Bitter, Enraged And Embattled - Not The Greatest Of Legacies

‘Trump will be remembered as the president who sparked insurrection’

- Ross Clark

Donald Trump’s presidency was never going to be conventional, but there was always a faint hope that the responsibilities of his office would transform him into something a little more statesmanlike. Instead, he carried on behaving like an insurgent rather than the most powerful person on Earth.

Even so, nothing quite prepared the world for what happened on Wednesday as protesters, who had earlier been egged on by the President, stormed the Capitol Building. It was, in the words of the last Republican president, George W Bush, more like something from a banana republic.

It would be hard to overestimate the damage caused by these disgraceful scenes. The US has committed many follies over the years, but through it all the world’s richest and most powerful country has shone as a beacon of democracy.

Wherever the US has exercised its power and influence it has asserted the principle that people must be free to elect their political leaders. In Iraq and Afghanistan it instigated democracies from scratch.