ANTHONY BUTLER: Let’s send Zuma to join Musk in helping the Trump administration

SA’s former president was a trailblazer of best practice in ‘apex executive branch management’

First published in Business Day

15 November 2024

by ANTHONY BUTLER

Republican president-elect Donald Trump. Picture: JAY PAUL/REUTERS

SA has already sacrificed our beloved Elon Musk to the Trump administration, but we can do more.

The historian Eric Hobsbawm memorably said more than two decades ago that the US has elected to the presidency “a greater number of ignorant dumbos than any other republic”.

He also observed that the US political system “makes it almost impossible to elect to the presidency persons of visible ability and distinction”.

He offered the reassuring reminder that “the great US ship of state has sailed on as though it made very little difference that the man on the bridge was Andrew Johnson and not Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and not McKinley, Mrs Wilson and not Woodrow Wilson, Truman and not Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson and not Kennedy, Ford and not Nixon”.

For Hobsbawm “a strong economy and great power can be politically almost foolproof”.

While Hobsbawm’s assessment of US leadership selection is unfair — Ronald Reagan was arguably a successful foreign policy president, and Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were leaders of great ability — his central point about the institutional resilience of the US political system has much merit.

The constitution gives effect to key lessons of western political theory. The separation of powers remains a deep obstacle to personal rule, despite incoming Republican majorities in both national legislatures, and the recent appointment of madness-leaning and dim-witted supreme court justices.

The constitution entrenches federalism: most decisions are reserved to lower levels of government notwithstanding Trump’s threat to punish cities and states that have offended him.

The US is also a complex and diverse society. Who but a bigot would not celebrate that, on November 5, Sarah McBride became the first transgender person to be elected to the US Congress as representative for Delaware?

Trump will no doubt cause harm in domestic affairs. Religious fundamentalism, racism, anti-science gibberish, and misogyny will inform policy-making. Darwin and Harry Potter will be excised from even more school libraries. The revolving doors between federal government and business will spin faster. Undocumented migrants will fall victim to a chaotic “deportation” programme.

These policies will be contested, and reversible, even if the suffering they will cause is not. US presidents, however, have greater power in foreign affairs, where there are few checks on their authority. While Trump subscribes to the “madman” theory of foreign policy — he thinks his bluster secures concessions from other countries — he is relatively easy for foreign leaders and diplomats to read, and flattery and token concessions easily outlast his attention span.

The global clean energy transition is linked to the most irreversible challenge of all, and Trump wants to exit the Paris accord. Renewable energy is so advantageous in terms of jobs and costs, however, that it will still sweep across Asia, Europe, and Trump-supporting states in his own country, such as Iowa and Texas.

There are minor ideological differences between SA’s unity government and the incoming US administration. SA believes in improving human welfare and liberation from oppression around the globe. The US, in contrast, seeks to impose capitalism, accurate vote counting, dental hygiene and an unimaginable level of tax compliance on nominally postcolonial states.

Despite these differences, SA can — for once — offer technical support to a fledgling US administration. While the US is in most respects the world’s most advanced banana republic, former president Jacob Zuma was a trailblazer of international best practice in “apex executive branch management”.

The global trend has been for the office of the president to serve as a hub for power networks that link banks, big businesses, oligarchs, the political system, and regulatory agencies dedicated to legal and tax compliance. In this field, our former president had “visible ability and distinction”. Musk is not enough. We must also send them Zuma.

• Butler teaches public policy at the University of Cape Town.