They can smell the fear. And they are thrilled by what they can smell. Fanned by a mesmerised media at home and abroad, the thrill excites them into fresh provocations. Donald Trump knows the US’s allies’ nerves are jangling as his second presidency approaches – and he wants to keep it that way. Elon Musk is similarly glorying in his power to provoke and misinform without suffering penalty or reprimand – least of all from most of Britain’s politicians and press.

Both men are bullies. And this is what bullies do. However, there is no disputing that this is also their moment. The Trump inauguration on 20 January will be an in-your-face celebration of America First power. It will also be a requiem that consigns large parts of the rules-based postwar global settlement to the grave.

Welcome to the world of the next four years – and maybe more. Except that, if one thing can be said with confidence about the Trump second term, it is that at some stage he will surely turn against Musk, probably in a dispute over the scale of government spending cuts. In the end, there will only be room for one egomaniac at the controls.

But there is also something distinctly performative about the taunts that Trump and Musk have been firing off against the continuing supporters of the liberal democratic order in these past few weeks. This performative habit is not new. Trump, after all, discovered in his first term that promising a wall on the border with Mexico did not mean he actually had to finish building one. The threat, and what it stood for, proved more than enough in domestic political terms. It may be the same this time around.

This is not to deny that on some important........

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