It was not about more stringent vetting, nor about protecting America’s borders. It was about breathtaking incompetence, muddled thinking, a failure to consult, liaise, inform, consider and programme. It was about ruling by decree, outside the law, without regard to consequences and blind to knock on effects. It traumatized and distressed innocent travelers with lawful documents seemingly invalidated by confused officials whose 60 minute notice of an instruction to implement an opaque order, was an act of impulsive government from which even the likes of North Korea would shrink. It was further compounded by ill informed comments from White House Officials endeavoring to justify the biggest and most damaging presidential mis-step in living memory. Now the White House is retreating in confusion, beaten back by the weight of outrage and ridicule from all across the world.
A world which has seen a side of America supposed not to exist. A President who has all but destroyed his potential as a leader to be taken seriously. Trump has crashed before and recovered. But make no mistake, this is in a very different league to groping.