SHAWN HAGEDORN: Winning arguments while losing voters

Governing parties being punished by voters for recklessly indulging ideals is a core function of democracies. The Democrats and the ANC now need younger, less politically strident leaders.

Presidents Cyril Ramaphosa and Joe Biden were both elected as moderates who were to correct for the excesses of their predecessors. Instead, they prioritised party unity over addressing the problem-solving necessary for advancing national unity.

Both parties have consequently lost the majority electoral support they had recently enjoyed. Voters are not amused by these parties crowing about the needs of the poor while their policies benefit the affluent at the expense of lower-income households.

The Democrats rallied around a concept of change that blamed men, particularly white men, for their country’s ills. Identity politics raged, cancel culture roared and intellectuals applauded themselves. Then, earlier this month a large portion of the party’s core, working-class voters abandoned them. 

President-elect Donald Trump’s personality shouldn’t distract us from appreciating how much of the recalibration of US politics and policies that has taken place is entirely normal. One party drifted far from the centre and the other party benefited.

In SA we have a multiparty system dominated by the ANC, and that party’s policy incoherence will become increasingly obvious as global politics respond to the incoming US administration. We have the world’s most entrenched youth unemployment crisis because the ANC rejects this era’s high-speed upliftment escalator — integration into global supply chains. The party’s alternative, localisation, is unworkable as so many of our would-be workers are unemployed and so many of our households are poor or overly indebted. Prematurely liquidating pension assets doesn’t change this.

While the Left has successfully framed political and economic issues in both regions, a bias towards pursuing solutions is more firmly established in the US. And though we also benefit from well-protected free speech, the ANC routinely stokes debates on conceptual issues such as property rights and inequality. Such debates distract from developing workable solutions to our profound poverty and unemployment challenges.

Democrats were demoted by voters for following a somewhat similar script centred on exploiting racial and gender issues. The Biden administration’s immigration policy was never well reasoned and it couldn’t trim it sufficiently to avoid a voter backlash. The ANC’s embrace of Russia, China, Iran and Hamas is also ill-conceived. Such alignments won’t be easily reconceived to reflect the upcoming geopolitical reset and the economic consequences to SA are likely to be harsh.

Western trade deficits with China have been funding many millions of Chinese jobs. As much Western consumer spending is expected to soon be rerouted, the ANC seems to have done everything possible to avoid our unemployed from benefiting.

The ANC has announced that it will launch a national dialogue initiative next month. This is interesting, as the ANC has been effective at framing our national discourse around social justice issues and the long litany of distractions they provoke. 

The Democrats were also effective at framing discussions in the US as the party, along with most major US news outlets and top universities, is dominated by people well left of centre. They also chose to play political games rather than focus on solutions. The result has been that nearly all of its top national leaders have been deemed by voters to be out of touch. The likely eventual outcome is younger, more pragmatic leadership.

The formula common to the ANC and the Democrats is to focus not on pursuing solutions but on judging. This is epitomised by the ANC seeking to have the International Criminal Court judge that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Whatever the merits of the case, parents of young children in Gaza — and Israel — are far more interested in solutions that might deliver safety and foster prosperity.

Next year’s geopolitical shifts will encourage voters to replace leaders who while extolling selfish ideals leave their least advantaged even worse off.

• Hagedorn (@shawnhagedorn) is an independent strategy adviser.