In the 1980s and 1990s, US president Donald Trump was relatively well known as a property developer and self-promoting partygoer.
It was when he became the host and co-producer of the hit reality show The Apprentice, first flighted on television in 2004, that he found true national and international fame.
With the name and face recognition from the show, he launched a bid for the presidency and won it in 2016.
Trump’s ascent to power represented the rise of the “media politician” — candidates who make it in media first and then pivot to public office.
In his second term in office, Trump has extended the rise of the TV politician by appointing to his cabinet people such as Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host, as his defence minister.
His top administration picks range from popular podcasters to television talking heads who have huge followings on social media platforms.
Like Trump, many have risen on populist messaging that exploited government failures to address specific, sometimes unsexy and politically unpalatable, demands.
It was therefore interesting to see ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba announce popular television host Xolani Khumalo as the party’s mayoral candidate for Ekurhuleni ahead of the 2026 local government elections.
Khumalo is famous in many parts of SA and in poor, neglected, communities for his MojaLove show, Sizok’thola, where he identifies alleged drug dealers, confronts and “interrogates” them before effecting arrests with the help of police officers.
In a country where communities are battling the scourge of drugs, Khumalo is a folk hero, a man who does what the state has failed consistently to do for decades.
In villages and townships around Pretoria, for example, parents pray for the day when he pitches up to launch “an operation” in their area. That is because the police — the state — has abandoned them.
The show is not without the controversies that come with groups and individuals taking the law into their hands.
In 2023, Khumalo was charged with murder, robbery and malicious damage to property after an alleged drug dealer died during the filming of the show.
The allegation was that the show’s heavies had beaten the suspect to death. Charges against Khumalo have been dropped.
Khumalo’s candidacy resonates with many people thanks to his television show and his fame or notoriety.
Can it win him the Ekurhuleni mayor’s chains next year? Crucially, will he run his mayoralty through sound bites, social media “hot takes” and the hyperbole of television the way Trump does.
Social media will upend our politics in numerous ways. To win election, politicians will find themselves having to win the social media attention battle first.
Just watch as you enter a taxi, bus, train or plane. Most people are not reading a book or a newspaper. They are gawking at a TikTok post or an Instagram reel.
The vile, dangerous and reactionary tactics of Operation Dudula may be odious to me, for example, but they are being watched, followed, admired, “liked” and emulated by hundreds of people on social media apps.
Much of the tactics, language and philosophy of Dudula are borrowed from populist right-wing movements in Europe and the US.
And these movements are winning.
Nigel Farage, the right-winger who animated the Brexit movement in the UK, is now leading numerous polls in that country and, as The Guardian newspaper writes, “with Reform UK’s popularity on the rise, some in Westminster believe he could be on course to pull off the greatest political earthquake in modern British political history”.
Farage has hosted numerous TV shows and podcasts and appeared on a reality TV show.
In a world dominated by social media takes, it is inevitable that the faces of savvy influencers and show hosts will dominate.
However, in defence of these famous personalities, it is also worth asking just how many of the people leading us today are equipped or were suitable for many of the positions they now occupy.
Because we are a party-based system, those who are talented at building power bases within the different parties become powerful even if they are unqualified and incompetent to fill the roles they are supposed to fulfil.
The real consequence we must brace ourselves for in this “age of the TV or TikTok politician” is populism.
SA’s tragedy has been the ANC’s failure to do what it was elected to do: govern. Law and order have broken down.
This drives someone like Khumalo and his Sizok’thola to do what the police are failing to do. This fuels the inevitable populism that arrives with the wrong answers that are proffered by TikTok politicians for our problems.
SA’s shoddy government is responsible for the rise of populist politics. By failing to manage immigration, by letting crime flourish, we have opened the floodgates for populists who have fame, a smart way with words, and little else, to rise.
ActionSA’s Khumalo is just the beginning of a wave of “activists” who will be knocking at the doors of power. They might even win.
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