TOM EATON | Dos and don’ts for Cyril when meeting Donald (be less shocked, for one)

No doubt our president is being thoroughly briefed on how to approach next week’s visit with Donald Trump in Washington DC, with special focus on how to remain calm and friendly in the company of human-shaped blob of bile. But in case Cyril Ramaphosa’s aides have a missed a few spots, I would humbly like to offer one or two tips that might ease his debut on the world’s most degraded reality TV show.

First, Ramaphosa must try to remember that he is travelling to the current head office of global white supremacy, and that, as such, the Extremely White House will be full of staff who are terrified of black people.

Ordinarily I would urge Ramaphosa not to make any sudden movements, but since he hasn’t moved at anything more than a crawl these last many years, perhaps this one is less important.

Second, he must try to rein in his tendency to be shocked by things that have been patently obvious for years. For example, when he walks into the Oval Office, he must not express shock that it is oval, or that Trump’s face is much more orange than his hands, or that the man who has outlawed the word “gender” and wants drag queens banned is wearing makeup as a gender-affirming tool.

Third, it is important that Ramaphosa use small words so that he doesn’t anger Trump. Of course, it doesn’t matter what order he uses them in — Trump won’t be listening to anything he says — but anything beyond two syllables will almost certainly break through the hymns of praise that play on a loop in Trump’s mind and alert him to the fact that he is in the presence of well-spoken and intelligent man, which will obviously end badly.

It is especially vital that Ramaphosa not confuse and enrage Trump by asking him difficult questions, like the names of his sons or what a constitution is.

It is especially vital that Ramaphosa not confuse and enrage Trump by asking him difficult questions, like the names of his sons or what a constitution is. Should the topic of refugees arise, likewise, our president must avoid asking Trump how his administration wants to jail people as anti-Semites for calling out Israeli war crimes and yet, on the other hand, it is welcoming as a refugee one Charl Kleinhaus, who in 2023 tweeted that “Jews are untrustworthy and a dangerous group”.

Above all, Ramaphosa should refrain from asking the US president if, when Trump told journalists on Monday that there was a genocide happening in South Africa, he was lying because he’s a credulous old racist windbag who believes any nonsense he’s told by Fox News or AfriForum, or if he was lying because he’s a malignant shit-stain on humanity who is trying to bolster the cause of white supremacy by amplifying myths of white victimhood.

Yes, Ramaphosa definitely shouldn’t ask Trump that. But if he forgets his training and slips up, perhaps because it is so incredibly difficult to remain serene in the face of the kind of hypocrisy and corruption that make the ANC look like a Swedish children’s charity, he can always woo Trump back by talking about all the things they have in common, like being besties with Vladimir Putin or the benefits of employing buffoons, scoundrels and charlatans as cabinet ministers.

In the end, shared humanity will save the day. And in the absence of that, Ramaphosa could always just buy him a hand-me-down jumbo jet.