A morality play, featuring Trump, unfolds in the US. Will it end in farce or tragedy?

Just under a month after Donald Trump assumed the US presidency, the old order has been turned upside down. Most of us thought an electoral candidate would rise to the occasion on winning, seeking reconciliation between the contending parties, smoothing ruffled feathers and then getting on with the serious business of governing. But, we have the new president coming out with all guns blazing, not only changing policies by the tweet, but also saying that the US legal system is broken, taking on his intelligence agencies, the judiciary and America’s closest neighbour. As a result, the judiciary firmly rejected his travel ban, and his national security adviser got fired.

The hit TV series West Wing is nothing compared with the Trump Reality Show, which is more like a morality play. The Trump players are so righteous in what they believe that they are 100 per cent sure that what they are doing is right; as presidential senior adviser Stephen Miller said, the president’s powers “will not be questioned”. For the first time in world history, we have one leader connected directly, 24 hours a day, to the world by tweets, so that we can all gasp at where the US is going as a country. We are now in a global media feedback frenzy that does not know how to stop. Trump tweets vigorously in response to media reports, and his close advisers respond with such vehemence and moral indignity that the media shoots back immediately with barrages of stories. CNN, The New York Times and the Washington Post have all seen spikes in their ratings or number of subscriptions, all because of this feedback loop.

Surprisingly, the financial markets are shrugging off all the nervous political energy, with the Dow Jones reaching an all-time high. Even Janet Yellen’s hint that higher interest rates are approaching as the US economy begins to recover is treated as good news. Furthermore, the outgoing Fed governor in charge of pushing through major financial reforms like Dodd-Frank has himself admitted that the regulations have inadvertently hit the community banks. So, either the serious and smart money thinks that what is going on in Washington DC is only a blip, or they are aiming to push the market up and pull out before it all comes crashing down.