Where is our Ann Coulter?

I have never met Ann Coulter. I doubt that I’m important enough to warrant an invitation to an event of the Young Republicans, and certainly I’m not conservative enough to be considered “one of them”. On the one occasion that I invited Ms Coulter to an online debate on “liberalism vs conservatism — finding the best way to defeat terrorism” my invitation was ignored.

As to whether the Young Democrats made political capital from that episode is not something that I know, although I doubt that the American public in general would care what an unknown Liberal from South Africa has to say about the vulnerability of American conservatism.

Standing statuesquely and seeming to be the blonde bombshell who went to bat for Bush Jnr and then McCain, Ms Coulter could very well have become the spokesperson for the young right on her looks alone. As with Britney Spears’ unflappable faith in her president, Ms Coulter has demonstrated a loyalty to the Republicans that deserves respect.

Many pundits believe that Ms Coulter has over the years been trained and deployed by the conservatives to distract the male population, enrage the female population and engage the political population with an ideological discourse that clouds the real issues of unemployment, social malcontent and a multibillion-dollar war machine.

Others say that Ms Coulter’s rise to prominence is just another part of the Neo-Conservative’s strategy for a 20-year long war, which was started by GW Bush Jnr and which Barack Obama seems quite happy to continue for the Republicans. Whatever the case, it is clear that over the last four years the prospect of a woman president has prompted the Republicans to roll out Ms Coulter to suppress and destroy the Democrats by attacking among other things American Liberalism.

Now the media jockeys see a comparison between a young Hillary and Ms Coulter, but apart from providing content for a political magazine published by Hugh Hefner, the comparison between the two is self-limited, given their diametrically opposed political ideas.

Ms Coulter writes regularly to slate and slam Liberals and Liberalism, and in so doing she has brought in votes for the Republicans across the various divides. She is the good looking, young, female American version of Essop Pahad, it seems. On the other side Mrs Clinton seems to have bought into the “one world” logic dispensed by Oprah Winfrey, and that seems to work for her even though her husband is a bit of a political liability.

In South Africa we have seen the use of what I will call the Ann Coulter logic in the ANC’s deployment of people like Baleka Mbete, Jessie Duarte and Magdalene Moonsamy, and across the floor the opposition, not to be outdone, has responded with Helen Zille, Patricia de Lille, Lindiwe Mazibuko and Anele Mda. All of these women from both sides of the house have brought in votes for their parties.

But none of these women have any real political power. Well let’s be honest about this, Baleka Mbete had to be paid off to compensate her for not getting a shot at the crown this time around while Jessie Duarte and Magdalene Moonsamy are congress apologists who wield no power of their own. Helen Zille has a cabinet full of men who feel that she owes them something, while Lindiwe Mazibuko seems to be happy to parrot the dodgy regurgitations of the DA’s spin shop. The ID’s dependence on Patricia de Lille has more to do with a lack of talent within the party than anything else, and Anele Mda was used by the Cope shop to take on the Julius factor.

Now this is not to say that these women are mere tokens, far from it, the reality is that they are all competent and capable politicians. They have earned their places in the political pantheon and all of them have skills and talents that extend way beyond the fact that they are all attractive, good-looking women.

But when we look at the reality that says we have a quota system to obtain a 50-50 quota for gender equality and the fact that we have failed to meet this quota in general, and when we consider the effect that one politician like Ann Coulter can have on your political opponents, we must be honest enough to say that perhaps the women in politics are being used by their male comrades to achieve political ends.

To date we have seen no major ideological positions espoused by Helen Zille, indeed even though Comrade Tony consistently brought in 2 million votes and Premier Zille trumped that with 3 million in just under a year, for the DA, we still do not see that Helen Zille wields power as she is entitled to do.

So if we are going to play this game of second-rate marketing posing as political thinking, let us at least get it right. Yes, sex sells, because men are disgusting primates, but when you have capable politicians who just happen to be easy on the eye, don’t restrain or contain or inhibit their right to power just because it makes you feel better about your male insecurities.

The time is now for South Africa to identify their Ann Coulters. Someone who is able to take on and take down the opponents of their parties and who makes no apologies for it. We need less subservience on the part of women politicians and more opportunity for women who lead to actually hold power rather than just be token gender-quota fillers.

As regards Ms Coulter’s misguided attack on Liberalism, let us just say that perhaps the semantic political divide between Euro-Africa and America is such that our Liberalism is their Republicanism and that their Liberalism is our Social-Democracy. And that in the end the vulnerability of American Conservatism stems from their bedfellowship, within the Republican Party, with people who favour individual liberty, local government and lower taxes while conservatism itself is about group think, the familia and social welfare.

But as to where South Africa will find its warrior queen is something that we need to figure out because JZ’s term is ticking down and it’s time for South Africa to have a woman president.