The drama of the transition is over. Now for the drama of government

HOLED up in Trump Tower, the New York citadel he seems reluctant to leave, Donald Trump detected a tsunami of excitement in the national capital before his inauguration on January 20th. “People are pouring into Washington in record numbers,” he tweeted. In fact the mood in Washington, DC, where Mr Trump won 4% of the vote on November 8th, was more obviously one of apathy and disdain for his upcoming jamboree.

Even the scalpers were unhappy, having reportedly overestimated people’s willingness to shell out to see Mr Trump sworn in as the 45th president. Some 200,000 protesters are expected to attend an anti-Trump march the day after the inauguration (see article).

Mr Trump’s post-election behaviour has been every bit as belligerent as it was during the campaign. In his victory speech he said it was time to “bind the wounds of division”; he has ever since been insulting and threatening people on Twitter, at a rate of roughly one attack every two days. His targets have included Meryl Streep, Boeing, a union boss in Indiana, “so-called A-list celebrities” who refused to perform at his inauguration, Toyota and the “distorted and inaccurate” media, whose job it will be to hold his administration to account.

He enters the White House as by far the most unpopular new president of recent times. It does not help that America’s intelligence agencies believe Russian hackers sought to bring about his victory over Hillary Clinton (though she won the popular vote by almost 3m ballots).

Yet amid the protests, the launch of a Senate investigation into Russia’s hacking and nerves jangling in the United States and elsewhere at the prospect of President Trump, the transition has been chugging along fairly smoothly. The markets have responded with a “Trump bump”, exploring record highs in expectation of tax cuts and deregulation.

Mr Trump has named most of his senior team, including cabinet secretaries and top White House aides, and their Senate confirmation hearings are well under way. These are even more of a formality than usual, thanks to a recent change to the Senate’s rules, instigated by a former Democratic senator, Harry Reid, which allows cabinet appointments to be approved by a simple majority. As the Republicans control both congressional houses, even Mr Trump’s most divisive nominees—such as Senator Jeff Sessions from Alabama, his choice for attorney-general, an immigration hawk dogged by historical allegations of racism—appear to be breezing through.

Tom Price, a doctor and congressman from Georgia who is Mr Trump’s pick for health secretary, is touted by Democrats as the likeliest faller; he is in trouble over legislation he proposed that would have benefited a medical-kit firm in which he owned shares. But as the Democrats mainly dislike Dr Price because he is the putative assassin of Barack Obama’s health-care reform, and Republicans like him for the same reason, he will probably get a pass. “There are two people responsible for the direction we are heading in,” says Senator John Barrasso, a Republican from Wyoming, approvingly. “Donald Trump, who won the election, and Harry Reid, for changing the Senate rule. This has allowed the president-elect to nominate patriots, not parrots.”

Indeed, Mr Trump’s cabinet picks have been solidly conservative, with a strong strain of small-governmentism. At least three of his nominees appear to have mixed feelings about whether their future departments should even exist.

Rick Perry, Mr Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Energy, pledged to abolish that agency when campaigning for the presidency in 2011. Ben Carson, a right-winger with little management experience, whom Mr Trump has chosen to head his Department of Housing and Urban Development, once wrote that “entrusting the government” to look after housing policy was “downright dangerous”. As attorney-general of Oklahoma Scott Pruitt, picked to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, has sued the EPA 14 times, partly in an attempt to foil the Clean Power Plan, Mr Obama’s main effort to cut America’s greenhouse-gas emissions.

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