Half or a quarter of the way through this interesting experiment with an incessantly splenetic presidency, much of the nation has become accustomed to daily mortifications. Or has lost its capacity for embarrassment, which is even worse.

If the country's condition is calibrated simply by economic data – if, that is, the United States is nothing but an economy – then the state of the union is good. Except that after two years of unified government under the party that formerly claimed to care about fiscal facts and rectitude, the nation faces a $1 trillion deficit during brisk growth and full employment. Unless Donald Trump has forever banished business cycles – if he has, his modesty would not have prevented him from mentioning it – the next recession will begin with gargantuan deficits, which will be instructive.

The President has kept his promise not to address the unsustainable trajectory of the entitlement state (about the coming unpleasant reckoning, he said, "Yeah, but I won't be here"), and his party's congressional caucuses have elevated subservience to him into a political philosophy. The Republican-controlled Senate – the world's most overrated deliberative body – will not deliberate about, much less pass, legislation the President does not favour. The evident theory is that it would be lèse-majesté for the Senate to express independent judgments.

Donald Trump: History at his shoulder, which he barely grasps. ALEX BRANDON

And that senatorial dignity is too brittle to survive the disapproval of a president not famous for familiarity with actual policies. Congressional Republicans have their ears to the ground – never mind Winston Churchill's observation that it is difficult to look up to anyone in that position.

The President's most consequential exercise of power has been the abandonment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, opening the way for China to fill the void of US involvement. His protectionism – government telling Americans what they can consume, in what quantities and at what prices – completes his extinguishing of the limited-government pretenses of the GOP, which needs an entirely new vocabulary. Pending that, the party is resorting to crybaby conservatism: we are being victimised by "elites", markets, Wall Street, foreigners, etc.