Cliff: Mulder and Cameron offer substantive SONA critiques on presidential decision-making

“Both identified that Cyril Ramaphosa, who we've known since before 1994, is not good at executive decision-making. The president prefers consensus. Let's all get in a room. Let's kumbaya. Let's hug and kiss. Let's set up a task team. As long as I don't actually have to make the decision.”

“He loves to give off signals. You want people to like you, you want people to think you're a good guy, that you care about the poor, that you're interested in building multi-million dollar smart cities which never come to fruition. But you don't want to give the directives to do that.”

“Legal firearm owners in South Africa are among the most responsible people you will find in society. They are the people who can be relied upon when everything else falls apart. They are not the enemy.”

“We need people who can act and then maybe apologize if they've made a bad decision afterwards rather than keep asking for permission. If you move fast and break things, you often end up with better than if you just sit and do nothing at all.”