Is it possible that — beneath the fury and the farce — the Trump administration might settle down and turn into a conventional US government? The appointment of HR McMaster as the president’s national security adviser, has raised the hopes of those hoping for the “normalisation” of the Trump White House.

Lieutenant General McMaster is widely respected in Washington and his appointment has been greeted warmly by Republicans and Democrats. In this respect, he makes a striking contrast to Michael Flynn, the man he will replace at the head of the National Security Council. Mr Flynn is a conspiracy theorist who had also been pushed out of his previous job as head of the Defence Intelligence Agency. He was manifestly unsuited to run the NSC. Even senior Republicans had speculated to me that Mr Flynn would not last a year in his job. In the event, it took three weeks for him to be forced out.

The ousting of Mr Flynn and his replacement by Lt Gen McMaster could be a turning point in the making of Mr Trump’s foreign policy. The three key foreign policy positions are now held by rational professionals, with James Mattis at the Pentagon, Lt Gen McMaster at the NSC and Rex Tillerson at the State Department. Working together, these three might be able to reduce the influence and impact of some of the more marginal characters who attached themselves to Mr Trump during the course of the campaign.