Trump lives in a fantasy political world but reality will prevail

Why exactly is Donald Trump's new presidency so disorienting? So far, explanations have tended to focus on its manic pace, contempt for political conventions and blatant subversion of supposedly one of the world's most robust democracies.

- Andy Beckett

But all these elements were also present in his first presidency. Meanwhile, other features of both his terms, such as his cult of personality, scapegoating of immigrants and accusation that liberal elites have caused national decline, are standard practice for hardright strongmen, and have been for at least a century.

Yet still he baffles and wrongfoots people, both opponents and more neutral observers, political professionals and voters, Americans and foreigners.

There is an underexplored reason for this. Trump's presidency, and particularly his second term, is a deeply paradoxical project. In some ways, it's an epic political fantasy, a promise that every dream of US reactionaries and nationalists can be rapidly fulfilled. But in other ways, it's a frightening intrusion of reality - into the rosetinted picture many liberals still have of how America works and how America relates to the rest of the world.