Over the past week, a small whirlwind of articles in the US media have sounded the same dire warning: that Donald Trump could easily be re-elected president next November and, if he is, he will attempt to establish the first-ever authoritarian regime in American history. Interestingly, these articles are all entirely based on the words of the candidate himself. Mr Trump is running on an explicit programme of authoritarianism, and, these analyses lament, the news media is not adequately communicating this to the public, instead indulging in and allowing a false sense of normality.
It is unclear why all of these articles appeared at essentially the same time. Whether by happenstance, collaboration or some deeper calculation buried within the arcane reckonings of polling and election campaigns, there has suddenly been an intentional or unintentional chorus of panic worthy of a town crier in Pompeii. And rightly so. This is legitimate alarm, not alarmism.
Yet it's not clear, precisely, who these articles are intended to reach, and what reaction they are hoping to provoke. Unquestionably Mr Trump now poses, in a way unlike in 2016 or 2020, a well-articulated and obvious authoritarian assault on the US constitutional order. Ringing the alarm bells, therefore, is an obvious task for civic-minded analysts, even though their work typically does not reach the general public.
The most dramatic and accomplished of these interventions are Robert Kagan's lengthy, thoughtful and unsparing essay in The Washington Post, titled "A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending," along with a full issue of excellent Atlantic magazine essays devoted to the same theme. The Kagan headline is, predictably enough, a little more overwrought than the article. He does not forecast "a Trump dictatorship" as inevitable, but merely a distinct possibility which he assesses at approximately a 50/50 possibility.
Yet Mr Kagan painstakingly peels apart all of the practical steps required to translate a Trump electoral college victory into a growing and serious Trump personalised dictatorship in Washington. He, and all the others, note that Mr Trump's recent campaign speeches have been increasingly promising "retribution" against his real or perceived enemies, or those of his movement and his supporters. He makes no bones about his desire to weaponise the Justice Department and other arms of the federal law enforcement system, claiming that it has been already unfairly used against him, so why not? Still, all of the cases that have been brought against the former president are solidly based in fact and law and are not political, directed by the White House, or in any sense representative of a political vendetta. But to many Americans, it may sound like equitable payback.
Ringing the alarm bells is an obvious task for civic-minded analysts
Mr Trump has always specialised in casting himself as a persecuted victim, besieged on all sides by political hacks and "weaponised” courts and law enforcement. So it would be easy enough for him to vow to do the same thing to his own enemies as soon as possible. "The gloves are off," he has declared in several recent speeches, vowing to persecute perceived enemies, especially from within his first administration, including his former attorneys general Jeff Sessions and William Barr, former Chief of Staff John Kelly and former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Gen Mark Milley, as well as countless Democrats, particularly President Joe Biden and possibly his family.
Indeed, the Democrats in general, he insists, are “a sick nest of people that needs to be cleaned out, and cleaned out immediately”, without specifying what that would specifically entail. He has also taken to calling his political opponents "vermin", an authoritarian buzzword that has been used throughout history to persecute and even massacre opponents. This language has been identified by numerous experts as "war rhetoric", historically reserved by US presidents for opponents overseas. This is the first time, they attest, that a national leader has tried to turn such rage and hatred inward.
The scholars and commentators sounding the alarm bells all note that, during his first term after his surprise (even to himself) victory in 2016, Mr Trump and his acolytes did not know how to manage the power of government effectively or transform it to match their authoritarian sensibilities. This time, Americans are being loudly warned, Mr Trump comes with a detailed plan, which I have outlined previously in these pages, to arbitrarily dismiss vast numbers of experienced, professional civil servants and replace them with thousands of ideologues and personal loyalists gathered from around the country.
The Trump campaign's Project 2025 has developed an ideological purity questionnaire to be filled out by any citizen seeking employment in the next Donald Trump administration that is designed to promote his followers and weed out all who do not march in lockstep. This is a unique effort in US history, which has never before seen a calculated effort to fill the federal bureaucracy with ideologues at the expense of actual professionals.
What Mr Kagan and the others are pointing out is that the supposed "guardrails" both in the Republican Party and in the federal government often barely or even failed to restrain Mr Trump the first time around, when he was essentially clueless, and they are likely to be even more powerless next time.
But one of the most interesting questions is, again, who are these latter-day Cassandras trying to reach? They don't have real access to the mainstream public, although there is almost always reference in their articles to the fact that most Americans have no idea their constitutional system is in the crosshairs of a hyper-empowered would-be dictator, or that a horrifying percentage of those voters who do understand that warmly welcome it.
The effort, instead, is plainly to reach the rest of the political press and urge them to start foregrounding this deeper and more painful truth in everyday news coverage, and especially to stop pretending that everything is normal. All these analyses cite the political media's (read television news’) failure to sufficiently and forcefully communicate that something deeply abnormal and dangerous is afoot. Instead, most political reportage still seems to be limping along with a both-sides and horserace version of reality that fails to adequately acknowledge that one of the two major parties in the US has become a personality cult led by someone determined to impose a kind of American authoritarianism.
Readers of this column, however, were warned back in October 2016 that "this is American fascism”. The threat to US democracy posed by Mr Trump and his movement has only grown darker and more menacing over the past eight years.
Profile of Udrive
Date started: March 2016
Founder: Hasib Khan
Based: Dubai
Employees: 40
Amount raised (to date): $3.25m – $750,000 seed funding in 2017 and a Seed round of $2.5m last year. Raised $1.3m from Eureeca investors in January 2021 as part of a Series A round with a $5m target.
Dhadak 2
Director: Shazia Iqbal
Starring: Siddhant Chaturvedi, Triptii Dimri
Rating: 1/5
U19 World Cup in South Africa
Group A: India, Japan, New Zealand, Sri Lanka
Group B: Australia, England, Nigeria, West Indies
Group C: Bangladesh, Pakistan, Scotland, Zimbabwe
Group D: Afghanistan, Canada, South Africa, UAE
UAE fixtures
Saturday, January 18, v Canada
Wednesday, January 22, v Afghanistan
Saturday, January 25, v South Africa
UAE squad
Aryan Lakra (captain), Vriitya Aravind, Deshan Chethyia, Mohammed Farazuddin, Jonathan Figy, Osama Hassan, Karthik Meiyappan, Rishabh Mukherjee, Ali Naseer, Wasi Shah, Alishan Sharafu, Sanchit Sharma, Kai Smith, Akasha Tahir, Ansh Tandon
What sanctions would be reimposed?
Under ‘snapback’, measures imposed on Iran by the UN Security Council in six resolutions would be restored, including:
- An arms embargo
- A ban on uranium enrichment and reprocessing
- A ban on launches and other activities with ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, as well as ballistic missile technology transfer and technical assistance
- A targeted global asset freeze and travel ban on Iranian individuals and entities
- Authorisation for countries to inspect Iran Air Cargo and Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines cargoes for banned goods
VEZEETA PROFILE
Date started: 2012
Founder: Amir Barsoum
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: HealthTech / MedTech
Size: 300 employees
Funding: $22.6 million (as of September 2018)
Investors: Technology Development Fund, Silicon Badia, Beco Capital, Vostok New Ventures, Endeavour Catalyst, Crescent Enterprises’ CE-Ventures, Saudi Technology Ventures and IFC
Squads
Sri Lanka Tharanga (c), Mathews, Dickwella (wk), Gunathilaka, Mendis, Kapugedera, Siriwardana, Pushpakumara, Dananjaya, Sandakan, Perera, Hasaranga, Malinga, Chameera, Fernando.
India Kohli (c), Dhawan, Rohit, Rahul, Pandey, Rahane, Jadhav, Dhoni (wk), Pandya, Axar, Kuldeep, Chahal, Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar, Thakur.
MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW
Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman
Director: Jesse Armstrong
Rating: 3.5/5
Greatest of All Time
Starring: Vijay, Sneha, Prashanth, Prabhu Deva, Mohan
The specs: 2018 Renault Megane
Price, base / as tested Dh52,900 / Dh59,200
Engine 1.6L in-line four-cylinder
Transmission Continuously variable transmission
Power 115hp @ 5,500rpm
Torque 156Nm @ 4,000rpm
Fuel economy, combined 6.6L / 100km
The Sand Castle
Director: Matty Brown
Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea
Rating: 2.5/5
MATCH INFO
Champions League quarter-final, first leg
Ajax v Juventus, Wednesday, 11pm (UAE)
Match on BeIN Sports
THE APPRENTICE
Director: Ali Abbasi
Starring: Sebastian Stan, Maria Bakalova, Jeremy Strong
Rating: 3/5
What it means to be a conservationist
Who is Enric Sala?
Enric Sala is an expert on marine conservation and is currently the National Geographic Society's Explorer-in-Residence. His love of the sea started with his childhood in Spain, inspired by the example of the legendary diver Jacques Cousteau. He has been a university professor of Oceanography in the US, as well as working at the Spanish National Council for Scientific Research and is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Biodiversity and the Bio-Economy. He has dedicated his life to protecting life in the oceans. Enric describes himself as a flexitarian who only eats meat occasionally.
What is biodiversity?
According to the United Nations Environment Programme, all life on earth – including in its forests and oceans – forms a “rich tapestry of interconnecting and interdependent forces”. Biodiversity on earth today is the product of four billion years of evolution and consists of many millions of distinct biological species. The term ‘biodiversity’ is relatively new, popularised since the 1980s and coinciding with an understanding of the growing threats to the natural world including habitat loss, pollution and climate change. The loss of biodiversity itself is dangerous because it contributes to clean, consistent water flows, food security, protection from floods and storms and a stable climate. The natural world can be an ally in combating global climate change but to do so it must be protected. Nations are working to achieve this, including setting targets to be reached by 2020 for the protection of the natural state of 17 per cent of the land and 10 per cent of the oceans. However, these are well short of what is needed, according to experts, with half the land needed to be in a natural state to help avert disaster.
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EA Sports FC 26
Publisher: EA Sports
Consoles: PC, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox Series X/S
Rating: 3/5
How will Gen Alpha invest?
Mark Chahwan, co-founder and chief executive of robo-advisory firm Sarwa, forecasts that Generation Alpha (born between 2010 and 2024) will start investing in their teenage years and therefore benefit from compound interest.
“Technology and education should be the main drivers to make this happen, whether it’s investing in a few clicks or their schools/parents stepping up their personal finance education skills,” he adds.
Mr Chahwan says younger generations have a higher capacity to take on risk, but for some their appetite can be more cautious because they are investing for the first time. “Schools still do not teach personal finance and stock market investing, so a lot of the learning journey can feel daunting and intimidating,” he says.
He advises millennials to not always start with an aggressive portfolio even if they can afford to take risks. “We always advise to work your way up to your risk capacity, that way you experience volatility and get used to it. Given the higher risk capacity for the younger generations, stocks are a favourite,” says Mr Chahwan.
Highlighting the role technology has played in encouraging millennials and Gen Z to invest, he says: “They were often excluded, but with lower account minimums ... a customer with $1,000 [Dh3,672] in their account has their money working for them just as hard as the portfolio of a high get-worth individual.”
Recent winners
2002 Giselle Khoury (Colombia)
2004 Nathalie Nasralla (France)
2005 Catherine Abboud (Oceania)
2007 Grace Bijjani (Mexico)
2008 Carina El-Keddissi (Brazil)
2009 Sara Mansour (Brazil)
2010 Daniella Rahme (Australia)
2011 Maria Farah (Canada)
2012 Cynthia Moukarzel (Kuwait)
2013 Layla Yarak (Australia)
2014 Lia Saad (UAE)
2015 Cynthia Farah (Australia)
2016 Yosmely Massaad (Venezuela)
2017 Dima Safi (Ivory Coast)
2018 Rachel Younan (Australia)
INFO
What: DP World Tour Championship
When: November 21-24
Where: Jumeirah Golf Estates, Dubai
Tickets: www.ticketmaster.ae.
The specs
Price, base / as tested Dh12 million
Engine 8.0-litre quad-turbo, W16
Gearbox seven-speed dual clutch auto
Power 1479 @ 6,700rpm
Torque 1600Nm @ 2,000rpm 0-100kph: 2.6 seconds 0-200kph: 6.1 seconds
Top speed 420 kph (governed)
Fuel economy, combined 35.2L / 100km (est)
The National Archives, Abu Dhabi
Founded over 50 years ago, the National Archives collects valuable historical material relating to the UAE, and is the oldest and richest archive relating to the Arabian Gulf.
Much of the material can be viewed on line at the Arabian Gulf Digital Archive - https://www.agda.ae/en
Essentials
The flights
Emirates, Etihad and Malaysia Airlines all fly direct from the UAE to Kuala Lumpur and on to Penang from about Dh2,300 return, including taxes.
Where to stay
In Kuala Lumpur, Element is a recently opened, futuristic hotel high up in a Norman Foster-designed skyscraper. Rooms cost from Dh400 per night, including taxes. Hotel Stripes, also in KL, is a great value design hotel, with an infinity rooftop pool. Rooms cost from Dh310, including taxes.
In Penang, Ren i Tang is a boutique b&b in what was once an ancient Chinese Medicine Hall in the centre of Little India. Rooms cost from Dh220, including taxes.
23 Love Lane in Penang is a luxury boutique heritage hotel in a converted mansion, with private tropical gardens. Rooms cost from Dh400, including taxes.
In Langkawi, Temple Tree is a unique architectural villa hotel consisting of antique houses from all across Malaysia. Rooms cost from Dh350, including taxes.
Four-day collections of TOH
Day Indian Rs (Dh)
Thursday 500.75 million (25.23m)
Friday 280.25m (14.12m)
Saturday 220.75m (11.21m)
Sunday 170.25m (8.58m)
Total 1.19bn (59.15m)
(Figures in millions, approximate)
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre flat-six
Torque: 450Nm at 6,100rpm
Transmission: 7-speed PDK auto or 6-speed manual
Fuel economy, combined: 13.8L/100km
On sale: Available to order now
