This chapter argues that the Jacob Zuma administration in South Africa prefigured the Donald Trump presidencies in the United States, particularly in relation to populist promises, patriarchy, and profiteering or “state capture.” Essentially, these politicians were the result of the same neoliberal economic system combined with patriarchal structures. South Africa experienced the ethno-nationalist populism now associated with Trump earlier, because societies in the Global South are on the frontlines of capitalist cruelty and the related precarity. Accordingly, the chapter discusses the Zuma and Trump administrations in the same frame of analysis according to the three axes mentioned above, namely, populist promises, patriarchy, and profiteering. As a tertiary paper, the chapter relies on secondary sources but is informed by a quantitative text analysis and qualitative reading of Twitter data from the Zuma administration captured in 2021. It also draws on qualitative interviews conducted with ten important actors in three prominent events during Zuma’s tenure—the Marikana Massacre, #FeesMustFall, and Zuma’s corruption trial—as well as gray literature such as Zuma’s State of the Nation Addresses. Finally, the chapter suggests that the conditions that enabled Zuma and Trump to come to power will remain in place until neoliberalism is replaced with a more just economic regime.