Presidential elections are always something of a national Rorschach test.

The reaction to candidates, like the perception of inkblots, helps to divulge the nation’s character, underlying disorders and emotional condition. Donald Trump’s unexpected victory showed that America had a split personality.

It also revealed that, among his 62 million supporters, rage and fear were over-riding emotions. Make America Great Again not only became a mission statement but a nostalgic catch-all. For many of his white working class supporters, it implied a return to an era when the homeland was more homogenised and the world was less globalised.

The first 100 days of an administration, though in many ways a bogus measure, can also be diagnostic. They can reveal the character of a presidency and set the tone.

Also they are indicative of the health of US democracy: the functioning of its institutions, executive, legislative and judicial; the workability of the US constitution and the dispersion of political, economic and cultural power.

Inauguration day was a celebration for some, a convulsion for others. What is the state of the nation now?

The Character of the Presidency

What has become clear since Donald Trump delivered his inaugural address is that he has changed the presidency more than the presidency has changed him.

The vocabulary of President Trump, if not all his policies, is much the same as that of candidate Trump. To the White House he has brought the same aggression and plain-speaking that characterised his insurgent campaign.

Social media remains his favoured conduit with the American people. Twitter is to Trump what television was to JFK and radio was to FDR. But it is his means of expression, more than the utilisation of a new medium, that marks such a break from the past.