Biden has to get ready to face a 'Tea Party on steroids'

US President-elect Joe Biden's 2020 campaigns – both in the Democratic primaries and when he beat departing President Donald Trump in the general election – were built on the promise of national reconciliation and a return to the political centre. That was always going to be a tall order, but the post-election aftermath is virtually guaranteeing that partisan antagonism, and concomitant governmental gridlock, will be worse than ever.

While Mr Biden says he wants the deeply divided country to begin to reunite around shared principles and goals, Mr Trump is pushing vigorously, and effectively, to promote extreme outrage among his supporters. Reconciliation cannot begin if much of the country believes that the election was "stolen", Mr Biden is a usurper and Mr Trump is the "real president".

Mr Trump and his allies have presented no credible evidence of meaningful irregularities and lost over 50 court challenges on both procedural and factual grounds.

Yet the constant drumbeat of allegations, however fact-free, has by now embedded the myth of the "stolen election" into the belief system of most Republican voters, according to recent polls. It threatens to become a defining creed.

Joe Biden will find it extremely difficult to bring together a deeply divided America. AFP

His final month in office could be especially tumultuous. Numerous major newspapers reported that, on Friday, Mr Trump held what was surely one of the most bizarre and disturbing meetings ever in the White House.

Among the ideas seriously contemplated by the President were declaring martial law and using the military to force swing states to redo their elections so that Mr Trump can “win".

That amounts to serious consideration of a coup d'etat by a sitting US president. Military leaders yet again felt obliged to state publicly that they would not use force to keep him in power.

One adviser describes Mr Trump's current attitude as seeking any ideas "to stay in office past January 20". At the meeting he also pondered an executive order seizing control of state voting machines.

Mr Trump will probably never concede defeat and leave the presidency. But the presidency will leave him on January 20 when Mr Biden is inaugurated.

It seems far-fetched for a former president to retain an iron grip on his party without the power of the White House. But Mr Trump could well pull it off. He is likely to go into heavy-duty campaign mode on, or even before January 20, and will almost certainly hold some sort of "Trump 2024" rally at the same time as Mr Biden's inauguration. Elected Republicans will probably be held to account for which event they attend.

Immediately after the election, many leading Republicans argued that not publicly acknowledging Mr Biden's victory was merely a way to humour Mr Trump and allow him to ease into a more gracious exit.

Mitch McConnell, the top-ranking Republican in the US Senate, defied tradition by waiting for the Electoral College vote before congratulating Joe Biden. Bloomberg

This assumption predictably backfired, as they failed to understand that Mr Trump’s masterful demagoguery would trap them into tacitly supporting, or at least not openly contradicting, the "stolen election" mythology. And now that this myth is dominating the political consciousness of many Republican voters, it is becoming an article of faith and a definitive litmus test. That is precisely how Mr Trump will attempt to maintain control of his party.

It sets a new standard whereby ever conceding defeat in an election is anathema for Republicans. Co-operation with the Biden administration may often seem immoral treachery. It might even be difficult for Mr Biden to secure Senate approval for some cabinet appointments, unless Democrats improbably win both Georgia Senate run-off elections on January 5 and gain the narrowest possible control of the Senate.

Challenges to reconciliation will not come just from Republicans. The emerging Biden cabinet is decidedly centrist, angering many left-wing Democrats who never trusted him anyway.

Centrists hoped Mr Trump's unpopularity would give Democrats a huge victory in Congress along with the White House. Any leftist insurgency could then be contained in the glow of a decisive victory under centrist leadership. But while Mr Biden's win was comprehensive, Democrats actually lost seats in the House of Representatives and probably will not control the Senate. Leftists are already asserting themselves and they, too, will be militating against compromises as betrayals of principles.

As for Republicans, their determination to not co-operate is clearly signalled in the latest coronavirus relief bill negotiations. These have been complicated by a depressingly predictable though sudden resurgence of Republican concern about budget deficits, which were blithely dismissed during the Trump presidency.

They have also been moving to hamstring the powers of the Department of the Treasury and Federal Reserve Bank to direct disaster relief and recovery, again attempting to hobble the incoming administration. The national economy may again fall victim to cynical partisan politicking.

Too many political actors have incentives to oppose Biden's national healing

Republicans are drifting into an oppositional hysteria that may make the "tea party" extremism of the Barack Obama era look calm and conciliatory.

Mr Trump has often trafficked in conspiracy theories, beginning his political career as the main champion of "Birtherism", the crude fabrication that Mr Obama was born outside the US and hence ineligible for the presidency. Now he is leaving his own presidency effectively promoting the ideas that not only is Mr Biden an illegitimate president, but the entire US democratic system is a fraud.

Republican leaders must either find a way to convince their voters that this not actually true or remain in the thrall of Mr Trump for at least the next two years . Almost none of them have even begun to try. Instead, they are allowing their party to become defined by a set of paranoid and dangerous delusions. As ever, they seem to have an inexplicable confidence that they can ultimately control such combustible elements. Or maybe they just do not care.

It is not impossible for Mr Biden to find a way to overcome all of this and really begin American national healing and a centrist resurgence. Much of the public would rejoice at that, but too many political actors have every incentive to oppose it.

His challenge looks far steeper today than immediately after the election. Back then, it merely appeared daunting.

Hussein Ibish is a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute and a US affairs columnist for The National

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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

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