Three Brief Post-Election Thoughts

Everything we need to know after the election:

1. Our government is now run by self-described revolutionaries - the EFF and the ANC. If Ramaphosa cannot sweep the ANC clean of its thugs and looting, the ANC will sink to below 50 per cent next election and then who knows what happens next.

2. The DA is a leaky vessel. It ran a Hillary Clinton campaign. Vague assurances and slogans about competence. They speak to nobody. They don't offer any sense of identity. They imagine South Africans as atomized individuals.

3. We need parties like the IFP and Freedom Front to continue to rise. Read their manifestos. These parties are not radical or racist. They want to represent certain groups within a pluralistic country of nations, and restore our market economy. People are not blank slates. They have pasts, social ties, culture that need to be recognized. We will need parties that respect such identities in a national coalition after the next election. And they can both outflank the DA and the EFF to achieve greater growth by offering this sense of nationhood and fairness. But they will need fresh leaders capable of such a dramatic outreach.