Who Are We Voting For? Here's How To Figure It Out

Settle down brother, this is the Quarter Report South Africa's movie Welcome to the Watch Party. If you don't vote on the 4th of November, your neighbours will decide who governs your ward, who's responsible for delivering basic services in your community. Your neighbours will even decide which mayor of which party is going to rule your town or city. And I know how cock your neighbours are, so maybe go vote on the 4th of November, so your neighbours voice isn't louder than yours over something as important as who is supposed to be delivering your basic services 365 days of the year. But a lot of South Africans are saying cool down, we want to vote, but we don't know who we're going to vote for. And so today we're going to talk about that, how to choose who to vote for, because this is a local government election in a brand new state of being in South Africa, which is full on coalition country, which means it's not as simple as picking which political party, whose policies you like the most, or who their national leader is. It's about adding to your figuring out who to vote for, how likely your local potential ward counselor or local political leader is at delivering your services, and how likely it is that a party that you could vote for will deliver a stable coalition, because local government elections are about your local leaders and about stability in your local governing council. That's what today's show is about. So, welcome to today's episode of the quarter report. We have a whole political comedy show coming to Cape Town with special guests, including Zapiro and James Corder, mostly special, and William Shokey and others who are going to be at the Star Theatre with me to talk about the title of the show, which is who the **** are we going to vote for? Coming up on the 23rd and 24th of October, tickets are at the link in the description, they're live on quickets, go get them now. We're going to be the homecoming centre in Cape Town. It's going to be very different from this show, different in focus. This is how to choose who to vote for. We're going to talk about who the **** are going to vote for on the 23rd and 24th of October. Go get your tickets now. Elsewhere, thank you to those of you who've clicked follow, slash subscribe, whatever platform you're here. We're receiving us on. Thank you to those of you who diligently click like every time you watch or listen to one of our shows. If you would like to support our show more, you can buy it yourself merchandise on www.3bignus.com or you can advertise on the show like 10X investments are doing today. That's why we are coming to you live from their absolutely gorgeous podcast studio in Cape Town. You can also just out of the kindness of your hearts, pay a hundred round a month by becoming a member, clicking join on YouTube to just support our little show. And that's all you need to know. Except if you still want to buy my book then this education of South Africa, it's pretty much about all the disinformation networks that have been hitting South Africa wave after wave this weekend and what we've been talking about over them. Right. James and Eric are here. James, how are we going to figure out who to vote for? How do we choose who to vote for? After the panicked breathing. I realized that stage one in the process. I have been doing that. I've been counselling people in my life more than 10 people in my life. That's the only people in your life. I've been counselling many people who in my life on who they're going to vote for and how to vote and not telling them who they should vote for, but telling them what they should think about. And I feel like we are now almost guidance counselling people into the democratic process, which I feel like is a valuable addition to the world. That's why you should click join to become a member on YouTube. We've already done the plugs. Well, I mean, you just big up our proposition. So I think it's just trying to be helpful. Yeah, you know, I mean, you are being helpful. Yes. If you would like to socially have the heavy breathing panic attack about who to vote for, James is on the streets of Cape Town right now. Right. The map, the map on goodware institute. Wow, that was a hard transition. James will breathe on you for money. Yes, a bit of research. James will breathe on you for a summer. That you do not need to hand over money. So the map on goodware, that silence is because of the presence of truth in this room. Okay, the map on goodware institute is the research and think tank that until recently was most popularly famous in South Africa for being the institute that arranged the online public lecture series, which former Ambassador to South Africa, Ibrahimur, Saul Spokat, where he called America white supremacist racist colonial state, which caused the hulk of fuffle around his ambassador ship to the US ending in the first place. But they put out a lot of really good research and work. And they have just put out something that we have needed as a country. It's called the mixture, the map on goodware institute, coalitions barometer. You know by now, that South Africa is a wash with coalitions, political parties having to share power and function as a coherent government and often failing to do so. And we've been in this state since most people would say 2020, 2021 around them. And you know how coalitions falling apart has caused incredible harm to people across the country, because it often means that local government becomes dysfunctional while a new local government is formed through political bartering and fighting. And what that means often is disruption in departments in local government, which are supposed to be providing you service delivery and improving your lives running. The things like electricity infrastructure, water, refuse removal, evaluations on whether or not you deserve and qualify for free basic services, all that kind of stuff security on the streets. And what we have seen, a great example is in Joeburg where they've had like nine mayors in 80s or whatever, and our constantly in crisis is active service delivery failing and the decay of a once much better city. And so when we think about who to vote for in a local government election, you mustn't only read the manifestos and public policies of a political party, although if you are doing that, you are already streets ahead of most South Africans. So thank you for doing that. And you mustn't only think about the national rulers and leaders because you're not actually voting for them, you're not voting for Cyril Ramaposa or Julius Malema or Jacob Sumer or Jordan Hill Lewis. You are voting for the political party and its representatives as they work in your community, as they seem to have done either in government or opposition in your ward or in your local ruling council, mayoral council, the district councils in some areas, particularly overall South Africa outside of the metros. So what you actually have to do is you have to think about stability of a coalition and reliable service delivery. That is what is most important in a local government election to making sure that someone who ends up representing and doing important work or having the control and the power to do important work on your streets actually does that work well. So if you're considering who to vote for on the 4th of November, go and look up which political party and which specific human which representatives specifically has been ruling in your ward and how they have done and form a value judgment on that. If you are considering not voting for them, think about what political parties have done good work in and around your neighborhoods and because those are the literal humans that you will be voting for not the political party as a whole. And when you are voting proportional representation for who's going to end up being the mayor and who's going to be in ruling local government coalition, larger than your ward but in your town, village or city or district, you need to think about how that party and its individual representatives have behaved and whether or not they have delivered on services and kept stable coalitions together or not over the four, five years or five, ten years of the last time in your area. That should have a massive influence on whether or not you vote for a particular person or a party because ultimately their competence at delivering basic services are you doing the functions of government and keeping that coalition stable are the most important. And fortunately for us, Mr. The Mupp and Gawir Institute has put out a huge report with lots of really useful data that we're going to talk about now which shows how coalitions are working in South Africa and how different political parties are using or participating in coalitions. So all the stuff we're about to talk about is really important to your calculation. Oftentimes people say go find out, go find out about information, go find about this, go find out about that and it's not always immediately obvious where to find that information. So it's important to say first figure out what reward number is. That's step one and it is a very quick Google away. Step two is that most World Court Councillors are posting on social media about what they're doing, what they've done and the conversation that they're having. So go find your World Councilor or World Councilor potentials and see what they're talking about. And thirdly, the meetings happen regularly, publicly, publicly. So go to the meetings but first start where your World Councilor, what your ward is. Figure out who your ward councilor is and what their via bits whether you want to vote for them or vote against them and go to these meetings because the conversations happen. Whether the streetlights are on happened at these meetings. Whether the potholes gets fixed happen at these meetings. That's where these conversations are happening. And you are often the most effective accountability mechanism because if you think your ward councilor has been trash, you can remove them from a job. Yeah. You can take away their wage, you can fire them. And that's again a much more useful way of thinking about voting as James said, as punishment. That's accountability. Vote with hate. Yes. So before we talk about Mr's full report, I want to just flag that they actually have an interactive map, we'll put a link in the description. The website is co-illition.myster.org. today. You can go and find your municipality on this map. You can see which coalition has governed it and House of the Africa's political geography is shifted over time. Just go and do that. A lot of your research can just be reading the report. It's not long. It's very accessible to all of you. It has a joke about hand consoles. Need I say more? Anguanyu malmela. I mean, maybe we don't know where he is, so we can't check. Right. Let's have a quick message with 10x before I tell you all the interesting stuff about the different political parties in the coalitions over the last five years. Right, James, do you know what a preservation fund is? No. Do you know what a pension fund is? Yes. Do you know what a provident fund is? No. You don't? No. Okay. Let's just start with pension funds. We're working from a low base here. Okay. So what's a pension fund? It's where you put money away or when you go into retire. Yes, but I specifically mean when you have an employer who manages your pension and takes a bit of it out of your wage every month to contribute to your pension fund. It's when your employer doesn't waste time. Okay. So did you know, James, that when you leave a job in which you have been investing into a pension fund via your employer, you have a choice to cash out all of that money that is currently in the fund or you can leave it in the pension fund that the employer is managing, or you can take that money and put it in a different pension fund. Do we have pension funds here? No. But lots of people do. Eric and lots of people who are not me and Eric. I don't have one either. So here's what's important, and there's a wonderful blog post from Tenix about exactly this thing, which talks about the maths that show that preserving your pension is much smarter. Basically, when money goes into a pension fund, it compounds in interest extremely quickly, which means that it grows extremely effectively. Now, when you're going to leave your job, it might be very enticing to take out that money because you're going to a new job and you maybe want a cash injection right now, maybe you want to buy a new car or pay off some debt or whatever. And if you take out the money, you suddenly have all this cash to spend. But the truth is that when you take out that money, even if you instantly invested somewhere else and rather than buying some kind of like cash object, it's not going to compound at as rapidly a rate because it's not already been sitting in that new place compounding. Overwhelmingly, leaving money in your pension fund yields far greater compound interest than taking it out. So you should resist the instinct to take it out of a pension fund when you switch jobs and like spend it in another kind of investment. You should just leave it there. That's what the math says. But then there are two options when you leave a job if you choose to not extract all your pension fund money. You either leave it with your employer or ex-employer and you know what we all think about leaving some of your valued items with your exes, probably not a good move, or you can go and shop in the market to find a different pension fund to move that pension funds value into. And that's really important because you maybe will go to the market and discover that there are companies that offer better fees, better rates of interest, and better guarantees for your pension fund than your ex-employers decisions are making. And so the idea is don't pull the money out of your pension fund when you are leaving a job. Rather go and shop around in the market for a better preservation fund, a better pension fund offer from a different company to transfer your pension fund into. Does that make sense? All I'm hearing is that I shouldn't be doing anything. I should leave things lie and I am pro that idea. No, you should do one thing, one thing. You should go and find a better pension fund, a better one, but if I don't have one to begin with, I should actually start by getting one. Yes, yeah, that's really important. So you can actually use something called an effective annual cost calculator, a 10x house one, to find out how much money you are losing through the decisions your ex-employer or your current employee is making on your pension fund. So when you switch jobs, you can find a provider that actually contributes a lower effective annual cost because otherwise you're just losing out on money that you'd like to use at the end of your life when you actually want to use and level off your pension. So go do that. And while you're doing that, 10x investments actually offers free obligation free consultations on your finances with one of their own experts. It's literally for free with no obligation where you can talk to an expert about a handle your money better. So the link is in the description. Go book your free consultation now and remember to tell them that you heard about this from us. All right, the massive coalitions barometer from Mr. and James. Here is a sentence from the coalitions barometer that I expect you to handle maturely like an adult. You're talking to the wrong guy. Between the 2021 local government election and February 2026, 80 of South Africa's 213 municipal councils were hung at some point. Relatable content? At some point. Depends on the circumstances. Okay, that's enough. So what you should quick maths realize from that is over a third of the municipalities in South Africa have had have been ruled by hung councils and mostly coalitions at some point in the last five years. And this trend is set to continue because the hyper dominant political party that A and C that runs its most of the most municipalities on its own out of any political party is set to continue to lose support and to grade its majorities in a lot of different places. So that's why you need to be making decisions on who to vote for as in your how to vote process your decision making needs to incorporate how political parties act in coalitions because in the vast majority of places in South Africa in the near future, you will be ruled by a ruling coalition. So that's really important to remember. But you know what is interesting? We are so down on coalitions but what's quite interesting that Mr. has discovered is that many of South Africa's local coalitions have been pretty stable. It's just in metros that they're very unstable because metros have been hyper, hyper complex in terms of the number of people voting, the number of parties participating and competing, and because metros get a lot of media attention, the number of parties who will catch on cuck for positive media coverage even while their actions sacrifice the locals who live there, it works to their detriment. So get out of the mentality that coalitions have to be unstable and always are the cases that many coalitions have proved stable in South Africa just mostly in smaller towns and villages and rural areas. And that means that metros can do it too. And you should be demanding of your political parties in metros if you're living in cities that they act in ways that deliver a stable coalition government because that is actively better for you, it is actively better for all of the citizens in that area. You should punish political parties that actively destabilize coalitions, particularly ones that do it regularly. That's really important. But here's another thing that I found really interesting that I did not realize is that often the governing arrangements in hung councils change often, but the coalition ruling them, the dominant players stay the same. So maybe the ANC is dominant in a particular area and they've got a few minor political party allies who tried to catch on cuck or the ANC catches on cuck. And then the ANC reforms the coalition, but they stay dominant, they just cycle in different parties or smaller ones to complete the 50% plus one, or they change which parties in those ruling coalitions have mayoral council seats or whatever kind of local authority administration, whether being the head of a department or something similar. And you have to watch that. It's really important to keep an eye on that. Thirdly, I know that in Johannesburg right now, the popular argument is that political parties to keep the DA out because it's looking by lots of poiling that depending on turnout, Helen Ziller will get 30% and she will be the most voted for mayoral candidate. That doesn't fact in the proportional representation element of the electoral race, but the DA is also top of that polling, just not by as much as Helen Ziller is further than her rivals to become mayor. And so quite a lot of people who are anti-DA are saying, well, it's fine. If they're only getting mid-30s, the DA, even though they've got the most votes, the rest of the political parties can club together to keep them out, which is exactly what they did to MK in case them went MK got what was it? 4038 out of the 80s, yes, of the seats, and or maybe 37 because I think the EFF got two, something around that, right? So MK got by far the most votes, but an extraordinary coalition of the ANC and the DA and IFP and the National Freedom Party. See, our previous work for why that was a laugh line, they kept the MK party out. But that is highly unusual and often very unstable to try and block out the party that got what's called the plurality of votes, meaning the most votes of any party, means that if you keep that largest voted for party out, you've necessarily got to include a bunch of smaller parties that will then scrabble over power and they will probably be unstable because at any point, the party that did get the most votes can go to one of the smaller parties and go, "Hey, you just need to ally with us and we will have 50% plus one and we'll give you way more positions in our ruling council. You won't have to compete with any of these other smaller and younger parties to get your slice of the pie." And that's why you should distrust any ruling council or party that is a plan [BLANK_AUDIO] to put together a ruling council that does not include the political party that got the most votes, 'cause it's probably going to lead to instability, coalition's collapsing dysfunction, which will literally affect your service delivery and quality of life. I feel like there's also forces parties to be more mature and considered in the way and actually explaining the way they're gonna get this stuff through. I feel like all parties do this. I think the EFF is probably the party that does the most in terms of being like, we are gonna do this big plan, but then where are they gonna get the votes, where are they gonna get the practical, like the practical democratic weight to pull it off? And you even see it with Helen Zullen, I'm talking about Joe Morgan realizing all, having to admit that she's probably not gonna get 50 plus one on North of 50 and she's gonna have to choose between being in opposition or part of a coalition and she says something to the effect of I'm not gonna work in a dysfunctional coalition. I'd rather go into opposition. Something to that effect, but forcing politicians and this should be part of your consideration when you're thinking about ward counsellors is what is the temperament of the person who's going to be in this discussion? It often, often, often happens if the person is antagonistic and intense and seemingly quite immature in the way that they conduct themselves, that doesn't bode well for a meeting when they have to sit across from their rival and agree on something. And that goes as far as the political party being dysfunctional. So Luis and Masuka and Dada Mareto are fighting over the power in ANC regional in Johannesburg and then Masuka winning an outright defying the ANC's national executive leadership. If you are a hardcore ANC voter, you must question that. You must go, but like if they are fighting amongst themselves, I can't even rely on the national executives will being done by the regional group in Johannesburg. That doesn't sound reliable or sustainable when there's internist scene fighting within a political party. And by the way, it's not just the ANC. Have you seen the DA? Any year in the last 10? Great word, by the way, internist scene. I think that's how you pronounce it. Internist scene, I think it is how you pronounce it. I've never said it out loud, but I've read it often. Reading is fine, don't mental. I've heard lots of people talk about Helen Zeler and this kind of way in terms of temperament and in terms of on the white, there are people who are going to vote for her. Like no, she's going to be a hard ass and she's going to go in there. I don't particularly like her, but she's going to be able to go in like, whip this thing into shape. And then there are a whole bunch of other people who are also like, ah, she's a hard ass and that means she's not going to be able to work with her, Michelle would be in the same sort of thing. But it's funny that that works at all levels, whether it's national or it's literally just like two council members or whatever, whatever, whatever. So here's where we talk and Mr. found really interesting findings about specifically in local government coalitions in municipal level, how political parties are acting. I think we've all become a wash with the positive vibes bubble of the GNU, because James, I was shocked by this. You know, 0.14 of Mr. as headline findings. The ANC and the DA were never part of the same municipal coalition. Never, not once. Not even in the transition of Cape Town. No, since 2021. Oh, sorry. Five years ago. So they GNU, but they don't municipal EMU. What? GNU, government of nationality, government of municipal. They never can move. The ANC media have never gamued. They don't do it. And that's interesting because you should now be thinking in Johannesburg if you think the best outcome is an ANC DA coalition in Johannesburg, probably with the DA as the leading partner, because it's better than the alternatives. You remember, they've never done it at municipal level. Not even since the GNU happened. So the principle of working together at national has not filtered down. But it has happened at provincial level. In the case I described earlier, in case then. So it is possible. But what this shows is that the ANC and the DA have had an adversarial sniping relationship at municipal level trying to take each other out, often through motions of no confidence and the rest. And so what's going to be really important in this election, and you should force your potential political representatives to address this before you vote for them is, are they open to working with each other? Are ANC reps open to working with the DA? And are DA reps open to working with the ANC? It's incredibly important. And it's also important to say that that's not just for the big parties. That's also for the smaller parties. Because as we're seeing, you know, in the most extreme case with K Zain with that almost dead split-- Yeah, the glue. Yeah, yeah, yeah, government of local unity. Yeah, at all levels-- And it's like a poo. Oh, goodness. --government of provincial unity. At all levels, these coalitions are going to be formed. So if you-- and this is A, an argument for voting for a smaller party. Because a smaller party can still tip one of these things, one of these agreements, like with Ultramar in Johannesburg. But along with that, small parties are going to be able to have an outsized influence on voting patterns of these GMUs, GLUs, GPUs, GNUs. Because they're going to be able to go, well, I'm the swing vote. I'm the kingmaker. I'm the-- I'm the decider here. So give me this, give me that, give me this, give me that. So A, this should open up your options for voting for smaller parties or one issue parties or whatever. Yes. And B, it should also mean that when you are researching and potentially engaging with these smaller parties-- because oftentimes you can meet these smaller parties. Yeah, they're reps. You should ask them who they are willing to vote for and what their non-negotiables are, because they will then be able to go-- they will then take that position into these conversations with these bigger parties as well. Totally. And that's also interesting, right? Because now let's talk about what different coalition-- what different political parties have done with the opportunity of being in municipal ruling government. Super interesting. The African-National Congress is obviously in the most. But the ANC is quite willing to let other people lead-- be mayor, like the ultramar mayor's-- if it gets them in power. Another example is Nassipi Moyer. Action essay, "The mayor of China," despite not having the most votes, not even close. Because the ANC was willing to go, if it means we can get into the interbed with the EFF or whoever, but the other guy say, well, we'll have you in our coalition, but you don't get to have the mayor's seat, they will do it. Whereas the DA is far less willing to do that. They virtually never do it. And the EFF, by the way, virtually never takes on the top seats in a local government, in a local coalition. They are in many local coalitions, but they're quintessential small opposition parties, small lower opposition party. They're one of the big four, but they often get, let's say, between five and 20% of the vote, but usually more like five and 15% in municipalities across the country. And that makes them useful. They can get into a local government coalition, but they virtually never use that to become-- like have one of their people become the mayor, for example, or leader mayor or council. And so if you're thinking of voting for the EFF, you should think, oh, they're probably quite likely to get into the coalition, which is valuable. There will be EFF people affecting how my area is run, my neighborhood, sorry, my town, all my village or my city. But they probably won't be that chief decision maker. You're telling me that the ANC wants to get in power, but not do the job. Oh, I-- That is a shocking revelation, Daniel. How could you say that? But then this is super interesting. So actually, the political party, which has been most effective at over-performing its vote share, is then Carter Freedom Party, the IFP. They are the political party more than any other who, as a percentage of their performance, according to the mystery barometer, they are the best at getting the top seats, even in cases when they may not necessarily have the most votes. So one really important reminder is that you will get multiple ballots. Some of you will get three ballots if you're living in areas that are also run by a local district. These are generally outside of metros. And-- but everyone will get a ballot to vote for your award representative in your specific neighborhood area. That is the person who you will vote for to literally make sure the lights are on your streets. Then you will also vote proportional representation for a political party to contribute to what they will do at local government as an mayoral council that rules multiple awards across the municipality. And then a third one, again, voting for a political party where you would have to vote for a-- like who's going to rule your wider district if you're in an area that falls if you're living in a district, essentially. And again, in the metros, that's not the case. But if you're outside of metros, you most like living in a district area. And so you can be discerning. You can say, well, I actually really like the World Council who's been working in my ward doesn't matter what party they're from. I want them to keep doing that thing. I feel like they understand my community, they rock up, they fight hard for us, they make sure the water comes back on fast, all that. And then separately from that, you can go, oh, but I like the mayoral-- the look of the mayoral representative for my area. And I like the look of this political party, so you can vote differently on each ballot. But you can also uniformly vote the same across all three. So it is very likely, if you're living in a rural area, which has got a district and a local municipality, it is very likely. And most people vote for the same political party on both of those ballots, ballots two and three. But even then, sometimes you might want to choose differently. It's completely up to you. But when people say, oh, it's so hard to figure out who to vote for, you could do this in one hour. It's one hour every two years. In one hour every two years, you just need to go through the set of questions, figure out what you're going to do with your vote, and then go do it. And it's a public holiday, friends. You can go to the beach, can have a bride, and vote all on the same day with no penalty to your work life. Just go and do it. Because once again, I'm pretty sure your neighbor sucks. And do you really want your neighbor's vote to be more impactful on how your neighborhood is run because you chose not to vote? I don't think so. It sounds like it would be bad for your neighborhood. Genuinely, breaking the fourth wall, I don't know who I'm going to vote for yet in my ward. And I hope that our live show is going to help us figure out. that out. And you should come to the live show. Yeah, exactly, about hang consoles. I'm going to see you tomorrow. I've got one joke and I really like it. All right, we'll do the TV&Ques. All right, James. My question for you. I'm really going to enjoy this question. Okay. I hope I will, too. What is the highest selling album by South African musician of all time? Okay. It's definitely not one person. Okay, so let's just go through like the big hit is this Massacala. Uh-huh. My cable. Okay. What is it one artist or a group? Is it just one of the Africans? Does South Africans need to be part of it or does South Africans need to actually be doing the thing? The South Africans have to be the artists exclusively. So it's not a great land. Obviously, because I'm just put a little fairy dust on top of it. Yes. Yeah. Anyway, and sang in English. How did you see the Carl Gordon thing? No. Hey there, Mr. Jumbo. Oh, yes. Underneath the Africans. I think that was an AI joke. I know we're good. No, it's not. Okay. It was a parody of white indie kind of pop rockers from the West coming to South African making. Basically, like the slightly more indie folk version of "I Bless the Rain" down in Africa. Yeah. You know, they'd never actually gone to Africa before they made that song. Even now, as you are giving us side quests and storytelling, you are trying to come up with the answer to the dream question. Okay. I get the sense that it was, oh, I'll be including the 2010 World Cup song. So digital downloads becomes a little bit more key. I want to do physical sales. Physical sales. That changes everything. Yes. So why didn't you tell me that before you asked the question? Because you asked. I followed up. Sorry, I didn't realize I was being questioned by an a furious actor. Okay. So I think if in global youth's choir through the two years, got talent probably were too late for physical sales. Yes. So I would like to posit that it was the ladiesmith blackman bazo album. I don't know which one, but that's why I answered. You are wrong. Good chat. If you know or would like to hazard a guess, and I say hazard, there will be no physical consequences to your health and well-being if you get it wrong. I'm just trying to be clear. We live in a nature of disinformation, James. We have to be really clear. So if you would like to hazard a guess, the WhatsApp line is zero six zero seven six one three four three six. Alternate and that's how you become a recorder alternatively comment on the YouTube comments. Let's get in to some community chats because it is time to yap about some WhatsApp messages we got from yesterday show and also auto comments. Let's get into it. So message from Sepple. First time recorder, by the way. By the way. By the way, it's tabung. Why are you saved as Sepple on your WhatsApp profile if your name is tabung? Sepple tabung? Maybe. Good morning TVN team tabung here. And yes, that's how long I've been a listener, but surprisingly only a first time recorder. I just finished Monday's episode. That's yesterday and went and want to voice my disappointment in Dan. At the end of the episode when James was wilding out, you asked Eric to come in and deal with him. You missed an opportunity to say Eric discipline him. Correct. And then tabung says, why do we have inside jokes if we don't use them? Unacceptable, Daniel. Absolutely unacceptable. That is such a flex. That is so right. Impressive. A friend of the show came up to me on Saturday afternoon and said that he had been listening since the Dan and recorder in the morning days and I'm like, that is like a that's a deep cut and that is an impressive flex. You weren't even involved in that show. It was just me and Eric. Yeah, I was busy. Yeah, you were busy. Making a television show. Hans Kaddonk. Hans Kaddonk. I was in the thick of it. Yeah, then somebody called Rajee says, as a law student who does constitutional law, I vote for prof-corded to do a constitutional education video. We kind of fought his rights. Also, try to get that man on a camera. It is more impressive than writing the constitution. I had to get that man to stop yapping once he started on the constitution. It was like a 10 hour video series. We've watched the lectures on Vula. Yeah, but but chiefly trying to get him to record anything is but nylon impossible. I think if we put him in front of a live audience because he's a great teacher and then we just put a camera at the back. I think we'd have to gaslight him and not tell him that there was a recording device. No, we're not going to lie to our dad again. Where are we on Saturday night? No, no. Jeff says, I sometimes wonder if staying on Twitter, this is a really interesting question. So I've had this question asked me a couple of times on the last week, as we've watched the disinflammation apocalypse happen. This inflammation, am I right? Disinflammation. Yeah, because it's inflaming. Yeah, get yourself a paracetamol. Jeff says, I sometimes wonder if staying on Twitter under its openly fascist leadership is in some small way akin to being a good German under the Nazis. At what point do you draw the line after how many deaths, how many destroyed livelihoods, like what is the actual limit where you withdraw your consent and your complicity? Jeff, that's a great question. I will go first because I actually tweet. James is just a shady lurker, but I actually tweet. So here's my rationale for still being on Twitter. It is still the place where South Africa goes to talk and it's where the news is formed, right? It is also completely overwritten with bots. Most guestimits say that of the tweets you're going to see on a normal Twitter day, like between 20 and 35% of them are not made by human beings, or at least they're made by humans are being paid to say what they're saying. So it's not sincere. I completely understand that. I have read the reports that show that Twitter has been a vector of all kinds of bigotry, by the way, since Elon Musk led all the bigots back on, funny that and and hollowed out and basically destroyed the fact-checking teams that were trying to defend truth on that platform. So one of the funny things is that Elon Musk likes to rage about how good and a supporter he is of Jews, for example. But since he took a nuclear bomb to Twitter's old safeguards against bigotry and disinformation, anti-Semitism has exploded on Twitter along with Islamophobia and racism and homophobia and sexism and all the rest. So I'm on Twitter because that is where our media and it is where a lot of South Africans are seeing arguments happen that then form public opinion and in spread like wildfire across the far more popularly and more used platforms, like TikTok and Facebook and YouTube and Instagram. And if I don't see it as complicity in the evils of Twitter, I actually see me being there as a sane progressive voice talking back to and contesting the lies and the awful arguments and the rest. I will never encourage you to join me on Twitter. I'd prefer none of us was there, but I will remain on Twitter to try and fight back and counter the evil and destructive narratives. Someone tried to challenge me last week in like a panel show I was doing when he said and he said from the audience, saying on Twitter is just surrendering to Musk. And I actually think that leaving Twitter is surrendering to Musk if you are there to fight against the disinformation. Because if you leave Twitter, you just leave like that's one less progressive voice fighting back against the evils on Twitter, which means that Twitter will continue to form opinion and be the place where massive propaganda campaigns are launched and be the place where the media is manipulated into normalizing bigoted beliefs. But if I were to leave Twitter, there would be one less person fighting back against that stuff loudly on Twitter. I think the actual surrender is leaving the place where the audience is. Like, I don't think we should twist this. If you walk away from the place where the audience is, then what you are doing actually is you are walking away from the battlefield and somehow thinking that will help you in the war. No, you're just going to lose the battle. And until there is a solid mass migration of South Africans away from Twitter to a different platform where all the debate can happen, we have to remain there. And you know what a great way of telling South Africans that Twitter is awful is going onto Twitter and calling out how awful it is to try and provide South Africans who are on Twitter evidence to show that they should value it less highly and spend less time there. So that's my rationale. I don't think that me being on Twitter and shouting and fighting against the evils is withdrawing my consent. I don't think it makes me complicit. In fact, I think that if I were to leave Twitter, I've just surrendered to Musk and genuinely Musk and the tech edge ones want people like me to leave Twitter. That's their ultimate goal. Why would I give them that? That sounds like a surrender. That's my argument. You're welcome to disagree. So we're going to hold a couple of the WhatsApp's one from Joshua and one from Neo until tomorrow's show. So Joshua and Neo check out for those WhatsApp's tomorrow that you center on the WhatsApp line. Should we get one quick YouTube comment before we bounce? I'll allow it. You'll allow us. Nice. I love it when James allows it. Oh, this actually links. So Zere Nontlapur233 says on YouTube yesterday, a deeply concerning dimension of this dynamic is the overt mockery directed toward Dan. Well, sorry, well, honest disagreement remains valid. The the rest of the team. targeted at a crucial perspective in today's complex socio-political environment is particularly troubling in this turbulent times. This is a comment on YouTube about the comments section on YouTube and elsewhere. - Oh, sure. - So, Zede, I think it's Zede on the level. I agree. It is also just part of the game, friend. I'm like completely desensitized to it now. I know before I release stuff, how it's gonna be responded to. If you troll through particularly Twitter and some other places, keep your eye out on how many commenters who are being vicious and vile to me are nameless, faceless accounts with no evidence of a genuine human there. Because if they are that, they are either bigoted cowards who are using their platforms to just be vile for an engender, or they are anonymous accounts run by people who are being paid to be awful and to try and mock me and vilify me, or they are genuinely bots that are just programmed software posts and you can just accept that. And it admits that they are sincere people who are genuinely just being awful to me, but like welcome to the internet. Like the way that I see this is, this is a long fight. And you never truly win or lose, just gotta keep fighting for the truth and keep fighting for progressive positions and try to get as many wins as possible. But the war will go on forever. It's about the battles you can win. - Or Ukraine is gonna bomb another server farm and take down Russia. - So we'll see how that goes. - Right, James, the answer to the TV in quiz today, the highest selling of all time physical album and this was reported in essay music mag and they describe this as extensive research from sources such as research. They said we mentioned a compiler list of the best selling South African albums of all time. Number one, Brenda Fasi Memeza. Wow, that, okay, that doesn't make sense. - Number two, Brenda Fasi Nomakhanjani. - Wow, that's great. - Malayka Votelani. - Wow. - Pretty good. - Yeah, it kind of makes sense in that later, 80s, early 90s period where everything was opening up and normal South Africans had more money and they could buy things and stuff like that. I was thinking more of like the international claim of Lady Black. - Yes. - Lady Black, Lady Smith Black, for sure. - All right, it's time to end the show with James's joy. James is often a downer. And so at the end of every show, we given the opportunities to pick us back up. He gets 60 seconds on the clock to tell us something in him, that is, well, something that is spark joy in him in the last 24 hours. This is a gavel that Edita Eric has told me aggressively. He does not want me to bang under any circumstances, but Edita Eric knows that this gavel will be struck. The second James hits 60 seconds, i.e. maxing out his time. So Eric, if I strike this gavel, he's taken of his headwinds to protect himself. It is fully James's fault. Daniel has created a false dichotomy where he insists on using something and then blaming everyone else if it's used. - Actually, the people voted on the WhatsApp channel. - That it should exist, not that you should use it. - No, that's not what they meant. - They meant that you're using it. - No, they didn't say that. - Okay, 60 seconds on the clock. - Three, two, one, go. - Whatever. - I have a spotting list for the Mud Lunger Commission of people I'd like to see in the world. I think there are about six people. So a couple months ago, I saw Charleston at a coffee shop in an unacknowledged city in South Africa. And then I was at the airport and airport in South Africa this last weekend. And I saw the honorable Adela Hassam walking by flanked by security guards. I obviously didn't want to jump up and say, "Oh, you know, because you wouldn't have been shot." I would have been shot tackled and drawn and caught it. - Yes. - And now that we have a Nobel Peace Prize winner, which we weren't recording on the day when she received it. - And I managed to piss off Trump by doing so. I would now like to meet her. She is my next, I don't want to say target, 'cause that sounds very aggressive, but my next goal I have in terms of sightings, though none of these sightings have been pre-planned. - 59 seconds, no gavel. Eric, you can thank James after the recording. - I'm being held hostage here under the might of the gavel, which Daniel has used as asymmetric warfare against my ability to speak. - I would like to meet Navi Palais also. I have met Adela Hassam. She is tremendous and one of our most specialists of people. Thank you so much for attending. The role call is in the description. In the comment section, we'll be back tomorrow.