America’s system of government, and the constitution on which it is built, was created in different times and for different circumstances and purposes, and it has changed very little since then.

Many of its components, such as the way elections are conducted, are battered and worn from centuries of use and abuse. So it would not be surprising if America faced a second revolution, 250 years after the first.

This may be the best way to understand what is happening today.

Ever since that day in 2015 when Donald Trump announced his intention to run for president, he has been by far the most important figure in American politics. It is a remarkable record.

Since George Washington, no figure in American history has dominated US politics so completely for so long except Franklin D. Roosevelt.

But FDR worked his political magic through artful manipulation of Washington’s constitutional machinery and norms. Trump has dominated American politics by flagrantly and gleefully challenging and violating them.

That is what gives his ascendancy the feeling of a second American Revolution.

This revolution is also the product of discontent in the US electorate, fragility in key political institutions and turmoil in American conservative ideology.

But Trump is at the heart of it. His remarkable character is the catalyst that gives those other factors their power and effect. And character is what the Trump phenomenon is all about.

Taking Trump seriously

Trump’s primary concern is not the policy outcomes that flow from his actions – their real-world consequences – but how they make him look.

White’s latest book addresses the post-Trump world. Photo: Black Inc Books

It is, in a sense, all about performance, as was underlined by a revealing remark Trump made to a journalist early in the Iran war.

“I hope you are impressed,” he said. “How do you like the performance? I mean, Venezuela is obvious. This might be even better. How do you like the performance?”

It is hard to fathom the frank acknowledgement of irresponsibility implied by these remarks.

Over time, with endless repetition, Trump’s transgressions become familiar and cease to shock. But if we are to understand the world we live in, it is important not to lose our sense of bewilderment and dismay that this person leads, inspires and controls – indeed constitutes – a political movement which has seized control of the key instruments of national power in America and to which the US political system has, it seems, no effective antidote or response.

He defies all we thought we knew about that system, and indeed about the whole way electoral democracies work around the world.

Is there any precedent at any time for a person like Trump being elected and re-elected anywhere in any functioning democracy?

Perhaps the closest precedent is Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi, but he pales beside Trump. Berlusconi proved to be little more than an ageing party animal. Trump is leading a revolution.

Plainly, Trump has some extraordinary talents. His capacity to intimidate and humiliate is obvious. His ability to charm and disarm those he meets is more surprising but perhaps just as important. Many people who meet him attest to it.

Even Kamala Harris, his eventual Democratic rival in the 2024 presidential........

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