We know how the game ends. People get sick of chaos. They demand order. And all the people Trump feels comfortable with have shown us how order can be brought: with the electrified fence, the rubber bullet, the body slam and the choke hold. The murdered journalist; the corrupted judge; the state of emergency: this is the chaos the authoritarian right will bring to Europe, if we let them, so that strong men, modelling themselves on Trump, can step in and restore order.
Three sets of people need to change their strategy. The liberal centre has to stop attacking the left and fight the right. The left has to unite, preparing itself to defend democratic institutions and ethnic minorities and women’s rights through action, not words. And ordinary people have to wake up and understand. However rubbish the institutions that hold the world together are, chaos is worse.