<p>Call it the curse of high expectations. When Barack Obama took office, the world swooned, America exhaled and pundits declared an end to centuries of racial division.</p>
<p>Gazing at the 1.5m people who braved the cold to witness Mr Obama’s inauguration, Steven Spielberg said it would have been impossible to stage for a movie. That was then. Today America’s first non-white president is winding down at the nation’s tensest moment of racial polarisation in decades. Thanks to Donald Trump, the Ku Klux Klan is back in the headlines. I doubt Mr Trump will succeed Mr Obama as president but he has injected poison into the bloodstream. For all Mr Obama’s hopes, fear is the dominant currency.</p>