Donald Trump seems to have brought the techniques of Twitter to the construction of his government. “Trolling” on Twitter is defined as “making a deliberately offensive online posting with the aim of upsetting someone”. In this spirit, Mr Trump has placed a climate-change denier in charge of environmental protection, an opponent of the minimum wage as labour secretary, a conspiracy theorist in charge of the National Security Council and a protectionist at the commerce department. The pièce de résistance could be the appointment of Rex Tillerson, a recipient of the Kremlin’s Order of Friendship, as secretary of state.

 (FT) Gideon Rachman