It can feel as if populists and the far right are on an inexorable path to dominance, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Most Europeans are appalled by Trump and want their leaders to stop the rot, writes Rebecca McQuillan

It turns out it’s still possible to be shocked to the core by Donald Trump.

A casual observer with half an eye on the telly might have found his speech to the United Nations this week almost funny. Referring to himself in the third person, claiming personally to have ended seven wars, berating the UN for not choosing him as contractor for their New York HQ (“[was] going to give you marble floors”) exposed him as the tedious golf club braggart that he is. Yet again, he debased the office of president; yet again, he diminished America’s standing in the eyes of the world.

But Trump is never funny for long. Amazement among international observers quickly turned into a deep, sickening sense of foreboding. Trump stood at the UN podium attacking the liberal democratic order and commitment to multilateralism that has allowed both the US and Europe to thrive over the last 80 years, and he made clear he would like to see Europe cast in his own image.

He took direct aim across the Atlantic. Immigration, which in Europe as in America has been a source of enormous economic strength, and green energy, which is already yielding millions of jobs across the continent with the potential to deliver lasting prosperity as oil and gas run out, were described, insanely, as a “double-tailed monster”.

In a supreme act of cynicism, he lied once again about climate change, calling........

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