A few days before my birth six decades ago, the leader of the United States delivered an impassioned speech to both houses of Congress about their faith in liberty. “No nation has ever been so ready to seize the burden and glory of freedom,” declared John F Kennedy.

And for all its faults, for all its many blunders and bloodstained misadventures, the sense of America as a superpower that at least claimed to be a force for good has been my life’s backdrop.

This self-declared ideal of the nation as a shining beacon for hope and prosperity, shored up by its cultural hegemony on our planet, withstood even the sleaze of Watergate and the stupidity of invading Iraq.

But no longer. For with each day of Donald Trump’s sordid presidency, the United States slides further into darkness and division as it flirts with despotism under this destructive, grasping and power-crazed old man. We witness the betrayal of allies, blatant corruption, destruction of institutions and weaponising of the law, as he rips up the old world order and tears apart his own democracy like an infant smashing up toys in a tantrum.

In the last week alone he was threatening to grab land from a friendly country and break up Nato. Then, this former draft-dodger dared insult every foreign soldier that fought alongside his nation’s troops in Afghanistan. And finally, at the weekend, another American citizen was shot dead for daring to protest against his grotesque regime that preaches so........

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