As if one needed evidence that Trump and his coterie only view the rights of white people as worth being concerned about, his granting of refugee status to white farmers while deporting people of color left and right, and his shameful sandbagging of South African president Cyril Ramaphosa during the latter’s visit to the White House (that seems to be be becoming a pattern of ambushing foreign leaders) springing on him photos and videos of unsubstantiated claims of discrimination against whites, should be evidence enough. Trump’s administration alleges ‘white genocide’ in that country while ignoring the blatant genocide by Israel of Palestinians in Gaza and the Occupied Territories.

Sisonke Msimang gives the background to how a relatively small group of white South Africans have been successful in getting the ear of Trump and his cronies. The largely white trade union Solidarity and its policy arm AfriForum led by someone named Kallie Kriel used the claim of white genocide to garner publicity for their cause, making trips to the US during the first Trump term and talking with right wing media personalities like Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk, who are always eager to feed the sense of white grievance of their audiences.

After their flash of success catching the eye of the first Trump administration, AfriForum shifted their focus back to domestic politics after the unsympathetic Joe Biden came into the White House, building a litigation unit to fight for Afrikaner rights and campaigning against the slow-moving land bill.

Then Trump returned. Within weeks, he issued his executive order, “Addressing Egregious Actions of The Republic of South Africa.” South Africans, including those in AfriForum and Solidarity who had fed Trump the white genocide conspiracy in the first place, were plainly shocked.

At first, the nation was furious with the Afrikaner organizations. The executive order was strongly worded and threatened sanctions. South Africans across all race groups criticized Kriel and Roets for convincing a foreign government to collectively punish the entire country over falsehoods. They were accused of peddling lies and disinformation and called traitors, as the nation worried that the U.S. would impose sanctions. Even AgriSA, a group that specifically represents the interests of farmers and has historically been dominated by Afrikaners, said “claims linking farm murders to the signing of the [Land Expropriation] act are baseless and irresponsible.” 

As the anger mounted, AfriForum and Solidarity held a press conference in which they tried to distance themselves from Trump’s order. With his tail between his legs, Kriel backtracked on his claims of a white genocide. He has gone on to turn down Trump’s offer of asylum, insisting he was a patriotic South African who wanted to reaffirm “our commitment, our recommitment, to the country and all its people.”

In the months that have followed, South African’s anger at both Trump and the Afrikaner interest groups seems to have abated. Following the tariff debacle, and Trump’s attacks on American universities, his own public servants, foreign aid, and domestic affirmative-action programs, South Africans have concluded that the U.S. president’s views on South Africa can’t be taken too personally.

The reaction isn South Africa has now become to treat these people as a joke.

On social media, South Africans turned the departure into a joke, dubbing it the Great Tsek, in a double entendre referencing both the Great Trek — the historic migration of Dutch settlers from the Cape Colony into the interior of the country in the mid-1800s — and the word tsek, an Afrikaans colloquialism that crudely translates to “fuck off.” 
…

Rather than rage against Trump, South Africans have opted to laugh. Trump’s February comment that “terrible things are happening in South Africa” has become the basis of parody skits made by young South Africans — including Afrikaners — who have no interest in aligning themselves with nationalism. 
…

They have shared video clips, captioned “terrible things are happening,” of white South Africans dancing and carousing with their Black compatriots, and made skits in which white South Africans speak, direct-to-camera, ironically about their terrible lives, as they record themselves in beautiful homes and are served drinks by Black staff.

Jonathan Jansen, a professor of education in Stellenbosch. provides more perspective.

The source of this odd fixation is those around Trump, who “doesn’t have a sense of the world outside the United States” Jansen tells me, adding: “To know about South Africa, let alone its politics, [the president] must have whisperers,” who are telling him that there is a “white genocide”. Jansen suspects one of those is the South African-born Elon Musk, who has “a grievance against the country”.
…

Jansen believes South Africa’s hard line against Israel has fuelled animosity in Washington. Taking the Israeli government to the international court of justice “is not cool in the world of Trump”. I suggest a provocative factor may also have been how uncompromising and measured the South African government has been on the issue of white farmers when goaded by Trump. “This is true,” Jansen says. “Ramaphosa, with all his faults – and they are many – is a man of restraint.”
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Despite the media focus on the issue, Jansen calls for some perspective. He says that some white South Africans who claim racial discrimination are a small group of people who nurse an inflated sense of resentment because they still cannot accept that apartheid is over. “There are grievances with a Black government, which is very hard for some of my white brothers and sisters to accept, even after 30 years.”

Jansen says if one is to consider violent crime, “more Black people die than white people, even as a proportion of the population. Make no mistake, these are white supremacists who are drawn to a white supremacist. Their capacity for reflection is not very high.” Jansen predicts the promise of life in the US will quickly sour. “I’ll make a bet with you that many of them will be back here in no time.”
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The narrative that Black people now hold power over whites is a fiction that obscures the enduring suffering of apartheid. “Nothing has really changed for Black South Africans apart from the right to vote,” Jansen says. “Many still live in shacks. They still suffer food insecurity. They still have the highest rates of unemployment. We made these enormous concessions during the negotiations to avert a war under Mandela. Whites here would be treated, as they always were, as fellow citizens as opposed to colonisers. And then, on top of all of that, [there was] a truth and reconciliation commission during which people got away with murder – literally.”

There can be little doubt that Trump is pandering to the racist sentiments of his MAGA followers by taking up the cause of racist white South Africans.