Donald Trump has earned himself a place amongst the most famous wartime orators. Consider the following list:

• •Winston Churchill, 4 June 1940, “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”
• •Franklin D Roosevelt, 6 December 1941, “Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”
• •John F Kennedy, 20 January 1961, “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
• •Lyndon B Johnson, 18 August 1969, “We have tried to fight a limited war not to destroy an enemy, not to win a military victory, but to try in every way we knew how, as best we could, to protect our friends, remain true to our obligations, and win a peace in that part of the world.”
• •Margaret Thatcher, 19 July 1984, “We had to fight the enemy without in the Falklands. We always have to be aware of the enemy within, which is much more difficult to fight and more dangerous to liberty.”
• •Donald Trump, 5 April 2026, “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in Hell, JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP.”

The US may now move to bomb Iranian infrastructure back “into the stone age”. The thinking is that this will set Iran’s economy back so far that it will not again present an offensive threat to the West or to America’s Gulf partners for a very long time to come. That was the original intent behind the war. And, yes, it is legitimate under law to target your enemy’s infrastructure to achieve your military objectives. There will be the usual wailing about this in leftist circles, but Iran posed an imminent nuclear threat first to Israel, then to the Gulf states, then to Western Europe, and then to the US. Mr Trump was the only Western leader willing to put a stop to that. People who live in Western liberal democracies should be infinitely grateful.

IPSOS has put out some new data on South Africa. What it shows, once the figures are adjusted for turnout and so on, is that, if an election had been held in the first quarter of this year, the ANC would have received around 40% of the vote and the DA around 25%. That seems to be where all polling is at, suggesting a remarkably stable balance of power within the GNU.

Be grateful for South Africa’s GNU. Too much is taken for granted about the GNU and what it implies about the country. In South Africa there is a good doctor or medical facility in almost every town and suburb. You can obtain foreign exchange easily. Investors who put money into the country can take their profits out. Cars are required to have headlights. The water in many of its major cities is not highly toxic. The inflation rate is under control. Rules and laws are easy to discern and understand. These are all things that can be lost.

The ANC in Gauteng shows that it may one day be. The party has always been the rebel province, rejecting the national GNU arrangement and preferring to go with the EFF. Now it has put the EFF in charge of the provincial finances. It is also in talks with MK to join the government. Why? Two things. It believes that a truly radical administration will see voter support return to the ANC, and it needs to build an administration that will protect corrupt interests. The former is an analytical mistake, as the ANC has lost power only because living standards have been allowed to deteriorate. Fixing that requires confidence, investment, and growth. Give the people behind these decisions power over the national GNU and they will do the same there as they are doing in Gauteng.

The DA is doing its best to change that, but its best is sometimes downright disappointing. In Johannesburg, the centre of its flagship campaign, it has elected Luyolo Mphithi as chair of its Johannesburg region. Mphithi was at the centre of the Schweizer-Reneke fake racism scandal in 2019. The party falsely accused primary school teacher Elena Barkhuizen of racism and classroom segregation as part of a strategy to impress black voters. That is EFF and MK-level stuff, the Gauteng ANC would be impressed, and it is not good enough from the DA. It is, in fact, exactly what the ANC in Gauteng has itself done of late in levelling false racism allegations at Pretoria Girls High staffers. The DA says he was put up to it and was just following the orders of his white superiors. That’s even worse, as it plays to every concern and cliché that black voters fear about the DA.

On the broader issue of schools and fake racism allegations, a wandering albatross has come forward to say the DA education minister has refused to intervene to help the falsely accused staff and headmistress at Pretoria Girls High. Something stinks all around here.

The DA cannot govern the country better than it governs itself. And the standards to which it holds itself are the same standards it will apply in government.

To this end there is an idea sloshing around that the FF+ should be positioned as a swing vote in coalitions to keep the DA honest. Corne Mulder has played a very interesting role as a senior statesman of sorts in both the GNU and in South Africa’s foreign affairs of late. He is well regarded in Washington, where the DA crew is seen, with the exception of Helen Zille, as underwhelming. The Chinese and Russians also regard him as serious, and they have high standards. They see the DA as naïve and unserious. Pretoria attorney Willie Spies, who is a broad-minded and thoughtful person, may be the future FF+ leader and is running to be the next mayor of Tshwane. Spies might have been a DA leader too under different circumstances. He does not go around falsely accusing school teachers of being racists and, right now, that may be something worth voting for because it distinguishes him from the ANC, EFF, and DA leadership in Johannesburg and Gauteng.