We see untrammelled power with fawning courtiers. George Washington would have recognised the new system at the White House

Donald Trump’s triumphal return to the White House was American political theatre on steroids. This was, of course, exactly the returning president’s intention. “Shock and awe” was the en vogue phrase in the Trump camp to describe it, as the president sought to obliterate the Biden era in a blizzard of executive presidential orders and day-one Maga movement payoffs.

Trump’s second inauguration was exceptionally well worked. Where or whether it all lands in the form of delivered policy is a different issue. To some, it may feel petty to note that the last US “shock and awe” exercise – the Iraq invasion of 2003 – also generated a feast of indelible images of American power. But that one certainly did not end well.