Orange appeal: Manyi’s new age may dawn on Trump TV
Donald Trump and Mzwanele Manyi seem like uneasy bedfellows: one is a failed businessman who rose to prominence on a wave of ludicrously biased news, and the other is the president of the US.
But this has got me wondering whether they might not be perfect for each other.
Manyi’s critics had been looking forward to his testimony at the Zondo Commission of Inquiry into State Capture this week. The man who gave us the memorable comedy duo of The New Age and ANN7 would, they assumed, dissolve into a confused, blustering mess under cross-examination.
It didn’t happen. Instead, Manyi demonstrated the sort of composure one needs to insist, with a straight face, that ANN7 was a real news channel or that sentient humans actually read The New Age.
Indeed, Manyi even felt emboldened to demand that evidence leader Vincent Maleka be recused because of allegedly biased questioning.
For an audience that has grown used to the amateurish denials and evasions of past ANC spin doctors like Mac “Taken Out Of Context” Maharaj, Manyi’s chutzpah was spellbinding. So much so, in fact, that many on Twitter were convinced that he had outwitted Maleka. I know this doesn’t sound like a lot – you can show social media a picture of a single buttock and it will believe that is has seen a supernova – but still, being admired by Twitter is worth something. (I believe it’s about 86 cents.)
Twitter was especially impressed by the zinger he delivered on Monday, when he responded to a question about state capture with the observation that SA has always been captured. As defences go it’s right up there with pointing out that the planet is pretty much stuffed anyway so you might as well open up a factory that manufactures plastic, one-use-only harpoons for the Norwegian whaling fleet.
Despite his heroics, however, Manyi’s time is over for now, at least in SA.
But there is hope for our finest propagandist.
Enter Trump at stage far right.
On Monday night the lying sack of Fanta took to Twitter to rail against CNN and to propose the establishing of a new TV channel. “Something has to be done,” he tweeted, “including the possibility of the United States starting our own Worldwide Network to show the World the way we really are, GREAT!” (I assume in this instance “GREAT” means “owned by Moscow, more divided than at any time since the Civil War, and apparently okay with teargassing children”.)
Some pundits pointed out that the US already has a state-run, pro-American network in the august Voice of America radio show. And that’s not even counting the blonde automata at Fox News.
For Manyi’s sake, however, I hope that Trump goes ahead with launching his network. Because who better to run it than our most senior and stylish sockpuppet, who, as luck would have it, has just run out of options in his home country and might be looking for a fresh start?
I know that many South Africans don’t trust Manyi, given his role in selling Jacob Zuma’s government while it was busy selling the country. But we shouldn’t let past grudges get in the way of a potential megastar of global propaganda who could do wonders with a huge budget and a politically fractured nuclear superpower.
So don’t listen to the haters, Mzwanele. Grab that brass ring! Go and do what you were born to do! Go and make America great again! Because lord knows you’ve done enough for this country...
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