Andy Beckett: In Trump’s fantasy politics, he can accomplish anything — but reality will prevail

Americans are undergoing a frightening intrusion of reality into their rose-tinted picture of how their country works and how the world sees them

The central assumption of the Donald Trump fantasy is that, in his remaining four-year term, during which he will enter his 80s, despite the US’s sharp social divides and inevitable buffeting by global crises, he can accomplish almost anything. Picture: Matt Rourke

Why exactly is Donald Trump’s presidency so disorienting? 

So far, explanations have tended to focus on its manic pace, contempt for political conventions, and blatant subversion of supposedly one of the world’s most robust democracies.