When Every Crisis Becomes Content, What Happens to South Africa’s Democracy?
The rise of long-form outrage and its impact on political discourse.
If everything as it stands is horrible, what good is the future? South African political podcasts at the moment seem to call for no real solution and only amplify the political discourse with more anger and rage, without a solution. Truly, what is the end that these podcasters hope to achieve?
Listening to South African podcasters react to the current state of South Africa after SONA and the budget speech, it felt apparently clear that nothing would satisfy the people who claim to be the face of discourse within South Africa.
There seems to be a common problem among all of them at the moment: nothing works in South Africa. Whether it be commissions of enquiry, the economy, the government, or any institution touched by the African National Congress or the Government of National Unity, it is almost doomed to fail.
Evidently, they are working on the same emotional nerve and touchpoints that politicians use when advocating against the ANC. They have innately repackaged the anger and outrage that was traditional media and provided it in a more long-form and digestible tone.
There is reason to say that the government has been far from perfect and has failed, or is currently failing, in a multitude of ways. However, this is not absent from the few successes, minor or major, that the government has currently achieved.
Whether it be decreasing unemployment ever so slightly, adjusting tax brackets for inflation, and providing some relief, though minimal, it is a step in the right direction — one which, a year ago, when inflation adjustments had not occurred, was a point of discussion for podcasters as they claimed once again the budget was doomed to fail.
Further to this, at the moment there is no accountability or pressure that exists for pundits and commentators to be accountable to anyone beyond their fan base. Claiming to represent a politically objective platform, absent any bias, becomes evidently further from the truth when statements are charged with opinion and devoid of data and facts.
It has been said before by pundits themselves: it is easy to complain, it is easy to say slogans, and it is easy to be a talking head — but it is hard to do the work. They too need to be able to reflect and truly unpack what their role in society is, for if they do not move the conversation to a place that actually allows people to objectively evaluate the situation and deem the best way forward, they fail in that role.
The risk of clouding judgments and views based on biases, and the preference for certain political views over others, does not move the country forward or achieve their claimed aims of strengthening democracy. It only further divides society and blurs the lines between fact and fiction, as South Africans shape their political views off a few, unaware of the full spectrum of political thought.
It is easy to provide a simple narrative — one with heroes and villains that paints all the bad guys as being of one party and one mind, and the good guys the converse — but the reality of South African politics has been far from that.
Democratic Alliance leader John Steenhuisen himself exposed how politics “corrupts,” whether you are ANC or not. He hired his friends, he pleased his donors, and he had credit card debt. But it was not corruption, it was not crime — it was “infighting,” because the media shaped it that way. Yet the brand remains the DA as the clean party.
However, when it comes to the GNU, it seems useless, devoid of the same DA. The same party is pushing for Helen Zille to be mayor in Johannesburg — the second-largest partner to the ANC, part of the same failing government. Yet they remain heroes, while the ANC and President Cyril Ramaphosa are the villains.
Truth be told, neither party has been perfect. On both sides, favours were likely made, conversations were had, and pressure from various interest groups influenced their decisions. Truly, what came about was human decision-making influenced by intuition and experience.
However, instead of unpacking the media’s bias, lack of nuance, and failure to fairly report both sides of the story, commentators amplify the parts that suit their narrative and negate the parts that do not, strengthening mistrust in the government and leaving no one with a place to truly understand the political situation at hand.
Belief and trust continue to be at an all-time low, as commentators and pundits celebrate the fragmented and splintered reality formed by algorithms and channels such as theirs that play into people’s biases. They too lose sight of the harm they have caused — the further destruction of society’s fabric — when they refuse to be aware of the consequences.
Most importantly, they leave the future of this country not thinking about a way forward, talking and planning about their future, but simply questioning endlessly without an end. Not providing certainty or clarity, or being fair to both sides, leaves people angrier than when they started. It only fuels pressure to act — but not together — instead alone, to achieve the quickest relief to a solution and not the most thought-out one.
Just recently, the United States, on January 6th, 2021, felt the impacts of a fractured society when a select few were allowed to dictate and inform how the collective viewpoint of a few thousand in the nation could lead to the storming of the Capitol. They found their way through the world of podcasts and social groups.
The recent election in 2024 in the United States was influenced immensely by the appearance of Donald Trump on a variety of podcasts, particularly more conservative-leaning ones and broadcasts aimed at younger audiences. Those had a major sway on the election and have had much impact on the world ever since Trump’s inauguration day in 2025.
Similarly, in South Africa, if there is no care and critical thought applied to the shift in the consumption of news and media, there lies a risk for a few to define the outlook of many. If the country is not careful and truthful about the problems that politics and media have caused — which have given way to this new digital world — it will become just another hopeful platform destroyed by the emphasis on despair over objectivity.
More importantly, it threatens to further entrench the low levels of trust in each other, in the government, and in society as a whole if it continues to celebrate factionalism or partisanship that is neither fair nor factual.
This is not to say that there is anything wrong with differing political opinions, thinking, theories, or schools of thought. Rather, it is to say that all thinking should be based on evidence and facts.
There cannot be a further celebration of the death of our intellectualism and the offering of political thinking to the few who give their time to read the news. It should remain something shared and encouraged amongst all South Africans — not simply those who care to ask the question, but even those faced with dealing with the problems.
South Africa is not all bad. It is ironic that pundits and commentators will even tell you this too. It has its moments. It is going through hardship, but it is never doomed to failure always. Sometimes it is bad, and sometimes it is good. It just depends on the collective willingness to act, to make do with the current situation, and to improve on it.
The country will derive its identity from the story that it tells itself — the story it tells of its people and the realities that people face every day. Whether those realities are shaped as opportunities or as moments of despair should be a choice everyone makes together — not because of the influence of a few, but through the thinking of everyone, collectively.