History can veer off course. It happened in 1914 when the first age of globalisation was consumed in the flames of the Great War; and again during the 1930s when economic hardship, protectionism and nationalism nurtured the rise of fascism in Europe. Donald Trump’s election victory heralds another of these dangerous dislocations.

It may well be that America is resilient and self-sufficient enough to survive a Trump presidency. The founding fathers of the republic foresaw the dangers of populist passions. James Madison set the first objective of the constitution as to “break and control the violence of faction”. For Madison “faction” was the power of any group “united and actuated by some common impulse of passion” to seize power at the expense of fellow citizens. The constitution’s intricate checks and balances are there to block the path to such tyranny.

Rereading this week Federalist No 10, perhaps the most celebrated of what became known as the Federalist Papers, it is obvious that Madison had Mr Trump in mind when he wrote about the need to safeguard the union from domestic insurrection. The president-elect has said he wants to muzzle the media, torture prisoners, lock out Muslims, expel millions of migrants, build a wall against Mexico and cosy up to to Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Lauded by white supremacists, Mr Trump won the prize by disinterring the demons of race.