Explaining the Right is a weekly series that looks at what the right wing is currently obsessing over, how it influences politics—and why you need to know.
This past week, President Donald Trump took a break from bashing immigrants and refugees to grant a special exception to a group of white immigrants from South Africa, many of whom are descended from farmers who benefitted from racist apartheid policies.
The decision upset the Episcopal Church, which said it would no longer work with the federal government on refugee resettlement.
When asked by a reporter on Monday why he decided to make this exception, Trump doubled down on the right-wing “white genocide” myth.
“It’s a genocide that’s taking place. Farmers are being killed. They happen to be white, but whether they’re white or Black, it makes no difference to me,” he said.
Of course, Trump is a racist who uses racist language and pushes racist policies—so it absolutely makes a difference to him.
Around the same time that the exception for white South Africans occurred, Elon Musk—who is originally from South Africa—had a “white genocide” problem as well. Grok, the artificial intelligence chatbot created by Musk’s AI company, began pumping out information about “white genocide” in responde to unrelated questions.
But the right’s obsession with the “white genocide” myth is nothing new.
During his time at Fox News, conservative pundit Tucker Carlson spent episode after episode of his program arguing that a “white genocide” was in progress, and that corporate media was part of a conspiracy covering it up. He even linked arms with white supremacists in 2018 to argue that a mean tweet about Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was evidence of “white genocide.”
Similarly, during Trump’s first term in 2018, he pushed for a federal investigation of “the large-scale killing of farmers” in South Africa, which pleased white supremacists who have argued that the nation is engaged in “white genocide.”
But, like most of what Trump says, this was built on falsehoods. The 2018 data actually showed that attacks on farmers in South Africa were on the decline, disproving the right-wing claim that white farmers were being disproportionately targeted.
In February, a South African court determined that claims of “white genocide” were “clearly imagined and not real.” Furthermore, South Africans are still living with the aftermath of bigoted apartheid policies.
Under apartheid, Black people were not allowed to own land, and land was stolen from Black families. A 2017 audit found that, while white people make up just over 7% of the population, they own 72% of farms and other agricultural properties.
The “white genocide” myth is being invoked in U.S. politics because conservatives long ago embraced the politics of victimhood. Even when the right is in majority control of U.S. political institutions, like right now, it still claims that it’s a persecuted minority.
Few conservative figures love to play the victim as much as Trump, who has made frequent claims that mysterious forces are out to get him.
This mentality perfectly combines with the conservative embrace of white supremacy. Claiming that a “white genocide” is underway, even when the data disproves it, becomes a way of being racist while simultaneously laying hands on the mantle of victimhood.
As they turn a blind eye to still-existing systemic racism in South Africa, conservatives continue to assert that there is no systemic racism in the United States—despite reams of data proving otherwise.
This is part of the conservative legacy. When he held office in the early 1980s, President Ronald Reagan continued to conduct official business with and had diplomatic relations with the apartheid government of South Africa. Reagan looked on as the state pushed those racist policies, and now Trump has welcomed the beneficiaries of that racism with open arms.
Despite Trump’s claims that his new refugee exception supports white South African immigrants who are victims of “white genocide,” it still exists only in myth.
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