THE statement attributed to Mao: “Everything under heaven is in utter chaos; the situation is excellent” appears nowhere in his writings. And like many apocryphal aphorisms it only illuminates a small part of reality. Nevertheless it has been pressed into service to describe the turmoil arising from the split in the ruling class in the United States.

It is maybe too early to weigh up the relative political weight of the contending factions and the picture is clouded not just by Trump’s erratic policy unmaking but by his political need to align at least some of his actual policies with the expectations of his political base in a US working class and the declassed underbelly of what is increasingly seen as a failed state.

Working Americans are highly resistant to any more foreign wars, want a revival of manufacturing jobs and are suspicious of both state and government. Trump deploys an ambiguous political rhetoric but this is proving insufficient to resolve the various problems he is encountering.