One of the best political insights I’ve ever heard, that on reflection is quite obvious, is that people are extremely vulnerable to the “silver bullet” theory of politics.
Silver-bullet politics is when a political faction becomes overly obsessed with one issue or change which they believe will have an earth-shattering effect if it could simply be achieved. Silver bullets usually are not particularly successful; they are overly focused on personalities and legalities.
I heard this idea from American radio host, Erick Erickson, who talked about the destructive effects on America’s political parties of the silver bullet. In Erickson’s examples, he first described how some Republicans became obsessed with the “Birther” conspiracy: that Barack Obama was not born in the United States but rather Kenya, and therefore would not qualify for the American presidency.
The emotional appeal of this idea was that it promised to roll back the Obama presidency through a legal process and would sidestep the risky and difficult process of actually winning over voters to vote against Obama. Erickson describes how this wild rabbit chase drove some parts of the Republican party insane, as they spiralled ever deeper into the world of plots and conspiracy, ever hopeful that if they could just see his birth certificate, if they could just prove his foreign origin, then, what in their eyes was a radically left-wing presidency would be reduced to a nightmare.
No such evidence
Of course, no such evidence was ever uncovered, and Obama won two terms and remains popular with Democrats to this day. Many also still view fierce criticism of his presidency as motivated by racism, a claim made stronger by the infamous “Birther” conspiracy.
The left is of course not immune to this same phenomenon. During the Trump presidency we saw much of the left and media become obsessively focused on the idea that Donald Trump was a Russian agent who had been installed through nefarious means in the White House, and that a series of investigations, notably the report by Robert Mueller, would bring the Trump presidency crashing down. Many openly fantasised about seeing Trump dragged from the Oval Office in handcuffs.
Of course, the Mueller Report did not find Trump to be a Russian-installed ‘Manchurian Candidate’ for Putin. Indeed, whilst it found much poor behaviour, there was nothing even close to the drumbeat of accusations laid at Trump’s feet. Democrats had placed their other critiques of Trump on the back burner due to their obsession with the Russian silver bullet, and so failed to end Trump’s political career. If it were not for Covid-19, it’s very possible Trump would have won a second term. Today most defences of Trump’s continuing role in American politics begin or end with a reference to the Russian “witch hunt” which has provided his supporters with a powerful response to any new accusation of wrongdoing.
In both of these examples, the focus on one quick-fix, solve-all solution backfired and not only distracted from the process of actually building political alternatives, but contributed to strengthening the very person the silver bullet was meant to eliminate.
Chasing the silver bullet
The silver-bullet phenomenon does not apply simply to America. Any country with dysfunctional politics has a tendency to chase the silver bullet.
For some South Africans “The Land” is that silver bullet. Some race nationalists and socialists alike believe that if the ownership of land can simply be ripped from the hands of whites or capital and handed to “the people” (or rather the state on “behalf” of the people) that South Africa will see some sort of poverty-alleviating boom driven by small-scale peasant agriculture. Others hope that all racial divisions will be healed and racial justice achieved if only whites were to surrender their property. Sadly, we don’t live in 14th century medieval Europe, and you can’t build a modern economy that actually ends poverty without property rights. Likewise, only real free-market economic reform will improve the lives of millions of black South Africans and reduce racial tensions.
For others, particularly in the media, the arrest and prosecution of Jacob Zuma for corruption became something of a silver-bullet solution. The theory goes that the once noble ANC has been corrupted from within by the malevolent presence of Jacob Zuma, and that if Zuma could face justice, the ANC could be repaired, and all would be well again. The ANC however remains a corrupt, socialist, and nationalist party, as the lack of reform following Jacob Zuma’s defeat shows us.
Temptations for liberals
South African liberals should be careful to avoid the same pitfalls, as we are not immune to the temptations. Whilst the removal of BEE, the fixing of the police, the freeing of the market, and the removal of the ANC are all needed to repair the nation, no single one will itself solve our problems. Indeed, even if all of these are achieved, and some new coalition of “wild dogs” focused on rolling back the National Democratic Revolution comes to power, it will take many years until the tangible results of reforms are truly felt across all of society.
Political change and reform is a marathon, not a glorious sprint. It takes years of work. Minds have to be changed, power has to be shifted, ideas have to be killed or promoted. The temptation of the quick and easy path, of the silver bullet, will in the words of Jedi master Yoda, lead to suffering.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR
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Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay