Are Afrikaner Farmers Divided Over Trump's Influence?

(The Post News)- At the heart of the Free State’s vast maize belt, the Nampo Harvest Day agricultural fair offers more than tractors, livestock, and seed displays. It also provides a glimpse into the political psyche of a community at a crossroads. Among the khaki-clad Afrikaner farmers who gathered in Bothaville, a growing debate has taken root—one centred not around soil or yield, but around a man 13,000 kilometres away: Donald Trump.

Just days before the fair, reports emerged that a small group of white South Africans, Afrikaners had been accepted into the United States as refugees, citing fears of racial persecution. For many at Nampo, it was a validation of warnings they feel have long gone unheard. For others, it raised uncomfortable questions about truth, fear, and national identity.

“There is no doubt there is a genocide in South Africa,” said 31-year-old maize farmer John Potgieter, pointing to a memorial listing the names of murdered farmers. His claim, echoing rhetoric once amplified by Trump, underscores a belief among some Afrikaners that they are victims of a slow, racial purge. Yet when pressed, Potgieter conceded, “Obviously, genocide is a broad word. It is not a mass genocide like the Holocaust.”

South Africa’s violent crime statistics are grim—averaging 75 murders a day—but experts clarify that most victims are young black men in urban areas. While farm attacks do occur, they are part of broader national crime patterns. Roughly 50 farmers of all racial backgrounds are killed annually, far fewer than often claimed by right-wing narratives.

“It is much safer on a farm than in a town,” said Eduard van der Westhuizen, a sheep and goat farmer. “There are problems, murders sometimes, but it is not targeted.” Still, the Trump debate is not about safety, it is about symbolism. For some, Trump represents a leader unafraid to name uncomfortable truths and defend embattled identities. For others, he stands for a dangerous distortion of South Africa’s complex reality.

The divide reveals deep uncertainties within the Afrikaner farming community. While some are drawn to Trump’s brand of nationalism and fear-driven politics, others push back against what they see as imported paranoia that risks fuelling division at home. Underlying it all is a community grappling with its place in a democratic South Africa, no longer politically dominant, but still culturally distinct and economically vital.

The Trump debate does not just show where people stand politically. It shows how they see themselves in a country still wrestling with its past, and unsure about its future. In the fields of Bothaville, amid the roar of engines and the lowing of cattle, a quiet reckoning is underway. And what it reveals is more than political opinion; it is a struggle over identity, history, and belonging.