Pulsating hope of Obama era well and truly lost as Trump wreaks havoc all around him

In a cameo that in other times might be considered comical, he solicits a Nobel Prize even as his wild thrashing sets nation against nation, brings his own land to the cusp of civil war, his blazing narcissism an accelerant to an already flaming age.

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Bestowing an award for global harmony on this divisive brute would seem as historically incongruous as chiselling a dove of peace onto the shoulder of a Red Square Putin sculpture.

At home, Trump's divisive bluster, hateful impulses and autocratic instinct have driven a canyon of loathing through an already polarised and frightened society,

Troops invade their own cities, science gives way to stone age superstition, paranoia stalks the streets, efforts to hold back the tide seem futile. The centre can no longer hold. Like a derailed trolly car, The Land of the Free hurtles towards its doom.

In a black portrait of the new absurdity, a 58-year-old Irish green card holder who has lived in America for 47 years is incarcerated in a cage and threatened with deportation over a $25 dollar cheque which put her into overdraft a decade ago.

The Commander-in-Chief is blind or indifferent - most likely both - to cause and effect.

ABRASIVE

As the political commentator Sidney Blumenthal observed: "Trump's psychological equilibrium requires the constant rejection of his responsibility for the abrasive reality he churns up."