In its outward details, the orderly transfer of American presidential power accomplished in the inauguration-day scene on Capitol Hill today felt time-honoured. The ceremonial essentials of the occasion – the stars and stripes banners, the dignitaries and the prescribed rituals of the swearings-in – were familiar and traditional. Political rivals took their places on the podium as they do every four years, shook hands and applauded one another, offering gracious compliments and providing a show of national dignity.

Yet all this was in fact a sham. Donald Trump’s inaugural address was a declaration of war on everything represented by these choreographed civilities. President Trump – it’s time to begin to get used to those jarringly ill-fitting words – did not conjure a deathless phrase for the day. His words will not lodge in the brain in any of the various uplifting ways that the likes of Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy or Reagan once achieved. But the new president’s message could not have been clearer. He came to shatter the veneer of unity and continuity represented by the peaceful handover. And he may have succeeded. In 1933, Roosevelt challenged the world to overcome fear. In 2017, Mr Trump told the world to be very afraid.

Mr Trump’s speech was by turns bitter, blowhard and banal. It boiled with resentment and contempt for politics, and the checks and balances of the US system. It was aimed at those who voted for him, not at those, the majority, who did not. It said barely a word about race. Its America First nationalism was crude and shameless. The speech seethed with scorn for everything about the capital city that he now seeks to bend to his will. It was, though, almost wholly empty of detail or of clarity about how its goals would be achieved. Even before he opened his mouth, Washington was on edge about what a Trump presidency might mean and the world was on edge about what is happening to America. Everything Mr Trump said confirmed that those instincts were correct. Presidents have often come into office promising to take the nation on a new path. But if Mr Trump can be believed, his election and his speech signal the biggest shake-up in Washington in living memory.

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“The time for empty talk is over,” said President Trump today. “Now arrives the hour of action.” At home and abroad, and in the light of today’s speech, that is a truly terrifying prospect.