Trump is the better devil, says SA analyst
Teffo said Africans were so obsessed with the American situation that they forgot about their own problems.
BETHESDA, MD – OCTOBER 3: Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump rally outside Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on October 3, 2020 in Bethesda, Maryland. Trump arrived at the hospital yesterday after testing positive for COVID-19. Alex Edelman/Getty Images/AFP
There is more about Donald Trump than meets the eye in Africa, according to a South African political scientist, who has praised the incumbent American President Donald Trump.
According to Professor Lesiba Teffo from the University of South Africa: “Better the devil we know than the devil we don’t know because under him the American economy performed very well and he created jobs for citizens especially for African Americans.”
Teffo said Africans were so obsessed with the American situation that they forgot about their own problems. He questioned the “psych of the African man”, who worries more about American politics than the bad governance issues on his own soil.
Reacting to Trump’s performance in the initial election results which indicated that he won some key swing states, Teffo said there was something about Trump that Americans liked. He cited the improvement of the economy under his administration.
“Whether you like him or not, under Trump the economy improved; under Trump African Americans had jobs.”
He said Africans disliked Trump because they did not understand him. He referred to the African attitude toward the US President as “a case of alienation or self-hate”.
In the past two weeks, there were approximately five national elections on the African continent, and very little was being said about them.
As a result of negative messages around Trump in America and globally, Teffo initially expected him to not even garner a million votes.
“Now that he performed so well I wonder who is right about him. There is a strong anti-Trump rhetoric among Africans,” Teffo said.
South Africans in particular should be concerned and be vocal about political tensions in the country and on the continent because they would be the ones on the receiving end when those citizens fled their countries. The immigrants would flee to South Africa because it had no proper border control.
“As South Africa we should influence those countries to do the right thing because we are victims when their citizens cross the borders into this country,” he said.
“We have millions of foreigners who run spaza shops in our country, something they cannot do in their own countries. It is not these people but our government here in South Africa that fails to control the borders. One day they will be forced to close those borders because the country could not cope with the influx of immigrants,” Teffo said.
– ericn@citizen.co.za
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