Image: Shelley Christians
My father was the embodiment of the American dream. He grew up dirt poor, the son of tenant farmers in rural Nebraska. He worked his way through college, studied hard and became a high school teacher and football coach. He then served as a Marine Corps officer both in World War II and the Korean War. After the Korean War, he joined the FBI before becoming an insurance company executive. Although he never earned an extremely high salary, he invested wisely and lived very frugally, so that when he passed away at 91, he left each of his 4 children $1 million dollars.
My dad was a conservative Republican who loved his family and his country. A devout Catholic, he taught us values that he modelled throughout his life: honesty, loyalty, a commitment to excellence, love of family, and respect for others regardless of their religion, race, or ethnicity. He spent much of his retirement volunteering for a host of community organisations because he stressed the importance of public service and helping out the less fortunate.
President Donald Trump Image: The White House
My dad and others of the so-called greatest generation who fought against Hitler and helped build the US into the leader of the free world would be shocked to see what Trump is doing to the country they loved and risked their lives to defend. Like so many others around the world, he would be disgusted with President Trump's bald-faced lie that Ukraine started the war with Russia when it is crystal clear that Russian President Vladimir Putin launched that attack on Ukraine. Unlike my father, honesty has never been a value to Trump. As John Kelly, Trump's chief of staff in his first administration and many others who worked for Trump have made clear, Trump is willing to lie repeatedly even when he is fully aware he is lying. He has lied for years about the 2020 election, about what happened on January 6, 2020, and his sordid relationship with Stormy Daniels, to name just a few.
Thus, it should be no surprise to South Africans that Trump is more than willing to embrace the lie that white South African farmers are being stripped of their land without compensation. Of course, there is no evidence to support that claim. He needs no evidence, because in his mind, if the story serves his purpose, then there is no need for facts.
Trump doesn't value history because he really doesn't pay attention to historical facts. Rather, he will choose to rewrite history or make up history to serve his own purposes. In his distorted world, white Afrikaners are the victims, despite apartheid and the fact that they kicked blacks off their land and into segregated townships.
My father who valued loyalty would be stunned to hear that Trump issued an executive order prioritising the resettlement of white Afrikaners facing discrimination only weeks after issuing an executive order suspending all resettlement to the U.S. under the United States Refugee Admission Program. That order slams the door on Afghan refugees including those who assisted the US military in the Afghanistan war and are facing death at the hands of the Taliban for helping the US. Needless to say, Afghan refugees who had been waiting for years to get their visas approved feel betrayed.
Our allies in Europe and the Ukrainians also feel betrayed. America was once respected for the Marshall Plan and its treatment of Germany and Japan after World War II. It was a loyal ally to Europe and the force that contained the Soviet Union and tore down the wall. My father would be astonished to see the Trump administration cosying up to Russia while abandoning Ukraine, and seeming quite willing to undermine NATO and stab our European allies in the back. Under Trump, the US has become a bully, first and foremost. Trump is trying to bully Ukraine to give up mineral rights or face the consequences, to bully Jordan and Egypt to take Palestinians so the US can turn Gaza into a resort, and bully Denmark and Panama into territorial concessions.
Elon Musk Image: U.S. Air Force / Trevor Cokley
Finally, what Trump and Elon Musk are doing to the federal government would drive my father to tears. Like the Dominican sisters in my Catholic grade school, my dad viewed public service as a noble profession. Donald Trump believes people who work for the government are losers and so are those who serve in the military. Donald Trump is very different from President Ulysses S Grant, who in 1870 called upon Congress to initiate civil service reforms designed to ensure that government agencies had professional staff committed to serving the government and not the partisan interests of a particular president or party. President Grant wanted the best people working for the government selected on merit and not because they were loyal to a party or president. Trump wants to put his own people in place regardless of their experience or competence in order to serve his own view of what is best for the country. This is not my father’s commitment to excellence, who proudly served in the FBI, which many consider to be the top investigative agency in the world. Trump and Musk are committed not to excellence, but to replacing many excellent federal employees with unqualified sycophants, willing only to serve President Trump. The absurdity of what Musk is doing at the direction of Trump is highlighted by his demand over the weekend that every federal employee send him an email explaining what they were doing, or risk being fired. Certainly, Musk is not going to review hundreds of thousands of emails and make carefully calculated decisions. Rather, this is just a part of the Trump/Musk agenda to gut the federal government and cripple its ability to function effectively. Combined with Trump’s selection of cabinet and agency heads at odds with the mission of the department or agencies they are leading, the result will be chaos, including a lack of regulation.
My father and the founding fathers who drafted the US Constitution did not want a king. They would not bow to President Trump. Hopefully more Americans will begin to see Trump for what he really is – a con man who wants to be king. Most people in the rest of the world already see that.
My father was the embodiment of the American dream. He grew up dirt poor, the son of tenant farmers in rural Nebraska. He worked his way through college, studied hard and became a high school teacher and football coach. He then served as a Marine Corps officer both in World War II and the Korean War. After the Korean War, he joined the FBI before becoming an insurance company executive. Although he never earned an extremely high salary, he invested wisely and lived very frugally, so that when he passed away at 91, he left each of his 4 children $1 million dollars.
My dad was a conservative Republican who loved his family and his country. A devout Catholic, he taught us values that he modelled throughout his life: honesty, loyalty, a commitment to excellence, love of family, and respect for others regardless of their religion, race, or ethnicity. He spent much of his retirement volunteering for a host of community organisations because he stressed the importance of public service and helping out the less fortunate.
President Donald Trump Image: The White HouseThus, it should be no surprise to South Africans that Trump is more than willing to embrace the lie that white South African farmers are being stripped of their land without compensation. Of course, there is no evidence to support that claim. He needs no evidence, because in his mind, if the story serves his purpose, then there is no need for facts.
Trump doesn't value history because he really doesn't pay attention to historical facts. Rather, he will choose to rewrite history or make up history to serve his own purposes. In his distorted world, white Afrikaners are the victims, despite apartheid and the fact that they kicked blacks off their land and into segregated townships.
My father who valued loyalty would be stunned to hear that Trump issued an executive order prioritising the resettlement of white Afrikaners facing discrimination only weeks after issuing an executive order suspending all resettlement to the U.S. under the United States Refugee Admission Program. That order slams the door on Afghan refugees including those who assisted the US military in the Afghanistan war and are facing death at the hands of the Taliban for helping the US. Needless to say, Afghan refugees who had been waiting for years to get their visas approved feel betrayed.
Our allies in Europe and the Ukrainians also feel betrayed. America was once respected for the Marshall Plan and its treatment of Germany and Japan after World War II. It was a loyal ally to Europe and the force that contained the Soviet Union and tore down the wall. My father would be astonished to see the Trump administration cosying up to Russia while abandoning Ukraine, and seeming quite willing to undermine NATO and stab our European allies in the back. Under Trump, the US has become a bully, first and foremost. Trump is trying to bully Ukraine to give up mineral rights or face the consequences, to bully Jordan and Egypt to take Palestinians so the US can turn Gaza into a resort, and bully Denmark and Panama into territorial concessions.
Elon Musk Image: U.S. Air Force / Trevor CokleyMy father and the founding fathers who drafted the US Constitution did not want a king. They would not bow to President Trump. Hopefully more Americans will begin to see Trump for what he really is – a con man who wants to be king. Most people in the rest of the world already see that.
- Prof Rodney Uphoff is from the University of Missouri and an Extraordinary Professor in the Law Faculty at the University of the Western Cape (UWC).
