Calm down dear” my fellow interviewee instructed me on BBC Newsnight when, a day after the US election I dialled the vehemence up to 11. I paid her no heed.

Calming down is always the medicine prescribed to the losers by the winners lest their self-congratulation be inconvenienced by opposition. But bowing to the judgment of the polls does not entail a suspension of dissent, especially, when, as in this case, the election involves shameless suppression of votes, the politicisation of the FBI and the cyber-interference of the Russians. If cherishing democracy mandates acceptance of the poll, it also presupposes the right to opposition. And when that opposition is demonised as disloyal it needs to raise its voice.

There is, after all, much to get noisy about. Weirdly, the American public that has awarded the outgoing president a popularity rating of 56 per cent has also elected someone who intends to delete the entirety of the Obama presidency. Now that Republicans control the White House and both houses of Congress, Mr Trump will have a free hand to repeal the Affordable Care Act (depriving millions of Americans of insurance), fashion a Supreme Court to overthrow the Roe v Wade ruling on abortion, repudiate the Paris climate change accord, abandon the Iran nuclear agreement and get rid of the Dodd-Frank bank regulation designed to prevent a repeat of the conduct that brought on the Great Recession.