosa's minister admitted that the problem exists:
The South African Minister of Agriculture confirmed in the Oval Office today that white farmers are being killed and that it’s a serious problem. Yet, this is what CNN puts out. pic.twitter.com/6M731FOIGs
— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) May 21, 2025
Just how legit are these claims of genocide? They'd be less credible if Ramaphosa and the ANC weren't passing confiscatory laws to satisfy the extremists that Nelson Mandela succeeded in tamping down for several years. The NYT hints at one problem in determining intentionality: post-Mandela South Africa has descended into a violent and crime-ridden country, thanks to the Marxist-leaning ANC's policies and inept leadership that plagued most of the rest of post-colonial Africa. Ramaphosa is only a million-dollar bill away from Zimbabwe, and expropriation in the cause of justice is one big reason Zimbabwe went from breadbasket to basket case. This may well be a case of allowing the inmates to run the asylum rather than an intentional policy against the "Boers," but even so, it doesn't let Ramaphosa and the ANC off the hook for it.
Those are all very good reasons why Ramaphosa and Jo'burg should stop throwing stones at Israel and other countries while living in a glass house -- where more and more of the windows are broken, to boot. Trump used this state visit to stuff South Africa's legal actions about "genocide" in Gaza right back in Ramaphosa's face. And yes, that's exactly what I voted for last November: FAFO.
Here's the entire exchange, via Forbes.
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