TOM EATON | Post this on your social media and say goodbye to that US visa

The United States says it will refuse visas to South African politicians it claims are persecuting ethnic minorities and sucking up to violent tyrants like Vladimir Putin, and I for one applaud it: everyone knows that persecuting ethnic minorities and sucking up to violent tyrants like Putin is the job of Donald Trump, and we can’t have foreigners muscling in on his turf.

I’m being facetious, of course. There are a few parallels between us and the US, but in most ways our two countries are very, very different. After all, one is a once-admired democracy, now falling apart as it’s milked by cabal of ultra-corrupt leaders clinging to outdated ideologies, and other is South Africa.

Yes, the jokes write themselves when it comes to the mind-splitting hypocrisy of the current US government. But, to be serious for a moment, it’s also true that the corrupt and arrogant ANC brought these sanctions down on its own head: there are many ways in which it could have curried favour with the Trump regime, perhaps by doing more to protect paedophiles, or, like the FBI, taking a much more approving stance on bestiality.

Unsurprisingly, the threat of US sanctions has been met with a typically South African response, with many people who reject the ANC nevertheless being disgusted by moralising from the immoral Mar-A-Lago swamp, while the usual sunburned suspects gloated over the prospect of their Big White Daddy In The Overseas dealing out the vengeance they crave.

(If you missed that second story, Google “Kash Patel” and prepare to have your already rock-bottom expectations of American public life lowered even further.)

Unsurprisingly, the threat of US sanctions has been met with a typically South African response, with many people who reject the ANC nevertheless being disgusted by moralising from the immoral Mar-A-Lago swamp, while the usual sunburned suspects gloated over the prospect of their Big White Daddy In The Overseas dealing out the vengeance they crave.

I am a proud member of the former group, but, at the risk of aliening it, I must also point out that all countries have the right to accept or reject visa applications from anyone they choose — and they don’t even need particularly convincing reasons.

For example, if I were to remind you that Donald Trump has been found guilty in court of sexual abuse, or that his vice-president compared him to Hitler, or that his secretary of state called him a “con artist”, or that historians and political pundits agree that he is the most corrupt president the US has ever had, or that many believe he keeps having cognitive tests because he is in visible cognitive decline, and then you posted this column to your social media, you would probably be declined a visa to the US should you apply.

In other words, when it comes to visas, you can do nothing but tell the truth and still be denied entry. The US didn’t need to make up lies about the persecution of white Afrikaners.

Still, any bans that come into force will be celebrated as big wins by AfriForum, as well as the US ambassador in South Africa, Brent Bozell, a man who clearly hated the ANC of the 1980s almost as much as he now hates hair stylists born after 1935.

An ardent supporter of white supremacist rule in South Africa back in the day, Bozell was dead set against the Reagan administration conducting talks with, and thereby giving authority to, the ANC in exile.

Blocking our current crop of Temu revolutionaries might feel like a slightly hollow victory for a man who dreamed of crushing the likes of Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo, but still, people like Bozell take whatever they’re offered, like a job representing a country led by a corrupt sex offender, so he’ll be okay.

The biggest winner, though, won’t be AfriForum or Brent Bozell.

According to some reports, one of the local politicians likely to be targeted is a man named Julius Malema. The name rung half a bell for me, so I looked him up and discovered he used to be quite famous and wield quite a lot of influence before he started firing his inner circle and the wheels fell off his travelling circus.

I’m not sure what he’s doing these days, but I know one thing: if he is one of the individuals targeted with sanctions by the US, that’s political capital he can take to the bank.

Yes, there’s a good chance the Trump regime is the EFF’s biggest hope right now.

What a time to be alive.