Let’s hope that Donald Trump, like Jacob Zuma, is an ineffectual leader. Because if he takes his job seriously, the world should be very afraid, writes Rob Rose Finally, America has its own gargoyle-like Jacob Zuma in Donald Trump — a soufflé-haired punchline with a casual indifference to the truth, hoisted to an unlikely success on a populist wave of incoherent bigoted prejudice.An illustration on the cover of The New Yorker best summed up the visceral reaction to the election of the 70-year-old TV celebrity, as a man reads a newspaper bearing the lament: "Oh Sweet Jesus Please God, No. Anything But That. Come On".This echoes the sentiments of many on a rainy December day in Polokwane in 2007, when Zuma outfoxed Thabo Mbeki to ascend to the ANC presidency, laying the platform for his elevation to the presidency of the country 15 months later.Like Trump, Zuma had ridden to power on a current of populist anger at the "establishment", "the elite" (or "clever blacks") and stale politic...
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