Lessons from Donald Trump’s South African doppelgänger, Paul Kruger

I am a longtime student of South African politics and history, and have visited on a regular basis since 1991. In 2019, I began research for a book about the country’s first 25 years under post-apartheid democracy, with a focus on Kruger’s namesake town – Krugersdorp – and the modern municipality in which it sits, Mogale City.

I came to learn about Kruger and his important role in South African history, and some of those findings are particularly relevant at this moment in American history, and in the context of strained South African-American relations.

Strong similarities between the two men remind us that while populists may claim to espouse radically new world views, usually they are just playing the same old song. Kruger’s story also provides fair warning of what might be in store for my country should we continue on this path, with potentially disastrous consequences. 

Both men invoked anti-elite, anti-intellectual, anti-globalist agendas. In the late 1830s, while Kruger was still a child, he and his family left the British-governed Cape Province as participants in the Great Trek. Kruger’s rejection of books — except for the Bible — was more than just “folksy appeal”; it was a political stance, reinforcing distrust of educated leaders, who were disproportionately from the “other” white group. Trump, though formally educated, has weaponised a similar disdain for expertise, targeting scientists, academics and the media.

Both Kruger and Trump sought to appeal to their base by restricting immigration. Kruger sought to keep out the thousands of uitlanders from Britain, Australia, Ireland, America and other corners of the world, hoping for a share of newly discovered gold deposits.

Trump, of course, is not just making it harder for people to come into the United States, but is forcibly removing many, and he is trying to change a key constitutional path to citizenship.

Like Trump is doing today, Kruger pressed on cultural issues even during an economic boomtime. He avenged what he saw as the original indignities of his childhood, and mandated that official business in the Republic be conducted in Afrikaans.

He expressed concerns about the trustworthiness of uitlanders and said that they were like illegal squatters making unreasonable demands, describing them as “thieves and murderers.” In 2025, President Trump uses almost identical language.

Foundation for apartheid