The prospect of US President Donald Trump and SA President Cyril Ramaphosa speaking face-to-face in the coming days seems somewhat fraught as an irresistible force meets an immovable object, or at least as an irresistible farce meets the immovably abject.

Certainly, as Ramaphosa revealed that the conversation might happen “soon”, some South Africans seem to be expecting a sort of prizefight, with a few right-wingers on social media expressing the hope that their golden calf will wag a PW Botha-esque finger at Ramaphosa, while over on the so-called left Gwede Mantashe told a Freedom Day crowd that SA is “not a province of the US” and that its “sovereignty will be defended”, presumably a nudge in Ramaphosa’s direction. ..