Former US President Donald Trump has compared himself to the first president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, in a speech to supporters on Monday October 23. So let’s do a fact check on this: is Trump actually like Mandela in any way, or is he deluded? Time to bust out the Venn diagrams!
While speaking at a Trump rally in Derry, New Hampshire, the infamous former president and current presidential candidate was talking about how “hounded” he has been for challenging the result of the 2020 election.
He then, out of the blue, compared himself to one of history’s most notable human rights activists and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
“I don’t mind being Nelson Mandela, because I’m doing it for a reason,” stated Trump to his supporters.
This was in reference to two of his four indictments, which have accused him of interfering in the election count, as well as his involvement in the Jan 6 riots.
“We’ve got to save our country from these fascists, these lunatics that we’re dealing with,” Trump added. “They’re horrible people and they’re destroying our country.”
Presumably, Trump is likening his (self-inflicted) legal persecution to how Mandela spent 27 years imprisoned in South Africa for opposing the country’s apartheid system.
Is this some kind of wild Mandela effect situation where actually Trump did something that makes him like South Africa’s first president?
So to unpack how accurate Trump’s comparison is, we have employed the most effective mean for comparing and contrasting: a Venn diagram.
To truly decipher whether or not Trump’s claim was a moment of his deluded sense of self, or if it may have any truth to it, PEDESTRIAN.TV reached out to host expert on all things Trump.
We asked co-host of the American politics podcast Planet Extra, Sydney University’s Dr David Smith, if Trump is or isn’t actually the same as Mandela? Here’s what he had to say:
“Trump gets a lot more support from Republicans than Mandela ever got from them while he was a political prisoner.”
Smith here spicily pointed out that maybe Trump’s choice of person to compare himself to might not be such a popular character with the average conservative American voter.
Clarifying once and for all what nobody thought really needed clarification: No, Trump is not really the Mandela figure says he is.
