The Trump presidency is less than 48 hours old as I wing my way from Los Angeles to Washington DC, with a stopover in Detroit. Heading to the gate, I swing past the Wall Street Journal store on the concourse, figuring it will be worth having a copy of a newspaper that records the inaugural events. Being the WSJ store, that’s the publication I select. The cashier asks if ‘that’s all’ I’m going to buy. Somewhat taken aback, I reply in the affirmative. ‘You sure you don’t want something to balance it out?’ she says. It may have been jet lag after the long haul across the Pacific the previous day, but for several moments I am genuinely lost as to what she’s talking about. ‘A’right,’ she says pointing to the large photo of the new President that dominates the paper, ‘but just skip the front page. Nasty.’

True, we all have a right to our opinions, but belabouring customers with them when they are innocently buying a newspaper in a flagship store for the same publication strikes me as indecorous, at the very least. If this is indicative of the attitude Trump’s voters have endured, it’s little wonder he’s the first Republican to take Michigan in 28 years.

Heading to the campus of George Washington University, I wander past the J. William Fulbright Hall, which engenders a double-take on my part. In a nation that’s as obsessed with race as the United States, and on campuses where students demand asylum in safe spaces from contrary opinions and trigger warnings on literature that doesn’t conform to their worldview, how is it that a building is still named after a segregationist like Fulbright? Apologists for the Arkansas Senator like to say he dropped his pro-segregation stance later in life. It’s true – as soon as he voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Fulbright stopped supporting segregation. In other words, he stopped supporting it once it was abolished. Brave.

Eventually, the odious Fulbright moved on to other targets, including issuing dark warnings in 1973 of the ‘Jewish influence’ in politics. Of course, Fulbright also came out against the Vietnam war in the mid-1960s, and apparently that’s all that is required to buy him full absolution from so-called ‘progressives’.

At the funeral of Richard Nixon in 1994, Fulbright’s protégé, Bill Clinton, said that the day of judging Nixon on ‘anything less than his entire life and career’ should end. It’s a fine sentiment – and one that should be equally applied to the Democratic Senators like J. William Fulbright and Robert C. Byrd, who fought against civil rights for decades.

It’s a slightly morbid thing to say, but visiting Arlington National Cemetery is one of the best things about being in DC. Sitting across the Potomac in the Commonwealth of Virginia, here one is struck not only by the enormity of the sacrifices made by those who have served the US in war, but also by the majesty of the monuments that define this city’s skyline.

Much of the foot traffic heads for the graves of Kennedy family members, which are well signposted and centrally located. Just a five minute walk to the right, past the grave of Robert Todd Lincoln (whose eternal rest is currently being disrupted by workmen laying new pavers) brings one to another presidential marker, that of William Howard Taft. Here there is no eternal flame, no elaborate plaque and, mercifully, no obnoxious tourists posing and smiling for tasteless selfies over the grave, as there are at President Kennedy’s.

Like our own Edmund Barton, Taft is the only individual to occupy his nation’s top elective and judicial positions, serving as President from 1909-13, and as Chief Justice from 1921 until 1930. From Taft’s final resting place, it’s possible to observe the monuments that define this city’s skyline neatly lined up. The only sound comes from the jets which hurtle up from the Ronald Reagan National Airport and, like The Gipper, seem to soar above it all.

Attempting to depart from Dallas-Fort Worth a few days later, I am caught in a massive computer outage that grounds Delta Airlines’ fleet for several hours. When we do finally board, the apologetic flight attendant says ‘it’s a mess… a bit like our country just now’. Unable to resist the quip, I tell him not to fret. After all, if Donald Trump really was a fascist, he’d be able to make the planes run on time.