The Gist

Farming for Red Herring

South Africa’s “white genocide” isn’t happening. One of the myth’s catalysts—farmland redistribution—might not either. 

Supporters of the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters gather to listen to his address outside the Bloemfontein Regional Court on April 6.

Charl Devenish/AFP/Getty Images

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On The Gist, Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation is all but certain.

A recent Donald Trump tweet gave credence to a bogus (and dangerous) claim: that South Africa’s white farmers are the first targets in a looming genocide. Quartz reporter Lynsey Chutel has the actual statistics, as well as the political context—land reform—that pushed white nationalists into embracing victimhood in the first place.

In the Spiel, a roundup of the minor scandals that broke over Labor Day weekend.

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Podcast production by Pierre Bienaimé and Daniel Schroeder.