Earlier this month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the expulsion of South African ambassador Ebrahim Rasool. Rubio cited some of Rasool’s comments made during a webinar hosted by the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA), a South African think tank. Rasool accused the Trump administration of launching a “supremacist assault on incumbency” and called the president’s victory a response “to very clear data that shows great demographic shifts in the USA.”

The ambassador also opined on “the role of Afrikaners in that whole makeup,” claiming that Trump projects “white victimhood as a dog whistle that there is a global protective movement that is beginning to envelop embattled white communities or apparently embattled white communities.” Predictably, legacy outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post concurred with Rasool in their coverage of the incident.

Rasool seems oblivious to the very nature of his job. South Africa’s ambassador to the United States is supposed to represent his country’s interests by developing cordial relations with the United States. One doubts, however, whether he can perform this function when he deems the United States to be illegitimate. Instead of following long-established diplomatic norms, Rasool inserted himself into U.S. domestic politics by attacking President Trump and, by extension, the millions of Americans who voted for him.

Like many in South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC), Rasool’s career was built on race-baiting identity politics, corruption, and a deep-seated animus towards the West. Prior to being appointed ambassador to the U.S. by former President Jacob Zuma, a post he first held from 2010 to 2015, Rasool served as premier of the Western Cape province. His tenure in that post was marred by the infamous “brown envelope” affair, in which he allegedly paid journalists to write stories favorable to him while smearing his rivals. Although investigations against Rasool later stalled, at least one journalist publicly confessed that he “served as an embedded spin doctor to former premier Ebrahim Rasool while working as a political reporter,” according to the Cape Argus newspaper—the same newspaper for which the journalist worked. The ANC leadership eventually recalled Rasool from his position in 2008.