'Speak to their base': Analyst says Trump exploiting 'white grievance' to appease MAGA

During President Donald Trump's Oval Office visit with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, he repeatedly pressed his guest about his government's treatment of white Afrikaners, at one point even asking staff to dim the lights so he could show a video. One journalist is now suggesting that Trump's behavior was calculated to score political points.

On Wednesday, Politico correspondent Eli Stokols told MSNBC host Katy Tur that Trump's conduct was reminiscent of his past campaigns for the White House, opining that the president was simply seeking to stoke racial tensions to fire up the MAGA faithful.

"It was an ambush, but it was also very predictable," Stokols said, pointing out that both Trump and "others in his orbit" like Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, as well as former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, have been vocal in their claims that genocide is being perpetuated against white people in South Africa.

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"But why would Donald Trump be fixated on this issue and presenting these claims of genocide that are seem to be very much exaggerated, to say the least?" He continued. "You and I both covered his 2016 campaign. We've been covering him for the better part of a decade. Donald Trump is a politician who has always focused on the politics of white grievance, white persecution, and that is the same story that he is telling about something going on in South Africa."

As the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) wrote in a 2018 article, the claims of "white genocide" against white South African farmers have been exploited by white supremacists to push a racist agenda. While there have been killings of white farmers in South Africa, the ADL found that Black farmers — and South Africans in general — have been killed at similar rates due to South Africa's higher than average violent crime rate. And the ADL further noted that since the fall of South Africa's apartheid government, white supremacists have been eager to seize on any narrative suggesting state-sanctioned oppression of whites in South Africa.

Stokols observed that despite Trump speaking for more than an hour about the claims of white South African farmers being victimized by an alleged campaign of racially motivated violence, he didn't push for any solution to the violence. And he recalled that Trump "hedged" when a reporter present in the Oval Office asked Trump if he thought that what was happening in South Africa met the definition of "genocide."

"I think that tells you that this White House is interested in elevating this as an issue, because they think it will speak to their base and to the same white fears that have helped or that have led some voters to gravitate towards Donald Trump," he said. "I think this is more about signaling values and priorities and issues and themes that are relevant to Donald Trump rather than it is actually about coming up with solutions."

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