Professional historians have tended to underplay the role of individuals in shaping the destinies of humankind.

In his 1961 book, What is History?, EH Carr famously mocked what he called the “Bad King John and the Good Queen Bess” school of history-writing.

Now it is true that, as Karl Marx once said, individuals make history not in the circumstances of their choosing.

They are constrained in their actions by the economic and social conditions prevailing, and in particular (so Marx argued) by technology and class relations.

Nonetheless, on occasion individuals can play a vital and even determining role in shaping history, for good and especially for ill.

There might have been no Soviet state without Lenin; there certainly would have been no Nazi state without Hitler.

In the world we now live in, individuals who shape history loom large.

And none more so than Donald Trump.

Admittedly, his rise to power must be understood against the background of broader economic and technological changes.

Without the disenchantment of the White working class due to globalisation, and without the use of the new media forms to amplify his image and his untruths, Trump may have never become president of the United States of America.

Nonetheless, once he assumed office, he has, in turn, actively reshaped the lives and fortunes of millions of individuals apart from himself.

For instance, had someone else been president of the US in 2026, the war against Iran on Israel’s instigation might never have happened, sparing the countries of West Asia from death and destruction, and countries outside the region from higher oil, gas, and fertiliser prices as well.

In this column, I wish to turn attention away from the damage done to the world by Trump’s Iran war, and focus instead on the damage he has done to his own country in the year and three months since he won a second term as president.

In this time, there are at least seven important ways in which Trump has weakened a country he promised to “make great again”.

The first of Trump’s attacks on his country has been on the process of decision-making within government.

Though an American president is technically more powerful than a prime minister under the Westminster system, he is nonetheless obliged to actively consult with others.

Trump, however, has preferred to act unilaterally, bypassing Congress and often even his own cabinet.

The declarations of war on Venezuela and Iran were only the most visible examples of this.

Consider, for instance, that in the first year of his second term as president, Trump passed as many as 225 executive orders.

Some of these orders have destructive consequences, such as the closing of important government departments and arbitrarily changing tariff rates.

Others are merely farcical, such as one “Preventing Woke AI in the Federal Government”, and another on “Enforcing Commonsense Rules of the Road for America’s Truck Drivers”.

The second of Trump’s attacks on America has been on the notion of an impartial executive.

This is especially true of his weaponisation of the Department of Justice, and his attempts to use it to harass political opponents and even upright officials who acted according to the law and their own conscience.

Meanwhile, he has sent ICE agents into states run by Democrats, seeking to bully and intimidate citizens who do not agree with his policies.

Vengeance and vindictiveness, rather than fairness and justice, appear to be the animating forces here.

The third of Trump’s attacks has been on the American military.

Though bound by law to take orders from the president, servicemen and servicewomen are not supposed to identify with any particular party, let alone a particular politician.

Trump violated this convention last year by organising a military parade in the nation’s capital to coincide with his own birthday.

More recently, during the war on Iran, he allowed his....