The decorations are down. The last strains of ‘Tidings of comfort and joy’ are no longer audible. Instead, it is the season for the Massacre of the Innocents and the Flight into Egypt. There is a good old Scottish phrase to mark the end of a festival and the return to normal life: ‘back to parrich [porridge] an’ auld claes (clothes).’ That certainly sounds like the geopoliticians’ current diet.

Over the past few days, I have sometimes been invited to predict next year’s course of events. I have replied that it is hard enough to predict the recent past. But there is one point on which we can be certain. No one will have displaced WB Yeats’ laurels. ‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world…The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.’ That was true of much of the last century, and massacres of innocents have not abated during this one. The Christ-child came to offer mankind redemption. The spurning of that offer continues.

Moving away from theology, there has been one surprising recent development which, I think, nobody predicted. Donald Trump has hit the ground faster and with more authority than any US President I can recall (Roosevelt in 1933, perhaps: before my time).

Indeed, there is a contrast with the great Ronald Reagan. I had the good fortune to spend a lot of time in Washington at the end of 1980 and regularly visited the Reagan transition team’s HQ. It was like a zoo. People were wandering around. It was not clear who was doing what or who was in charge. There was an amusing cove called John Carbaugh who seemed convinced that he was going to be Deputy Secretary of State, at least. Others believed him. He used to hold court in the bar of the Madison Hotel where chaps who did indeed become important in the Reagan years were hanging on his every word, not to mention every obscenity. 

Then General Alexander Haig took over. Suddenly, everything was shipshape – or should that be soldierly? Anyway, command structures were falling into place. General Haig did not think much of Carbaugh. As John had worked for Jesse Helms, a very important Senator, he could not be simply brushed aside. So he ended up as Ambassador somewhere in central America, a long way from the centre of power.

Around that time, I heard stories about the new President’s modus operandi. He could never have been accused of losing himself in the detail. Later on, I had the temerity to suggest to Margaret Thatcher that his lack of interest in detail would have made it impossible for him to serve in her government. ‘Ron may not deal with detail. But he does understand the seven principles necessary for the restoration of American greatness.’ As I was asking her what those were, she declared that all this was off the record. so I never found out about the seven points; the Reagan version of MAGA.

Yet it is possible to overstate that mighty President’s insouciance about detail. A friend of mine, then a young White House staffer, was tasked by the President with writing a paper about some aspect of foreign policy ‘and don’t forget Taiwan’. My chum couldn’t see where Taiwan fitted into the paper he was going to write, so with the cockiness of youth, he followed his own intentions. The paper went in. He was summoned to the President. ‘You forgot Taiwan.’ The tone was one of gentle reproach, but the author was wise enough to know better. He was actually being given a first and final warning. Colleagues said that it was possible to express modulated disagreement: ‘with the greatest of respect, Mr President…’ would get you a civil hearing. Indeed, the President might change his mind, in your direction. But otherwise: you did what you were told.

So will President Trump forget Taiwan? There are rumours that President Xi might have concluded that an invasion would be unwise but that there is an alternative: a blockade. China declares that far too much contraband is being smuggled into Taiwan, which is of course Chinese sovereign territory, and therefore intends to search every vessel travelling to a Taiwanese port. That would strangulate Taiwan. So might the new President come to the rescue: a seaborne equivalent of the Berlin Airlift with the US convoying every Taiwanese-bound vessel? That could have the scope for a formidable confrontation. So what would Donald Trump do? Does the man himself know what he would do?

Up to now, he has given the impression that MAGA mainly refers to a domestic agenda and that he is not that interested in meddling abroad. But one suspects that he is deeply interested in avoiding humiliation. So, what next? There is one useful insight. Everyone who knows him seems to agree that the President is a disrupter and that we can wholly discount the possibility of his smiling benignly in the Oval Office while his chosen team runs a stable administration. Moreover, he has already notched up one remarkable achievement. He has found a man who has a larger ego than he does. Elon Musk’s power of disruption even exceeds Trump’s, as Nigel Farage is now discovering. Musk would clearly like to fly into space, without bothering with a space-ship. Can he and President Trump possibly work together? Could there be enough ego-massaging oil in the entire planet to satisfy them both? It will be fun to watch.

Bruce Anderson is a political commentator and freelance journalist.

Columns are the author's own opinion and do not necessarily reflect the views of CapX.