Donald Trump as President will not be a golden era for the US

IT doesn’t matter if scandalous tales about Donald Trump’s alleged sex antics in a Moscow hotel are true or a tissue of lies concocted by Kremlin spymasters.

They have stained the Stars and Stripes and tainted the inauguration of the 45th President of the United States of America.

Hail to the Chief, the official Presidential anthem, might sound a little off-key on Friday.

More than half those Americans who voted — mainly for Hillary Clinton — will choose to believe the so-called “raw intelligence” spread around by cack-handed ex-MI6 spy Chris Steele.

Even those who backed Trump will wonder if these lurid claims take us very much further than his own undeniable boast about grabbing women “by the pussy”.

Donald Trump is a boorish braggart with a dim view of the fairer sex and a tendency to treat women like merchandise.

He wouldn’t be the first Oval Office incumbent with a record like that.

What is more alarming about President Trump is his promotion overnight from political novice to commander-in-chief of the planet’s most advanced military-industrial complex.

Despite China’s advance, the US remains the world’s greatest economic power, backed by fearsome conventional and nuclear forces.

It is like putting a moped rider in the cockpit of an F-35 Lightning and expecting him to fly it into battle.

His performance at last week’s Trump Tower press conference revealed a worryingly thin-skinned egotist who would cross a busy road for a punch-up.

He was entitled to shout down the arrogant White House press corps intent on seeing him impeached even before he takes office. But it didn’t look presidential.

“Fake news!” was Trump’s furious response to unverified and unverifiable claims sprayed around by Russia’s sinister propaganda machine.

The baying hacks had not a shred of evidence for the allegations of deviant behaviour they were trying to pin on him.

A dignified and restrained response would have been more devastating than mixing it with them on their own terms.

The same is true of his blunt retort to Hollywood luvvie Meryl Streep’s intemperate attack at the Golden Globes.

Silence is golden, too.

It would be nice to think Trump’s knee-jerk bullying concealed a thoughtful temperament that would help him face an array of urgent decisions, including possible US military action.

But his deployment of 140-word Twitter storms is hardly reassuring for a man with his finger on the nuclear button.

Of course, what Trump lacks in self-restraint will be countered by more seasoned Republicans who now control both houses on Capitol Hill.

And some of his White House appointments, including ex-oil baron Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State and General James “Mad Dog” Mattis as defence supremo, have reassured critics.

But that leaves plenty to worry about in the way Trump actually runs the Oval Office.

He has been bankrupt half a dozen times and accused of dodgy Mafia ties, especially over the supply of concrete to build Trump Tower.

But the biggest concern is his relationship with ruthless Vladimir Putin — deemed by both Tillerson and Mattis last week as among the greatest threats to world peace.

Putin ran rings round Barack Obama in Syria and the Middle East.

Now he is terrifying EU member states in the Baltics with a huge show of military strength on their borders.

According to The Donald’s son, Donald Jr, the Trump empire has substantial financial links with Russia.

“Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of our assets,” he has said.

Israel, despite welcoming the Trump reign, is alarmed by his pro-Kremlin sympathies and has warned Russia may have “levers of power” over the new President.

Britain is also nervous about the possible identification of MI6 officers operating abroad.

None of this is reassuring.

As for Putin’s view of reality, I recommend Soviet-born British author Peter Pomerantsev’s book, Nothing Is True And Everything Is Possible, a harrowing account of subversion and deceit in Moscow.

In Putin’s Russia fake news is a way of life — and, frequently, sudden death.