The mood is damp and oh so ugly. It is difficult to believe that in two months’ time, the first black President of the United States will hand over the keys to the White House to a man who got there on an Islamaphobic, xenophobic ticket and ended up being congratulated by a former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard. One step forward, eight steps back, not least since Trump has vowed to repeal “every Obama executive order”. The parallels with Brexit are sobering: we all saw it coming but buried our heads in the sand. This was always going to be a “Brexit plus plus”.

Rather like the Brexit buffoons in Westminster who set the scene for this mind-numbing victory, Trump has no action plan. The world – its leaders, markets and people – roam around in a penumbra of hopeless uncertainty. Whatever next? If he follows through on all the bilious rhetoric that catapulted him into power, his first 100 days will be eventful and gruesome.

In his own words, the egomaniac will be preparing to “bomb the shit out of Isis”, starting the process of “removing the more than two million criminal, illegal immigrants”, “vetting” all Muslim travelling to the so-called land of the free, withdrawing from NATO, cancelling all payments to UN climate change programmes, starting trade wars with China and forcing Mexico to cough up for that infamous wall. Busy days ahead, indeed.

In the wake of the result, some have already come out in force to argue that Trump will be more moderate than he was on the campaign trail. He has, after all, shown Democratic tendencies in the past. He is a businessman in the end, they say; a pragmatist who thinks with his head rather than heart, uninterested in ideology. That may be so. It may not. We will find out in the months to come.

US Election: Thousands protest Trump's victory

Yet for Muslim, black and Hispanic Americans, the damage is already done: Trump has unlocked Pandora’s box. The demons of hate, intolerance, ignorance and division have been set free.

Trump has created a bigger, more powerful beast than himself: his supporters are angrier and more emboldened than ever before. Their leader can (potentially) be tamed. His 100 million (mostly white and male) army cannot.

Trump may rein it in and play by the rules of the game, but the politics of hate is here to stay. The high officials in the Pentagon might well stop him from pressing the nuclear button or bombing countries where Isis operates to smithereens, but they cannot contain the hatred and inter-racial hostility on the streets of America.

That leaves ethnic and religious minorities in a heartbreakingly vulnerable position. Trump’s victory will legitimise racially and religiously motivated attacks. How many more innocent young black men will die thanks to police brutality or unprovoked attacks? Trump seems unfazed: gun-free zones, he promised, will be a thing of the past.

Also precarious is the position of American Muslims. Indeed, Trump has responded to a number of Isis terrorist attacks by vilifying Islam in general, heavily implying that any follower of the religion is somehow tainted by the acts of a few wrong-headed fundamentalists. Now victorious, Trump has clothed hate and Islamaphobia with a shroud of legitimacy.

This morning I spoke to my own Muslim family in Arizona, a state which voted resoundingly in favour of Trump. My 14-year-old cousin told me how she was labelled a “sand n***er” at school in the run-up to the election. At her school, the canteen is segregated: “There are four long tables – one for the Arabs where I sit, one for the Mexicans, one for the blacks and one for the real Americans.”

When I asked her what she meant by “real Americans”, she replied, without a shred of sarcasm or irony: “The white kids.” How terribly sad that non-white children are being made to feel like they don’t belong in America, that “beacon of hope” whose Constitution purports to guarantee racial and religious equality.

Donald Trump's most controversial quotes Show all 14 1 /14 Donald Trump's most controversial quotes Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Isis: "Some of the candidates, they went in and didn’t know the air conditioner didn’t work and sweated like dogs, and they didn’t know the room was too big because they didn’t have anybody there. How are they going to beat ISIS?" Getty Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On immigration: "I will build a great wall — and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me —and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words." Reuters Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Free Trade: "Free trade is terrible. Free trade can be wonderful if you have smart people. But we have stupid people." PAUL J. RICHARDS | AFP | Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Mexicans: "When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists." Getty Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On China: "I just sold an apartment for $15 million to somebody from China. Am I supposed to dislike them?... I love China. The biggest bank in the world is from China. You know where their United States headquarters is located? In this building, in Trump Tower." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On work: "If you're interested in 'balancing' work and pleasure, stop trying to balance them. Instead make your work more pleasurable." AP Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On success: "What separates the winners from the losers is how a person reacts to each new twist of fate." Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On life: "Everything in life is luck." AFP Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On ambition: "You have to think anyway, so why not think big?" Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On his opponents: "Bush is totally in favour of Common Core. I don't see how he can possibly get the nomination. He's weak on immigration. He's in favour of Common Core. How the hell can you vote for this guy? You just can't do it." Reuters Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Obamacare: "You have to be hit by a tractor, literally, a tractor, to use it, because the deductibles are so high. It's virtually useless. And remember the $5 billion web site?... I have so many web sites, I have them all over the place. I hire people, they do a web site. It costs me $3." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Barack Obama: "Obama is going to be out playing golf. He might be on one of my courses. I would invite him. I have the best courses in the world. I have one right next to the White House." PA Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On himself: "Love him or hate him, Trump is a man who is certain about what he wants and sets out to get it, no holds barred. Women find his power almost as much of a turn-on as his money." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On America: "The American Dream is dead. But if I get elected president I will bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before and we will make America great again." GETTY

Trump’s victory is not only eye-wateringly worrying for American Muslims. The bigots of Europe and elsewhere have taken note. European Muslims (to be distinguished from British Muslims, of course) know that an even bigger tide of venomous hatred is making its way from across the Atlantic.

The business mogul now finds himself the protagonist in the next installment of George W Bush’s so-called War on Terror. And Trump’s Islamophobic ticket to the White House will surely benefit Marine Le Pen in next year’s French election, as it will with other far-right groups standing in elections all across Europe.

On 7th June 2016, in an article for the New Statesman, Ian Leslie wrote: “Calm down, Trump won’t be President – and Britain won’t leave the EU.” How horribly wrong he was. America, the country which once hoped to “bend the arc of history towards justice” as Obama remarked, has heralded a new era of hate.