Who wants to be a doomster? Or a gloomster? Get some pluck. Get in a spitfire. Be a king. Buck up. Make Britain Great Again. Boris Johnson’s stream of consciousness speech outside No 10, followed by the night of the long knives, was actually a manifesto, followed by some swift stabs to the heart of those who possibly possess a modicum of talent.

I have read the character assassinations – God knows I have written many myself, but they never really do the trick, as character implies something solid and this prime minister is a shapeshifter. His personality is whatever it needs to be. I christened him “Borisconi” years ago for his absolute grip on both politics and the media, and the endless affairs. Of course he recognised in Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi what he himself would ape. Raw power. He once wrote of Berlusconi’s “fantastic, volcanic, American self-propulsion”, and of how he stands for “optimism and confidence”. How is that in itself a political position? Somehow it now is. There is no point in denying it.

It reminds me of one of the things my extremely depressed driving instructor once told me: “The thing you have to learn is keep moving forward.” My propensity just to stop in the middle of the road when things became too much did not make a natural driver. The forward propulsion Johnson is offering – which may be a massacre, a war cabinet or a rightwing coup – is still something to be reckoned with rather than simply denounced.

Johnson may indeed be a very bad man devoid of any conviction beyond his own will to power. His dubious amorality was already priced in, as they say. He has surrounded himself with hardcore halfwits who want to bring back the death penalty and have no clue about the departments they lead. Gavin Williamson in education? The heart sinks.

But what has been rewarded is loyalty. The great purge got rid of the doubters. Actually Jeremy Corybn is similar, valuing loyalty above all else – which explains some of the less than desirable people he surrounds himself with.

This is cabinet as campaign. Vote Leave’s Dominic Cummings, wrongly glamorised as an evil genius when he was played by a Sherlocky Benedict Cumberbatch, is back. David Cameron called him “a career psychopath”. He used to tweet insults at me when he worked for Michael Gove, from @Toryeducation. What a big man. He is rude and writes baffling essays on physics. This passes for cleverness in a party that has brought back Grant Shapps, who has some kind of multiple personality disorder in that he has several names.

Play Video 11:29 In full: Boris Johnson's first speech as prime minister – video

And yet, and yet. This may be an incredibly divisive government, and the left can repeat the mantra “but austerity” over and over; but it does not negate the fact Johnson also appears incredibly decisive. After the last three years, this matters.

While everyone, most importantly the EU itself, says that Johnson cannot achieve what he wants to, it feels as if at last a decision has been made. Do not underestimate how appealing to the electorate that may be. Labour dithers towards remain. The Lib Dem leader, Jo Swinson, also has the advantage of appearing definite about something. Her victory reminds us that Labour has never had a female leader. Johnson has a Patel and a Javid in the cabinet. Don’t tell me this doesn’t matter as the lectures on the correct kind of females or ethnic minorities are conducted mostly by white men.

The politics of compromise and coalition now rejected by the hard right and hard left seem to me the only place this can all realistically end. Scotland, anyone? Ireland? But meanwhile we are in the hands of a ruthless subset of Tories. As Rory Stewart wrote: “No deal is an absence that pretends to be a presence; the negation of a deal that pretends to be a type of deal.” That is the land we inhabit. All actual negotiations would start on 1 November if we go.

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Having retweeted rude songs about Johnson and watched the demos, I now wonder how best to oppose all this. The opposition will be both within parliament and outside it. But you cannot oppose by meme, or talking about Johnson’s infidelities – or even cod psychoanalysis. When he talked of “unfounded self-doubt” I thought here is the big connection. The pledge that doubt can be banished is an utter fantasy. It manifests personally in all kinds of disorders and it manifests politically in a populism that bears little relation to reality.

But to oppose it will be extremely difficult. The left, or anyone who is horrified by all this, needs to get real. They need a better promise, a vision that goes way beyond Brexit or undoing austerity. To take back control we have to understand not only how much we lost but why we lost. This is not the time to retrench into old positions but to live in the moment.

And the moment has changed. Deal with it.

• Suzanne Moore is a Guardian columnist