Trump Derangement Syndrome, and how to treat it

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With hindsight, my pro-Kamala alarm bells should have started ringing at a dinner party at the end of the Future Investment Summit in Riyadh.

The US presidential election had been a big item at the FII, with votes in the plenary hall strongly in favour of the re-election of President Trump.

I’d put that down to the cordial relationship with Saudi Arabia which he had enjoyed during his first presidency, and lingering animosity in the kingdom to the Democrat Biden administration.

It was not typical of world opinion, I assumed, nor more importantly of opinion where it really mattered – in the USA.

But at a villa in Riyadh’s smart Sulaymaniah district I was treated to a cross section of political views that really should have shaken me out of the conviction that it was going to be a close presidential race and that Vice-President Harris was in with a fighting chance.

Out of seven people around a dinner table – Americans mainly, with a Brit or two – I was the only one who did not believe that Trump would walk it. The economy, illegal immigration and endless wars were the election issues that would turn it decisively Trump’s way, they said.

I was adamant in my view that Trump was a threat to US democracy who would leave his allies around the world in the lurch, and exacerbate the two most serious conflicts of the twenty-first century – Ukraine and Palestine.

But afterwards, on the plane back to Dubai the following day, the nagging doubts crept in. What if they were right, and I was wrong? Unthinkable.

I can understand arguments that Trump may be good in business terms for the Arabian Gulf

I shook these doubts off when, a couple of days later, America went to the polls and I prepared to host a post-election panel at Dubai’s Capital Club.

As I drove in early in the morning, it was still neck and neck, with only a few states declared and all of them going as expected. Kam – we were on nickname terms, in my mind – was still in with a chance.

Just a little backstory. I’m not American but have always identified with the good old US of A, going all the way back to Elvis Presley, Hollywood and President JFK (a superhero in my Irish Catholic boyhood).

This affinity only grew stronger when my eldest daughter went to university in New York, met and married an American, and graced me with two beautiful granddaughters, US citizens. I had skin in the game.

They moved to Los Angeles four years ago, and I visit them as often as possible. I regard myself as a super-commuter on the 16-hour flight to California, and my friends in Dubai josh me that I’ve picked up the wacky wokeness of the Golden State along the way.

By the time I got to the Capital Club, I had a distinct feeling of unease. The seven swing states were all going Trump’s way, and Kam would need to pull off a miracle in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin to stay in the race.

My foreboding only deepened when I shook hands with Joe Beydoun, one of the panelists that morning and chairman of the Republicans Overseas organisation in the UAE. Joe was as bubbly and confident as could be – and predicting a big Trump win.

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My mood worsened when another panelist, Sam Khunaizi, former chair of Democrats Abroad in the UAE, revealed he had voted for Jill Stein, the independent who had no chance of being elected but could damage Kam’s chances in the key states.

Meeting my third panelist, Xevion Baptiste, for the first time cheered me up a little. A former intern in the Obama White House, she was still hopeful the big northern states would go Democrat and pull victory from the jaws of defeat.

But soon after the panel took the stage, it was obvious the game was up for Kam.

What was billed as knife-edge debate turned into Trump triumphalism, and the two-hour session became a post-mortem into the defeated Democrats.

Where do we go from here? I can understand arguments that Trump may be good in business terms for the Arabian Gulf region, though I don’t think he will have the interests of long-suffering Palestinians at heart. Likewise Ukraine, which will probably be abandoned.

On the US domestic front, my California family is deeply worried about what he’ll do for their comfortable, laid-back way of life.

I’m not about to take a course of therapy for Trump Derangement Syndrome, as I read journalists at the UK’s Guardian newspaper are being offered. But I am deeply apprehensive of what the next four years will bring – for LA and the world.

In 2028, I’m going to listen harder to the Sulaymaniah dining room. At least I’ll be braced for the shock.

Frank Kane is Editor-at-Large of AGBI and an award-winning business journalist. He acts as a consultant to the Ministry of Energy of Saudi Arabia and is a media adviser to First Abu Dhabi Bank of the UAE