EFF statement on the outcome of US Presidential elections

6 November 2024

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) notes the outcome of the United States of America (US) Presidential elections, which saw Donald Trump getting re-elected as president. Donald Trump was first elected as president in 2016, in which election he defeated Hilary Clinton. He lost the elections in 2020 to Joe Biden, and in the aftermath of that election, he tacitly incited his followers to stage nationwide protests, which resulted in the invasion of the US legislative house by a group of bandits who supported Trump. Kamala Harris who, despite her equally problematic politics, is black and stood no chance against Trump in a racist and sexist society as the US is.

Trump's erratic nature notwithstanding, the EFF is indifferent to the winner of this election. The imperial nature of US politics remains the same regardless of which party or person is at the helm. At the core, the US represents the worst form of politics, the kind of politics that South Africa, Africa, and the rest of the global South can learn nothing from. The US developed to be where she is at the moment on the back of unparalleled dehumanisation of African people who were taken from the continent to be made slaves in the Americas. To this date, people of African descent in that part of the world are still treated as sub-human. Furthermore, the US has used its economic might to bully other nations to submission, installing leaders they like and deposing those they hate across the world.

It is the USA that protects and sustains the genocidal Zionist regime of Israel, enabling them to conduct ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people. The root cause of the conflict in the Middle East centers around US aspirations for the region, and their lack of respect for other cultures and ideologies different to theirs. From the moment of their establishment as an independent country in 1776 to this day, the US has played a rather destructive role in world politics. It was US President Harry Truman who first gave a de facto recognition of Israel as a State in 1948, disregarding the plight of Palestinian people who have had their land and homes dispossessed from them. It was the US that facilitated the 1953 coup in Iran, which saw the ousting of Prime Minister Mosaddegh and the eventual decline of the country, because he was suspected of leaning towards the Soviet Union.

The US has placed economic embargo on Cuba since 1958, merely because they did not like the fact that the country was and continues to be led by those whose ideology is different from theirs. They have been sponsoring uprisings in Latin American countries such as Chile and Bolivia, in order to install those who are willing to make their nations client states of the US. The US is no champion of democracy, they are an imperial force with a singular purpose of dominating world affairs.

Here in our continent, the US has been directly or indirectly involved in almost all of the coups that have taken in place in Africa since independence. They had a direct hand in the death of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo. They were directly involved in the military coup which deposed Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana. They are now direct beneficiaries of the instability in the Congo, looting the resources of that country to benefit US companies and their allies. There is a direct correlation between the prosperity of the US and instability across the world. Whenever there is instability, the first question to ask is "what does the US stand to gain?"

This characteristic trait of the US has nothing to do with whomever wins elections.

Whether it is Trump or Biden or Obama or Bush, all US presidents are warmongers whose contribution to the world is the indiscriminate murder of millions of people they don't like. Donald Trump is no different, he will continue on the very same path as his predecessors.

Countries such as South Africa are only important to the US insofar as they contribute towards this imperial goal of the US. With a president not rooted in any idea or thought, South Africa can only be a pawn in the interests of the US.

The American people got a President they so deserve. Their ignorance of the role of their own country in world affairs make them deserving candidates of the scom in which many underdeveloped countries hold them. Those who pander to US whims do so not because of the love and admiration they have for that country, they do it out of fear of economic and military assault by this bully. The US and Trump deserve each other.

Issued by Leigh-Ann Mathys, National Spokesperson, EFF, 7 November 2024