LETTER: Misreading history

Jonny Steinberg’s latest column refers (“Racists and nationalists dip their cups into the same punch”, January 20).

Behind me on the shelves is a book by New York Times journalist Hedrick Smith, Who Stole the American Dream, which traces how the political elites of America impoverished the vast majority of Americans, first the working class under Ronald Reagan and George Bush Snr, then the middle class under Bill Clinton and George Bush Jnr. Barack Obama was too weak to take on vested interests from Wall Street to Big Pharma.

This made the entrance of someone like Donald Trump on the national political platform almost inevitable. To draw comparisons between the struggle here and in America as though the vast majority of blacks enjoyed the same living standards as the average American suburban family up until the mid-1970s is a remarkable misreading of SA history.

Hanief Haider
Via BusinessLIVE

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