Until the day she died, Barbara Bush kept a clock next to her bed that counted the days until Donald Trump was gone. The former first lady’s timekeeping was upbeat: she assumed a one-term presidency. Most of the world is in the late Mrs Bush’s camp. To judge by the absence of diplomatic initiatives, the west is also marking the calendar until Mr Trump leaves office. The same goes for non-Trumpian America. As Joe Biden, the Democratic frontrunner, keeps saying, Mr Trump is an “aberration” — as though time has briefly gone astray. All we need is to wait out the clock then reset it.
There are two problems with this view. The first is that you cannot recapture lost time. The world will not reboot to where it was before Mr Trump took office. A defeat for Mr Trump would be bad news for Saudi Arabia, Russia and North Korea. Mr Trump has licensed Saudi adventurism, validated Vladimir Putin’s world view, and given Kim Jong Un a coming-out party to remember. But i