The question no South African poll ever asks

Recently I read this study into South African public opinion by the Brazilian analytics company Atlas Intel, and saw something I have never seen before:

The reason this is so astonishing, is that every polling institution has asked a similar question, and given completely different results, results which suggest that black nationalism is a complete phantom. As it turns out, Atlas Intel asked that same question too:

We have all seen this graph – it tells us what we all know, and what we all want to hear, all at once – it feels like common sense, but it also feels surprising – we’re used to a lot of noise about land reform and BEE, but we also want to feel that there’s a difference between the ordinary people and their representatives.

But as we are repeatedly told by senior analysts who put out these polls, the South African electorate are not stupid, they know what they want. And what they want is for land to be taken from whites, jobs to be denied to minorities, and especially, they want the land taken without compensation, more than they want it to be compensated for.

And here’s the key observation, as far as I’m concerned – South Africans vote according to race. Minorities vote NP/DA and their splinter parties, black people vote for the ANC and their splinter parties. The DA has had no more than 4.5% of the black vote since they first kicked off, and I don’t see this changing.

I think that while this is hard for many liberals to stomach, a lot of conservatives and right wingers needlessly harp on about race itself. I don’t think that’s necessary at all. If we look to the rest of the world, even just homogeneous old Europe, we can see that political divisions that have been forgotten about centuries ago are as indelible as skin colour. The most striking example is the coincidence of French voting preferences with English colonial possessions from a thousand years ago:

Austro-Hungary and the Polish Commonwealth still exert control over Eastern Europe:

So if we accept that political sentiments and partisan alignments are inherited rather than spread by memetic conversion, we have to grapple with the question of what sorts of coalitions are possible between the natural blocs in society, however defined. But then you need to know who they trust, and what sorts of policies and rhetorical stances they prefer and trust.

This then returns us to the first question – if the public know what they want (which I think they do), why don’t they vote for what we are told by mainstream institutions they want? The DA is offering more generous welfare handouts, more generous service delivery, and only differ in that they ostensibly want to do away with racialism, and that the areas they govern offer better job opportunities. So why don’t they vote DA? Why do they stay away from the ballot box instead?

Almost any liberal, whether in the DA or the IRR, will tell you that the absentee ballot shows that people are turning away from the ANC’s racialist message. I think this is just projection. After all, if that were the case, they would vote against the ANC rather than stay away. Staying away means, in a very literal and non-speculative sense, that they would rather not vote than vote for the opposition (left or right), and that says more than any speculation could.

Which means that, while they are disappointed with the present government, they don’t differ from them enough to look for change, and see no hope in alternative options.

Critics of polling outcomes are often dismissed, because the skeptics seldom provide alternative interpretations, and can only express that “something is off” about the results. This doesn’t fly with most, and for good reason.

But I think it’s as simple as being too shy to ask direct questions about policy preferences, likely for fear of the answers. We know that in KwaZulu Natal and the Cape, support for secession is very high, but nobody is voting for secessionist parties – nobody thinks it can happen, and that is something us secessionists must grapple with. Our failure to provide a credible vehicle for change so far is on us, not on the voters.

Likewise, the DA refuses to face their own limitations, and must ask themselves the same question – are they willing to endorse the policies the electorate actually wants – racial privilege, wealth redistribution, and more generous welfare – or do they feel committed enough to try to achieve this from a minority position, and impose it on the country by leverage through coalitions?

The likelihood of the latter is slim at best, and more accurately described as a pipe dream. But what is never entertained is localised reforms or regional devolution. These options are generally regarded as feeding into separatist sentiments, whether in the provincial separatist sense, or in the Afrikaner enclavist sense.

And so nobody ever does anything, and keeps reassuring themselves that nothing can go wrong, or if it does go wrong, the welathy and skilled will be fine, just don’t demand change, because that’s scary.

But change happens whether you make it happen or not, better to steer the boat than let the river steer for you.