Carol Paton states in the opening paragraph of her analysis of the DA policy conference that “the experiment of playing ANC-lite has been left in the trash heap of history; the DA will now be its own party” (“DA now a party for some, not all, as new race policy entrenches denialism (https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/columnists/2020-09-08-da-now-a-party-for-some-not-all-as-new-race-policy-entrenches-denialism/)”, September 8). If that was all you read of her piece, you’d likely conclude that she was describing a positive development in the party’s trajectory. But you’d be wrong. It turns out she thinks the DA blew it by not trying to become a better ANC.

After describing fairly accurately, for seven or eight paragraphs, the DA’s reasons for adopting the value of nonracialism along with our new policy on economic redress, Paton drops her big insight: “Black voters, who had been attracted to the DA because it had begun to look like it might evolve into a cleaner, more eff...

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