....A small Black elite would get a seat at the corporate South African table, Ramaphosa among them. A small Black middle class would emerge at the edges of that elite. But the fundamental inequality baked in by apartheid — a tiny sliver of mostly white people holding the vast majority of land and wealth — would endure. A report published in The World Bank Economic Review that examined wealth distribution in South Africa from the end of apartheid to 2017 found that the top 10 percent of the country controls 86 percent of its wealth, an astonishing gap.
Perhaps this explains why Ramaphosa’s party, which had enjoyed overwhelming support from voters since the end of apartheid in 1994, finally lost its majority last year. But when faced with the choice of coalition partners to build a government, Ramaphosa shunned radical parties like the Economic Freedom Fighters, with their chants about killing farmers, and formed a coalition government with its archrival, the Democratic Alliance, a party deeply associated with white wealth.
Members of that party were among the mixed-race delegation that made the trip to the White House on Wednesday, composed of politicians from Ramaphosa’s uneasy coalition government, and rounded out by a pair of famous golfers and South Africa’s richest man. Multiple white members of the delegation tried to persuade Trump that his fears of white genocide were misplaced, that violent crime is a problem that affects all South Africans. Trump, theatrically waving around fake evidence of a fake problem, was unmoved. He wasn’t there to make a deal. He was there to make memes and score points with his most rabid fans.
Trump may have gotten what he wanted out of the meeting, but he hasn’t had much success in the deal-making department lately. His....
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