Letter From Johannesburg

White supremacists think farmers here are getting slaughtered. The truth is, life in this country isn’t much different than it was under apartheid.

I live in South Africa, and days after President Donald Trump’s tweet last week about the dangers, including “large-scale killing,” faced by white South Africans, I got an email from a friend back home in America. It was a forward written by someone else, and it began: “Here’s a bit of unfortunate news that has serious implications for world order.” The writer alleged that all South Africans knew that when Mandela died—he passed away in 2013—“the nation will fall apart,” and “now that appears to be happening.” The writer spoke of 400,000 whites “living in tent camps” because “jobs are largely given to blacks”; of secret black “hit squads” invading white farms; and of “whites preparing for war with huge vans which contain trays of vegetable gardens illuminated by ‘growlights.’” “International news organizations,” he said—liberal ones—“didn’t want to report” these truths because they would “ruin the ‘miracle’ of independence.”

My friend was concerned. He urgently wanted to speak to me. Not only, I got the sense, out of concern for me—a white person living in this purported media black hole—but because the secrets the writer laid out in the message seemed somehow, for him, critical to know, some kind of essential learning for a critical thinker, for an adult, like the truth that Santa Claus isn’t real.

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I didn’t know what to say because it was all so far from the truth that it beggared belief. Some lies are so fantastical they cannot be countered without vaguely soiling the arguer. They make her say or do ridiculous things, like snapping cellphone photos of her breakfast (a faintly embarrassing spread of espresso, a brownie, Nutella and a pecan tartlet) to demonstrate that white people in South Africa are not, in fact, being subjected to forcible “genocidal famine,” or to post a question on the Facebook page for her new Johannesburg neighborhood inquiring straightforwardly whether the white folk there were now “preparing for war” with mobile vegetable gardens. I did that, and it made my neighbors laugh at me. “Yes,” one taunted, “hundreds of trucks full of tomato & potato plants whose fruits will be used to destroy the enemy one overripe veggie at a time.”

My neighbors said the notion was bonkers. But when I suggested there was a role for white South Africans to speak up and challenge Trump’s notion that whites were being persecuted in South Africa, they demurred. “Why should I even counter something so crazy?” one of them wrote. Crazy is as crazy does, and when countering a lie requires you to speak sentences such as “No, we are not yet being made to wear identifying garments, like the Jews wore in 1938,” you just don’t even go there.

Because the truth is the opposite, almost the exact opposite. It’s true that news organizations, in my view, under-report from South Africa. But the reality they under-report is that white life is amazing. The average household income for white-person-headed households in South Africa, according to a 2016 survey, is five times the average income of a black-headed one. They are almost 10 percent of the country’s population and still possess nearly three fourths of its privately owned agricultural land. It’s arguably the world’s finest quality of life—oysters, golf, fine wine—for the cheapest prices on earth. We buy a fillet of smoked salmon at the upscale grocery for more than most of us pay our black maids per day. In my nine years living here, and in travels all over the country, I have met only two white South African families that don’t employ black household help, a maid or a gardener.

The end of apartheid in 1994 captured the world’s attention because it was a kind of test case of the proposition that the 20th century represented humanity’s teenage passage: By the end, we would have gotten tribalism and hate out of our system. The formerly dominant people, now a minority, would live under the rule of people of color they had brutally oppressed for centuries.

People were uneasy; the neat story of liberation and reconciliation seemed potentially too good to be true. The transition hasn’t been painless for white South Africans. In certain sectors—academia, the government—it is harder for young white people, now, to gain employment, thanks to affirmative action. And the country’s new president did speak recently of amending the Constitution to allow for the expropriation of land. Even so, such calls have been made by leading political lights for a decade, and there’s no real plan, which—rightly or wrongly—has led most South Africans, white and black, by now, just not to believe it will ever happen. Family capital and residual pro-white prejudice still works in whites’ favor.

There is some evidence that white farmers are more likely to be the targets of crime than white city-dwellers, but there’s absolutely no evidence that this crime is racially motivated. With their isolation and physical assets like livestock, farmers are soft and alluring targets. Yet black people are more likely to be the victims of crime here in general. My partner, a white South African, remarked recently that sheerly in terms of advantage, being white here is still like being a team of world rugby stars asked to play a team of under-14s.

That’s uncomfortable. That’s what’s hard for the international press to write about. It is, in fact, a tarnishing of the “miracle”—but in, maybe, an even more unsettling way than if black people had abandoned Mandela’s reconciliatory attitude and massacred their former oppressors. At least that would have meant that something big actually happened. It’s harder to face the thought that what was supposed to be the most symbolic shift of the bitter 20th century was kind of a nothing burger.

So why these rumors of an uprising against whites in South Africa now? Trump didn’t start them with his tweet. Tucker Carlson didn’t start them. I’ve been receiving emails for a year or two now from anxious friends abroad about tidbits they’ve read about growing anger towards white people here—mostly in the U.K. tabloid press or on the Twitter feeds of the Canadian right-wing provocateurs Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux. Not just from right-wing friends—from left-wing ones, too.

For some liberals, I think it might be a feel for justice, displaced. We’re so deeply enmeshed in economic and social systems that are ruthless toward the poor or disadvantaged; we’ve benefited from arbitrary privilege, from high-status or high-capital parentage. But most of us don’t know how or whether to disinvest ourselves, how to sincerely push for change that feels adequate to the problems. It’s a relief, in a sense, to think that somewhere, off in some distant corner of the earth, the poor and the despised are taking back their portion—that a leveling is occurring—in accordance with the supposition that the arc of the universe bends toward justice, even if that doesn’t seem to be happening in our own neighborhoods.

For others, it’s an enabling fear. The claim my friend forwarded that 400,000 white South Africans are living in tent camps is utterly false—though it has been repeated by the BBC. A 2016 study determined only about 13,000 whites live in “informal dwellings,” or home-built shacks, representing 0.3 percent of the white South African population, while nearly 15 percent of the black population does.

The friend who sent me the email is a 30-something Republican raised in a conservative family. His ringtone is “The Star-Spangled Banner.” But he’s been troubled, in the past two years, by Trump.

He’s disturbed by what Trump seems to be flushing out of his party—and by the things some female friends and friends of color from the liberal university he attended have been telling him about their different, contemporary experience of America. It’s an internal tension. In that context, imagining that whites are now being targeted for full-scale annihilation is kind of a relief, because it seems to show that giving up privilege, or even questioning it, is so dangerous we can’t afford to do it, no matter how moral it might be. We don’t always like to know that a change that seems big will actually be no big deal, because that shatters our excuses for not undertaking it.

I once had a therapist who told me, in the context of anxieties I raised about quitting nicotine, that my fears about what would happen if I quit—lethargy, a quick relapse that would humiliate me in front of my family and friends—were just a form of “giving myself permission” not to. I’d always known that we have some capacity to choose to ignore our fears. But it hadn’t occurred to me that being fearful could be a kind of intentional, if subconscious, choice, one that benefits or absolves us.

In the context of South Africa, fearing or predicting a massacre of whites there allows whites elsewhere to act like the kind of people who possibly ought to be massacred. The very few white South Africans I’ve met who treat blacks with open hostility are also the very few who openly express terror of an armed black uprising and a race war. I’ve wondered why, if that was their worry, they didn’t try a little more tenderness to avert the dire outcome. But fear of a dark end allows us to continue living in the uncomfortable ways that might make such an ending inevitable.

When I first read the email telling me that events in South Africa had “serious implications for the world order,” I briefly didn’t understand what the writer meant. It’s an important country, especially to Africa, but it’s only got a population of 55 million, and even if it were to collapse that wouldn’t overturn the whole world. Then I realized: He meant events here are symbolic. They have implications for how we think about the “world order,” about human nature and what we are and aren’t capable of.

Unfortunately, the symbolism so many have become interested in is just that—a symbol, a story, not true. But symbols become truths. Some white friends of mine here, previously great lovers of the country, have expressed worry lately that it might, indeed, be going to hell. It was crazy that they were worrying about South Africa because of some Canadian alt-right tweeters and the ill-informed American president. But the day after Trump’s tweet, investors got spooked and the South African currency dropped 2 percent, damaging the country more than any white genocide ever has. What’s crazy has a way of becoming reality before we can blink.

Elections

Top takeaways from an action-packed primary night.

Republicans got their woman for a must-win Senate seat. President Donald Trump got his man in Florida, his second-home state. And Democrats chose another historic nominee in a stunning upset.

The final multi-state primary night of the 2018 midterms concluded with a bang as Rep. Martha McSally locked down the GOP nomination for Senate in Arizona, turning aside two controversial candidates who would have threatened the party’s ability to hold the seat of retiring Sen. Jeff Flake.

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In Florida, GOP primary voters followed Trump’s lead and picked Rep. Ron DeSantis — one of the president’s favorite guests on Fox News Channel — as the party’s gubernatorial nominee over a one-time Republican wunderkind who had been plotting his campaign for governor for a decade.

Meanwhile, Democratic voters made Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum the first African-American to be a major-party nominee for governor in the state — the shocking result of a late surge driven by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and other liberal allies of Gillum.

Here are five takeaways from Tuesday’s primaries.

Trump remakes the Florida GOP

Trump’s wholesale takeover of the Florida Republican Party began when he sent Sen. Marco Rubio packing in the 2016 presidential primary by defeating him in his home state — and it was completed Tuesday night when DeSantis defeated state Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, once the frontrunner, by 19 percentage points.

It’s a far cry from Jeb Bush’s Republican Party. Putnam is only 44 years old, but he feels like a political relic. He was first elected to the state legislature at age 22 and joined Congress at 26.

After a second consecutive shellacking for House Republicans in 2008, Putnam left leadership and announced he would run instead for state office — with a clear eye on the governor’s mansion. But after two terms in Tallahassee, Putnam’s style simply didn’t resonate with GOP primary voters.

If DeSantis and Gov. Rick Scott prevail in November, it seems likely to reduce Rubio’s influence in the state party even further. Rubio, like Putnam, is relatively young — but he’s also been around the state’s political scene for two decades and isn’t scheduled to appear on a ballot in the state until 2022.

Republicans dodge another bullet

McSally’s relatively easy victory over Kelli Ward and Joe Arpaio was widely expected, but it’s still welcome news for Republicans in a Senate race crucial to the party’s hopes to protect or expand its majority in the chamber. Nominating either Ward or Arpaio would have all-but-handed a Senate seat over to Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.).

Like in the West Virginia primary back in May — where Don Blankenship, the formerly imprisoned coal baron threatened to win the Senate nomination — it required a deft Republican touch. First: outside money. The group DefendArizona spent more than $4 million to boost McSally and knock down Ward, who finished second.

It also required a disciplined approach from President Donald Trump, who didn’t endorse in the primary, but plugged McSally at events this year — soundbites the congresswoman was able to incorporate in TV ads. In West Virginia, Trump straddled between state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and Rep. Evan Jenkins, urging voters to support either one over Blankenship.

McSally’s victory also took a little luck: She received around half the vote, with Ward and Arpaio splitting the other half. A head-to-head matchup against Ward, who took 40 percent of the vote against late Sen. John McCain in a 2016 GOP primary, might have been more challenging.

Republicans’ record at avoiding unelectable Senate nominees hasn’t been perfect this cycle: Picking Roy Moore in last year’s special election in Alabama proved fatal, and Corey Stewart’s nomination in Virginia is threatening the party down the ballot at the congressional level. But Blankenship, Ward and Arpaio have been brushed aside, and it appears likely Chris McDaniel — the controversial Mississippi politician — will suffer a similar fate in this fall’s special election there.

A fall barn-burner in Florida

A DeSantis-vs.-Gillum general election presents a sharp contrast to Florida voters. Both parties on Tuesday nominated the more extreme candidates in their fields — much like in Florida’s neighbor to the north, Georgia, where Republican Brian Kemp will face Democrat Stacey Abrams.

In the red corner, there’s DeSantis — yes, a Yale- and Harvard-educated attorney, but one whose political persona is best defined as a vociferous defender of the president on cable television.

In the blue corner, it’s Gillum — a single-payer-backing, pro-impeachment, Bernie Sanders-endorsed candidate who rode a wave of liberal energy to win a four-way primary with 34 percent of the vote.

About the only thing the two men have in common: They’re both 39 years old.

Gillum’s victory was the more surprising. He trailed in all the public polls, save for his own campaign’s internal surveys. But he appeared to surge late, performing better among voters who went to the polls on Election Day than in early voting.

How did he overtake the frontrunner, former Rep. Gwen Graham? He beat her in the most densely populated regions — especially in South Florida, where Graham didn’t air resource-sapping television ads.

Graham’s rationale seemed sound: Let the two self-funders, former Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine (who kicked in $28.5 million of his own money) and Palm Beach billionaire Jeff Greene ($34.6 million), fight it out in South Florida.

But it backfired: Graham (17 percent) finished third in vote-rich Miami-Dade County, behind Gillum (39 percent) and Levine (32 percent). Gillum also won Broward County, with 40 percent to Levine’s 28 percent and Graham’s 18 percent.

Gillum also won other counties with major cities: Hillsborough (Tampa), Orange (Orlando), Duval (Jacksonville) and Leon (Tallahassee). It was enough to overtake Graham’s strength elsewhere in the state.

Graham’s defeat defied a trend that had carried through a number of Democratic races this year: women prevailing in primaries.

Democrats’ left turn for governor

Democrats nominated two gubernatorial candidates in battleground states on Tuesday: Gillum in Florida, and David Garcia in Arizona.

Gillum has staked out more liberal positions, but Republicans are painting Garcia as out of the mainstream, especially on immigration. Garcia has called for “replacing [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] with an immigration system that reflects our American values” — which Gov. Doug Ducey’s campaign and other Republicans say is akin to Garcia joining the “abolish ICE” effort.

Garcia did visit this year’s Netroots Nation conference — not typically a haven for centrists — where he told attendees, “Just imagine: no wall in Southern Arizona. Just imagine that on Nov. 7, when Trump opens his Twitter account and sees that — in Arizona, of all places — the good people of Arizona have just elected a guy named Garcia governor.”

Republicans responded by calling Garcia an advocate of “open borders.”

The veracity of the GOP attacks aside, they are a preview of how Republicans plan to attack Democratic candidates who have cozied up to the party’s liberal base to win their primaries. (Democrats may be concerned about Garcia’s ability to parry those hits, given the fact he only had $147,000 in cash on hand as of August 11.)

In Florida, Democrats were hoping this would be the year they broke a long losing streak in gubernatorial elections. The party hasn’t won control of the governor’s office since 1994, and DeSantis’ bear hugs of Trump gave the party an opening.

But Gillum’s upset victory gives Republicans a counter-argument: The Republican Governors Association called him a “radical far-left politician who remains at the center of an FBI anti-corruption investigation.” (Gillum hasn’t been identified as a subject or target of the investigation into alleged pay-to-play activities in the city of Tallahassee.)

A mixed night for House Democrats

Democrats got some good news late Tuesday, when former Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick won the party’s primary for McSally’s House seat in southern Arizona. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recruited Kirkpatrick — who represented a neighboring district before running unsuccessfully against Sen. John McCain in 2016 — and spent coordinated funds to boost her campaign.

National Democrats preferred Kirkpatrick to former state Rep. Matt Heinz, who lost handily to McSally last cycle. Kirkpatrick has a good shot at winning in a district Hillary Clinton carried by 5 percentage points in the 2016 presidential election.

But while Kirkpatrick’s nomination gives a boost to the party’s chances, the results were less encouraging in South Florida. Democrats nominated 77-year-old former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala for the seat being vacated by retiring Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.).

Shalala is still the favorite — Clinton won the district by nearly 20 points — but Republicans chose a credible nominee with name ID: former broadcast journalist Maria Salazar. Democrats can’t afford to lose the seat, but they may be forced to fight harder for it than they wanted.