The words “coup” and “USA” traditionally only appeared together in works of fantasy and satire. But that's no longer the case. The theme of an American "coup" is being increasingly normalised in US discourse through the conduct and language of former president Donald Trump and his allies.
More than 100 days into the current Biden administration, Mr Trump – who is now reemerging from a period of relative isolation at his Florida resort – has yet to acknowledge either his defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 election or the legitimacy of his successor.
Mr Trump is struggling to be heard, particularly without his preferred Twitter platform. His dwindling band of aides pulled the plug on a much-ballyhooed Trump blog after only 28 days online, because few paid any attention to the incoherent postings. In retrospect, the brevity of Twitter imposed a useful discipline on Mr Trump's effusive tendencies.
Yet Mr Trump and his allies won't admit that he lost. The obvious corollary is that he actually won in November but, as he and his supporters insist, he was cheated out of victory by a massive, unprecedented fraud. There is, of course, no evidence whatsoever of this. There is, to the contrary, ample evidence that the election was particularly effective and clean, despite the pandemic and the biggest turnout in more than a century.
The latest fever-dream in Trumpworld is the inexplicable concept that some unimaginable something will happen that leads to Mr Trump being "reinstated" in office this August, or sometime thereabouts. Several of his backers have promoted this theory, and the former president seemed to refer to it in a recent public statement in which he vowed “we’re gonna take back the White House – and sooner than you think. It’s going to be really something special…”
Such an eventuality is not only fanciful, it could only be the result of a coup. There is no provision in the US Constitution for the "reinstatement" of any official. The only lawful way for a Republican president to replace Mr Biden is via the 2024 election. That’s it. Mr Trump cannot be "reinstated" through any normal constitutional or lawful process.
But The New York Times and numerous other major publications, reported the former president has been telling his visitors in Florida to expect his "reinstatement", along with those of former Republican senators David Perdue and Martha McSally for some reason, later this summer.
These themes were amplified when his first national security adviser, retired Gen Michael Flynn – who was pardoned by Mr Trump for lying to the FBI about conversations with Russian officials – openly endorsed a US coup.
At a QAnon conspiracy theory conference, Mr Flynn was asked why what occurred in Myanmar (pronounced by the questioner as “Minimar”) – obviously referring to the February 1 military coup in that country – couldn't be done in the United States?” “No reason,” he replied, “I mean, it should happen here.” Mr Flynn later denied he was suggesting a US coup, but he plainly was.
Delegitimising the outcome of the 2020 election and the US political process has become the main focus of Mr Trump's political reengagement and a guiding theme for many of his supporters. Their relentless propaganda against the US democratic system has borne fruit. A recent poll found that 53 per cent of Republicans, and one-fourth of Americans generally, believe that Mr Trump is the "true president".
This idea is the usually unarticulated subtext for a raft of Republican state-level efforts to restrict voter access and disempower non-partisan election officials. Even where, for example in Texas, Republicans won virtually every aspect of the election, highly restrictive anti-voting legislation is being adopted based on the false assertion that the 2020 election was marred by rampant fraud, at least elsewhere.
Indeed, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton implied that Mr Trump would have lost Texas too, had he not successfully blocked efforts to mail postal ballots to all registered voters.
The insurrection at Congress on January 6 was certainly some form of extravagantly ineffective "auto-golpe" – a "self-coup" that Latin American strongmen used to keep themselves in power in the 20th century. Yet that deadly riot, which sought to prevent Congress from certifying Mr Biden's victory, might prove a long-term success, at least in laying the foundation for future violent disruption attacks.
The same applies to Mr Trump's numerous efforts to overturn the election results behind the scenes, most notoriously by pressuring Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" him non-existent votes he needed to win the state, reportedly saying: "Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break." Mr Raffensperger, like many other election officials in Republican-controlled states, has been disempowered since.
Anyone who thinks a coup following the next election is the stuff of fantasy isn't paying attention
There is every reason to believe Mr Trump, who remains in solid control of his party, is preparing to run again in 2024. And if, for some reason, he doesn't, any candidate imbued with his ethos and reflecting the current attitudes of the party would probably refuse to accept defeat.
A great deal of what Republicans have been doing, especially the state level, as well as in terms of rhetoric and ideas, has been centred on dismantling the administrative, structural and, above all, attitudinal obstacles to rejecting and overturning an unacceptable result.
An American coup, long the stuff of fiction, reared its ugly head but quickly collapsed after the last election. Mr Trump won't be "reinstated" in August, and Mr Flynn's Myanmar-style coup by the military won't happen either.
But all that misses the point.
What has been going on even before November 3, but especially after, is an effort to acculturate Americans to the legitimacy of extra-constitutional political interventions to make “wrong” things “right". Anyone who still thinks a coup in Washington following the next presidential election is the stuff of fantasy or conspiratorial paranoia simply isn't paying attention.
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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Yemen's Bahais and the charges they often face
The Baha'i faith was made known in Yemen in the 19th century, first introduced by an Iranian man named Ali Muhammad Al Shirazi, considered the Herald of the Baha'i faith in 1844.
The Baha'i faith has had a growing number of followers in recent years despite persecution in Yemen and Iran.
Today, some 2,000 Baha'is reside in Yemen, according to Insaf.
"The 24 defendants represented by the House of Justice, which has intelligence outfits from the uS and the UK working to carry out an espionage scheme in Yemen under the guise of religion.. aimed to impant and found the Bahai sect on Yemeni soil by bringing foreign Bahais from abroad and homing them in Yemen," the charge sheet said.
Baha'Ullah, the founder of the Bahai faith, was exiled by the Ottoman Empire in 1868 from Iran to what is now Israel. Now, the Bahai faith's highest governing body, known as the Universal House of Justice, is based in the Israeli city of Haifa, which the Bahais turn towards during prayer.
The Houthis cite this as collective "evidence" of Bahai "links" to Israel - which the Houthis consider their enemy.
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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.”
