TO placate the masses, Roman leaders served up bread and circuses – panem et circenses.

Gladiators fought to the death, slaves were fed to lions, and wild beasts were set against one another in super-sized versions of cockfights.

Things haven’t changed that much over the past 2,000 years. Bread and circuses is the stuff of populist politics; and the ritual humiliation of people on reality television has jumped from our screens into real life.

This degradation of society and the destruction of once-great political ideas has reached its apotheosis in the United States.

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This nation, which once rejected the chains of colonialism, which laid the foundations of the new state on the principle that “all men are created equal”, and which set out as inalienable rights “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, has been debased by a pseudo-emperor who is giving Nero a run for his money.

Donald Trump sees everything through the lens of what is in his own personal interest. He has turned the presidency into another branch of Trump Inc – milking it for all it is worth, enriching himself and his family.

And he has........

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