There is a world view that has the following to say about the anti-racism protests sweeping Western cities: “Yes, some authorities in the US and elsewhere are heavy-handed, even racist. But overall the forces of order are all that stand between the common-sense majority and the violent chaos and woke purism of youths who dwell in an intolerant world of safe spaces, filter bubbles and campus censorship. Order must be restored. These extreme social justice warriors must be stopped in everyone’s interests.”

That view comes across most crisply in Donald Trump’s new self-description as “the president of law and order”. Trump wants to emulate Richard Nixon in 1968, who won that year’s presidential election after a febrile summer of civil rights protests by promising to restore order.

New Statesman