Good morning. Paramilitary-style troops deployed on the streets of major cities fatally shooting citizens; vessels seized in international waters; a foreign head of state captured; cherished cultural institutions dismantled; a judiciary installed and seemingly in thrall to the regime; and the mooted breaching of presidential term limits. It sounds like the background to a spy thriller about a rogue state.
Yet some argue that the Trump administration in the US has done all of these things – and more – in the space of just a year in office. The question is whether these developments are merely episodic flashes of the chaos we have come to associate with Donald Trump, or signs of a deeper, longer-term transformation in the character of American power.
