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.
The incredulity and alarm that Mr Trump’s appointments have caused in the Washington establishment are compounded by his disdain for the government’s own experts. Mr Trump took a controversial phone call from the president of Taiwan without consulting the state department. Now he has ridiculed the CIA for suggesting that Russia meddled in the US presidential election.
Mr Trump’s appointments, tweets and phone calls, however, cannot yet do more than hint at future changes in America’s approach to the world. The real shifts can only happen after the new president is actually sworn into office on January 20. For now, it is much easier to identify five big choices that face him, than to predict eventual outcomes.